Chapter 27 Elijah
ELIJAH
POV:
The morning shatters before it even begins.
I’m halfway through my coffee when Adrian bursts into the rectory kitchen, his gray eyes wild with barely contained fury.
His cassock is only half-buttoned, his salt-and-pepper hair disheveled like he’s been running his hands through it.
The sight of him this undone sends alarm shooting through my chest.
“The website,” he says, his voice rough. “Someone hacked it overnight.”
Marcus appears behind him, already pulling up the site on his phone.
I watch his tattooed arms tense as he reads, see the muscle jump in his jaw.
He turns the screen toward me without a word.
Where St. Michael’s homepage should be, there’s only a stark black screen with white text: This church is currently under investigation for pastoral misconduct. Parishioners are advised to seek spiritual guidance elsewhere.
“Mon Dieu.” The words escape before I can stop them. My hands shake as I set down my coffee cup, the ceramic rattling against the saucer. “When did this happen?”
“Sometime after midnight.” Adrian’s fists clench at his sides, and I see him fighting the violence that’s always simmering beneath his priestly exterior. “Parishioners have been calling since dawn. Confused. Concerned. Some are angry.”
The phone in Adrian’s office starts ringing again, the sound shrill and insistent. None of us move to answer it. We just stand in the kitchen, surrounded by the scent of coffee and the weight of everything falling apart.
“It’s Victory Life,” Marcus says, his accent thickening with rage. “It has to be. This is too coordinated to be random.”
Before any of us can respond, there’s a knock at the front door. Official. Authoritative. The kind of knock that means trouble.
The fire marshal stands on our doorstep, clipboard in hand, citing anonymous reports of code violations. Within the hour, the health department arrives with concerns about unsanitary conditions in the parish kitchen.
I watch Charlie’s face go pale as they inspect the space where she’s been baking, where she creates those perfect cinnamon rolls that taste like home and comfort and everything good in this world.
The inspectors are thorough, professional, finding minor issues that exist in every building this old.
A loose handrail.
Outdated electrical panels.
Nothing serious, but everything documented, photographed, added to reports that will be filed with the city and, I’m certain, forwarded to Victory Life’s attorneys.
Marcus spends the morning dealing with inspectors, his jaw clenched so tight I’m surprised his teeth don’t crack.
I watch him maintain his composure, answering questions with careful precision, but I see the fury burning in his dark eyes.
He wants to throw them all out, to tell them exactly where they can file their reports. Instead, he’s polite, cooperative, everything a deacon should be while his world crumbles around him.
Adrian handles damage control, calling parishioners one by one, his voice steady despite the chaos.
I hear him through his office door, explaining, reassuring, promising that everything is fine, that the website was hacked by vandals, that the inspections are routine.
Each lie costs him something.
I can hear it in the strain beneath his careful control.
I retreat to my laptop, checking our online presence, and my stomach drops further.
Victory Life members have flooded our review pages with one-star ratings.
The complaints are eerily similar, clearly coordinated. Unwelcoming atmosphere. Creepy vibe. Staff seems distracted and unprofessional. Would not recommend.
The attacks are relentless, systematic, and designed to destroy our reputation from every angle.
I spend my time searching into Whitmore and Victory Life, hoping to find some sort of trail, any kind of evidence.
I don’t want to fight fire with fire, but I’m not sure we have a choice anymore.
By afternoon, I’m helping Charlie organize sheet music in the choir loft, both of us seeking refuge in the familiar task.
She’s wearing a simple floral dress that clings to her curves in ways that make my dick ache despite everything falling apart around us.
Her auburn hair is pulled back in a messy bun, and I can see the exhaustion written across her face.
The dark circles under her eyes tell me she hasn’t been sleeping.
Neither have I. Every time I close my eyes, I see her face when Adrian walked past her without acknowledgment, when Marcus maintained that devastating distance.
I see the hurt we’re causing in the name of protection, and it’s destroying me.
“The Christmas cantata needs new arrangements,” I say, trying to focus on something normal, something that doesn’t involve inspectors and sabotage and the constant fear of discovery. “I thought we could add that French carol you mentioned.”
Charlie nods, but her attention isn’t on the music. She’s staring out the window, her body going completely still. I follow her gaze and feel my chest tighten painfully.
Below in the garden, Marcus stands close to Isabella Moretti.
Too close. Isabella is crying, her face buried in her hands, and Marcus has his hand on her shoulder.
His head is bent toward hers, his body angled protectively. From this distance, it looks intimate. It looks like something more than pastoral comfort.
I know the truth. Isabella’s ex-husband is contesting the annulment, dragging her through legal hell, and she came to Marcus for guidance.
He’s being kind, offering the same comfort he’d give any parishioner in distress.
But from Charlie’s vantage point, it looks like everything she’s been fearing.
I watch her face crumble, see every insecurity she’s been fighting rise to the surface.
“Charlie,” I start, but she’s already moving toward the stairs.
“I need to go,” she says, her voice tight. “I have…I need to go.”
She flees down the spiral staircase, and I let her go because following would only make things worse. Sister Margaret is somewhere in the building, watching, documenting. The Bishop is conducting interviews. We’re all performing this careful dance of distance and denial, and it’s killing us.
I find her twenty minutes later in the storage room, crying into her hands.
She’s sitting on the floor surrounded by boxes of donated clothes, her shoulders shaking with sobs she’s trying to muffle.
The sight breaks something in my chest.
I kneel beside her, my hand hovering near her shoulder but not quite touching. The space between us feels like miles. “Charlie.”
“Don’t.” Her voice is muffled by her hands. “Please don’t tell me it’s not what it looked like. I saw them. I saw how he was with her.”
“Isabella’s ex-husband is contesting the annulment,” I say gently. “She’s devastated. Marcus was just offering comfort.”
“The way he used to offer her comfort three years ago?” Charlie’s hazel eyes find mine. They’re swimming with tears and doubt and all the insecurities I wish I could erase. “She’s everything I’m not, Elijah. The kind of woman who belongs with someone like Marcus.”
“You’re wrong.” I shift closer, my voice dropping to something fierce. “Isabella isn’t you, and that’s exactly why she’ll never be enough.”
“How can you say that?” Charlie’s laugh is bitter. “Look at me. I’m twenty-five, living in a church apartment, working off a debt because I stole from the collection plate. I’m nobody. She’s…she’s everything.”
“She’s his past.” I finally give in to the need to touch her, my hand finding hers. The contact sends electricity shooting up my arm, and I watch her breath catch. “You’re his present. His future. You’re what all of us want, Charlie. Not because you’re perfect, but because you’re real.”
“Then why does it feel like you’re all pulling away?” Her fingers tighten on mine, desperate. “Why does Adrian look through me like I don’t exist? Why does Marcus maintain that distance like I’m poison? Why do you only touch me when no one’s watching?”
The questions hit like physical blows because she’s right. We’re hurting her in the name of protecting her, and I don’t know how to make her understand that every moment of distance is agony for us too.
“The Bishop,” I start, but she cuts me off.
“I know about the investigation. I know we have to be careful. But this doesn’t feel like careful, Elijah. This feels like you’re all preparing to let me go.”
“Never.” The word comes out fierce, certain. “We’re not letting you go. We’re just…we’re trying to survive until the Bishop leaves. Until the threats pass. Until we can breathe again.”
Charlie wants to believe me. I can see it in her eyes, in the way her body leans toward mine despite the doubt still written across her face.
But Isabella’s presence has planted seeds of insecurity that are taking root, growing into something that could destroy us from the inside.
That, and the surprise arrival of her absentee mother. The person who abandoned her when she was just a toddler.
I pull her close, finally giving in to the need to hold her. She fits perfectly against my chest, her body trembling with exhausted sobs. I press my lips to her hair, breathing in the vanilla and cinnamon scent that’s become as necessary as air.
“Isabella will never be enough,” I whisper against her temple. “Because she’s not you.”
That evening, I find them in the church basement.
Adrian, Marcus, and Charlie, surrounded by inspection reports and legal documents spread across the old table.
The single bare bulb swings overhead, casting dancing shadows across their exhausted faces.
Adrian’s cassock is rumpled, his gray eyes dark with barely contained fury as he reviews the fire marshal’s report.
Marcus leans against the stone wall, his tattooed arms crossed over his chest.
Charlie sits at the table, her dress wrinkled, her hair escaping its bun, looking young and fierce and heartbreakingly beautiful.
“The website will take days to fix,” Adrian says, his voice rough. “The inspection reports will be filed with the city. The online reviews are destroying our reputation. Victory Life is systematically dismantling us, and we’re just…taking it.”
“What choice do we have?” Marcus’s accent thickens with frustration. “We fight back, we become like them. We stay above it, we die slowly.”
Charlie looks up, her hazel eyes moving between the three of us. “Then maybe it’s time to stop playing defense.”
The words hang in the air, heavy with implication. I watch Adrian’s jaw clench, see Marcus’s hands curl into fists.
We’ve been trying so hard to maintain our moral high ground, to be better than Whitmore and his prosperity gospel poison.
But maybe that’s exactly what he’s counting on.
“I may have something,” I say quietly, thinking of my search earlier.
I didn’t find hard evidence, but there’s smoke covering something up.
“I’ve been looking into Victory Life church.
They’re hiding something. Maybe financial fraud or affairs or money laundering or something else.
I need more time, but I’ll find it. Everything we need to destroy him. ”
“Using it makes us no better than he is,” Adrian argues, but his voice lacks conviction.
“Does it?” Charlie stands, moving to the center of our small circle. “He’s attacking us with lies. We’d be defending ourselves with truth. That’s not the same thing.”
I watch her face in the dim light, see the determination there mixed with exhaustion and hurt. She’s been crying over Marcus and Isabella, spiraling into insecurity, but now she’s fighting. For us. For this place. For what we’ve built together.
Marcus pushes off the wall, his dark eyes finding Charlie’s. “You’re right. We can’t keep taking hits and hoping they’ll stop. Whitmore won’t stop until we’re destroyed.”
Adrian stares at the inspection reports, his hands gripping the edge of the table until his knuckles go white.
I watch him wage an internal battle, the priest who wants to turn the other cheek versus the underground boxer who knows sometimes you have to fight back.
“If we do this,” Adrian says finally, his voice quiet but steady, “we do it right. We expose the truth, not to destroy him, but to protect our community from his corruption.”
The men exchange weighted glances, each thinking the same thing.
We’ve been trying to stay above the fray, to maintain our moral high ground. But maybe it’s time to get our hands dirty.