Chapter 35
Sophie
I find it buried where monsters always hide their sins in plain sight.
The desk in Mrs. Crowley’s old office looks like it hasn’t been touched in a decade, dust thick enough to choke on. But when I pick the lock and slide open the bottom drawer, something shifts.
A manila folder. Unmarked. Thin.
But somehow heavier than a ledger thick with debt. My pulse hammers. The room smells like paper, mildew, and lies. I shouldn’t be here.
Not alone. Not with Royal gone and Becki missing from her cage. Not with Legend wound so tight he’s ready to shatter.
But if I wait…if I tell myself, it’s too dangerous.
I’ll never open this.
So I do.
The first page hits me like a fist. Intake forms. Photos. Names. Girls. Dozens of them.
Some are teenagers. Some younger. Some older. All of them stamped with Pearly Gates letterhead or no letterhead at all, just signatures and records meant to make them disappear clean.
“Mission work.”
“Rehabilitation.”
“Placement.”
Lies. Every word.
Redacted documents. Thick strokes of ink hiding something uglier underneath. But the dates are clear. The patterns are clear.
Girls arrive. Girls serve. If girls leave. Girls vanish. My stomach twists so violently I grip the edge of the desk to stay upright.
Becki wasn’t lying.
Not about this.
Not about the rot spreading under this town like mold. I blink hard against the sting in my eyes. I don’t get to cry. Not now. Not when girls are suffering right under my nose.
I take pictures of everything. Email them to myself in case I don’t make it back. Because I can’t help but confront the old snake. I shut the folder, grab it tight enough to wrinkle the cardboard, and storm toward the chapel.
The church takes a breath when I enter. Dark.
Cold. Thick with incense that can’t hide the sour scent of decay underneath.
And Crowley stands at the altar, adjusting candles as if they’re soldiers and he’s deploying them for battle.
His shadow stretches up the ornate wall behind him like it has a life of its own.
“You always did walk like a sinner,” he says without turning.
“And you always seemed like one.”
He faces me, that smug, patient smile tightening the skin around his eyes.
I toss the folder onto the altar. Papers scatter like burned feathers.
“What is this?” I demand. “What the hell are these girls to you?”
He glances at a page. Barely. Calm. Controlled.
“Old records,” he says. “Documentation of charity.”
“Charity?” My voice cracks. “There are pictures of dozens of girls.”
He thumbs through, his voice steady, “Portraits of the orphans. Everything’s digital now. Must have missed this one.”
“You’re funneling girls through your church like livestock.”
Hand balling, his nostrils flare. “You’re upset. You’re imagining sin because you’re a sinner.”
“Upset?” My breath shakes. “Girls are missing. Girls who trusted you. Girls whose only crime was being vulnerable.”
His eyes shoot daggers. “Careful. Anger is unbecoming on a lady.”
“I ain’t here to be a lady.”
“Clearly.”
Pointing a finger into his chest, I step closer. “You used your daughter to threaten my family.”
He doesn’t deny it.
“You used all of these girls.”
“Becki chose herself.” He lifts a candle. “Not God.”
“And the girls. The women?”
“All placed in a better situation than the one my daughter’s in. The one you’re in.”
“Some are dead.”
“So many troubled teens come to Pearly Gates. You must know how large the flock has grown.”
I look to the number on the wall, in the thousands now. “All preparing for end times. Brainwashed. And once girls leave. They vanish. Wash up dead.”
“Once they leave, we can’t always protect them. From themselves. Read the paper. That girl they found in Louisville overdosed. Thrown away like trash, probably by her dealer.”
I want to hit him. I want to see blood on this altar.
“You don’t know what you’re doing, Sophie,” he says softly, too softly. “You’re pulling threads you’re not prepared to follow.”
“I know exactly what I’m doing.”
“No,” he murmurs. “You know half the truth. The dangerous half.”
He steps down from the altar.
“You think your beloved Legend will stay loyal to you when the sins of Paradise Falls come to light?” he asks. “You think he’ll forgive what your father paid to keep that land?”
My throat tightens. “Don’t talk about my father.”
“Oh, child.” His smile splits into something crueler.
“Your father made bargains long before you were born. Blood bargains. Land bargains. Debts Mama Montgomery never repaid. She came from the church, you know that. Found her a better position in life. I sold her to your daddy who wanted an obedient wife.”
He’s lying. He has to be.
But my pulse stutters.
“You’ve always been bright,” he says. “But you ain’t ready to know what was buried to buy your life of privilege.”
I stagger back a step.
He watches me with the calm of a man who’s already won. “I will pray for clarity for you,” he says gently. “You dig much deeper you’ll find Hell. It won’t be the Hell you want. The one full of bikers. It will be your downfall.”
I want to spit in his face.
Instead, I turn and walk out, fast, because if I stay, I’ll do something violent. And violence never works in favor of a woman alone in a room with a powerful man.
Not in this world.
Outside, the wind shifts.
The graveyard behind the chapel looms in the dusk… stones crooked, grass overgrown, shadows moving where shadows shouldn’t.
Something flickers between the markers. Tall. Lean. Silhouetted. I blink.
It’s gone.
The nape of my neck prickles. I’m imagining things. Because I’ve heard the whispers from the girls at the bar. Because Becki’s notebook she left is half drawings of symbols, wings, claws and littered with half warnings.
Legend hasn’t slept in days. Speaking of The Demon Leaper. A myth, they say. A man, others say. But some whisper something else. Not a man. Not a spirit.
But now I know. It’s something way worse. Something all too real. A crime tied to my family. My father. A secret so sick, it’ll ruin everything I fought to win. A secret so dark, it’ll push Legend away, just like the Reverend says.
Back at the clubhouse, everything feels wrong. The jukebox plays a Skynyrd track, but it sounds warped, discordant. Laughter is sharp-edged. Eyes follow me too long.
Cherry and Vix fall silent as I approach.
“You two wanna say something?” I ask.
Cherry shrugs, lips pursed. “Just wondering when the preacher’s brat is coming back.”
“She ain’t a threat,” Vix mutters. “She’s a distraction. A bad one.”
“Royal can’t take his eyes off her anymore,” Cherry adds. “Makes a girl wonder where his loyalty is.”
I freeze.
Royal.
Becki.
Together.
Gone.
A spark of something ugly stings under my ribs.
Jealousy.
Fear.
Recognition.
Becki gets under people.
She always has.
She knows how to slip into cracks, how to worm deep, how to twist the knife.
She did it to me.
She did it to Legend.
She’s doing it to Royal.
I push past the girls and head to the back, ignoring the pounding of my own heart. My hand trembles as I grab the railing.
Maybe Becki wasn’t the threat. Maybe she was the warning.
And if I’m fixin’ to take down the Reverend, if I’m fixin’ to burn the rot out of Paradise and keep Legend alive through whatever’s coming. I need her. I need the girl Royal can’t stop watching. I need the girl who walked out of her cage. I need her close.
Because Becki might be the only one in this whole damn town who knows exactly what could bring my family down.
An old man’s sins.
And I need the only thing the Reverend cares about. Her very breath to hold over him.