Chapter 29 Adrian
ADRIAN
Charlie’s voice trembles through the phone, and my hands tighten around the receiver until my knuckles go white. “There was a man at the diner today. He sat in my section for two hours, just nursing coffee and watching me work.”
My stomach drops. “What did he look like?”
“Mid-forties. Scarred knuckles. The way he moved… I don’t know how to explain it. Like he was always ready for a fight.” She pauses, and I hear her breath catch. “He made me uncomfortable, Adrian. Really uncomfortable.”
Tommy.
The name burns through my mind like acid. He’s not just watching me anymore. He’s watching her. Making sure I know he can reach the people I care about. Making sure I understand exactly what’s at stake.
“Stay away from him,” I say, my voice rougher than I intend. “If you see him again, call me immediately.”
After we hang up, I sit in my office staring at the wall, my rosary beads cutting into my palm.
Twenty years.
I’ve spent twenty years building a life that matters, becoming someone worthy of redemption. And now my past is circling like a vulture, threatening to destroy everything.
Threatening to destroy her.
The thought of Tommy anywhere near Charlie makes violence surge through my chest, hot and immediate.
I imagine his scarred hands touching her, his predatory smile aimed at her instead of me. My fists clench involuntarily, and I have to force myself to breathe, to pray, to remember I’m not that man anymore.
Except maybe I am. Maybe violence doesn’t leave. Maybe it just waits.
Evening Mass passes in a blur of familiar prayers and desperate pleas to a God who feels increasingly distant.
When it’s over, I retreat to my office, needing the solitude to think, to plan, to figure out how to protect Charlie from a threat she doesn’t even understand.
The knock on my door is sharp, urgent. Marcus enters without waiting for permission, his dark eyes burning with barely contained fury.
“We have a problem,” he says, his accent thickening the way it does when he’s fighting for control. “There was a man in the parking lot. Said he was an old friend of yours. Tommy Delgado.”
My blood turns to ice. “What did he say?”
“That he’s impressed by your transformation. Underground fighter to priest.” Marcus’s jaw clenches. “He was fishing, Adrian. Trying to figure out what matters to you now. Who matters to you.”
My fist slams into my desk with enough force to split the wood, just a few inches to the right of where I split the wood last time, the sound echoing through the small office like a gunshot.
Pain radiates up my arm, but it’s nothing compared to the rage burning through my chest.
Marcus doesn’t flinch. He just watches me with those knowing eyes, seeing straight through to the monster I’ve been trying to bury.
“He offered me fifty thousand dollars,” I admit, my voice rough. “One fight. Underground tournament. Three rounds.”
“Are you considering it?” Marcus’s question is careful, measured, but I hear the concern underneath.
I stare at my split knuckles, at the blood welling up from torn skin. “The church needs money. Charlie’s grandmother needs continued care. Fifty thousand would solve so many problems.”
“It would also destroy everything you’ve built.” Marcus moves closer, his body radiating protective fury. “You go back to that world, even once, and you become that man again. Is that who you want Charlie to see?”
The question hits like a punch to the gut. I think about Charlie’s hazel eyes, the way they shift between green and gold depending on her mood.
The way she looks at me like I’m something worth keeping, like my past doesn’t define my present. Would she still look at me that way if she saw me covered in blood, fists raised, and violence unleashed?
“I don’t know what else to do,” I admit, and the confession costs me everything.
Footsteps echo in the hallway. Elijah appears in the doorway, his blue eyes immediately cataloging the split desk, my bleeding knuckles, the tension crackling between Marcus and me. Behind him, Charlie hovers, her face pale with concern.
She sees my hands and moves toward me instinctively. Every muscle in my body screams to reach for her, to pull her close and bury my face in her neck until Tommy’s threats fade to nothing.
But I force myself to step back, to maintain the distance that’s supposed to keep us both safe.
Her eyes find mine, and I see the hurt flash across her face before she hides it. The careful distance we’ve been maintaining is destroying her slowly, and I’m the one wielding the knife.
“What happened?” Her voice is soft, but there’s steel underneath. She’s not asking about my hands.
She’s asking about everything, all the secrets I’m keeping, all the threats closing in around us.
“Nothing you need to worry about,” I say, but the lie tastes like ash.
Charlie’s jaw sets in that stubborn way that makes my chest tight with conflicting emotions.
Love and fear and desperate need all tangled together until I can’t separate them anymore. “Don’t do that. Don’t shut me out.”
Elijah clears his throat. “Perhaps we should discuss this somewhere more private.”
But I can’t move.
Can’t look away from Charlie standing in my doorway, her dress clinging to curves I’ve memorized with my hands and mouth.
The swell of her breasts rises and falls with rapid breaths, and I remember how they felt beneath my palms, how she gasped when I traced my tongue across her skin.
Stop. I force my gaze back to her face, but that’s no safer. Her lips are parted slightly, and I can see the pulse hammering in her throat.
I want to press my mouth there, to feel her heartbeat against my tongue, to mark her as mine in ways that would leave no doubt.
Marcus shifts beside me, and I catch him watching Charlie with the same hunger burning through my veins.
His hands flex at his sides, and I know he’s fighting the same battle. The need to touch her, claim her, forget everything except the way she feels beneath us.
“I need some air,” I manage, my voice strained. “I’ll be in the gym.”
I flee before anyone can respond, before I do something unforgivable like pull Charlie against me in front of witnesses.
The basement gym is cool and dark, smelling of old sweat absorbed into concrete floors. I wrap my hands with practiced precision, the familiar ritual calming my racing thoughts.
The heavy bag takes my first punch, then another, and another. Each impact sends pain radiating through my split knuckles, but I welcome it.
Pain is clean, simple, easier to process than the tangled mess of emotions threatening to drown me.
I lose myself in the rhythm. Jab, cross, hook.
The bag swings with each hit, chains rattling overhead. My cassock is long gone, just a white undershirt soaked with sweat, my body moving through combinations I haven’t used in twenty years.
But they come back easily. Muscle memory doesn’t forget violence.
I sense her presence before I hear her footsteps.
The air changes when Charlie enters a room, becomes charged with electricity that makes my skin burn. I stop mid-punch, chest heaving, and turn to find her standing at the bottom of the stairs.
She’s changed into jeans and a simple shirt, her auburn hair loose around her shoulders. The casual clothes somehow make her more beautiful, more real, more dangerous to my carefully maintained control. I can see the outline of her bra through the thin fabric, and my mouth goes dry.
“You shouldn’t be here,” I say, but I don’t move away.
“Neither should you.” She crosses the small space, her eyes tracking the sweat running down my neck, the way my undershirt clings to my chest. “Beating yourself up won’t solve anything.”
“It helps me think.”
“Does it?” She stops close enough that I can smell her shampoo, that vanilla and cinnamon scent that’s become as necessary as air. “Or does it just let you pretend you’re still in control?”
The observation is too accurate, too knowing. I grip the edge of the weight bench, needing something solid to anchor me. “Charlie, please. I can’t do this right now.”
“Can’t do what? Talk to me? Look at me?” Her voice breaks slightly. “You’ve been avoiding me for days, Adrian. Ever since the Bishop arrived. I need to know if you’re planning to take that fight.”
I don’t ask how she knows about it. Marcus would have felt guilty and probably caved under her pressure.
“I don’t know.” The admission costs me. “Fifty thousand dollars would solve so many problems. Your grandmother’s medications. The church’s repairs. All of it.”
“At what cost?” She moves closer, and I watch her hand rise toward my face before she catches herself. The aborted gesture makes my chest ache. “You think I want you to destroy yourself for money? You think that’s what matters to me?”
“What matters is keeping you safe.” My voice comes out rougher than I intend. “Tommy knows about you now. He’s watching you, making sure I understand he can reach you. If I don’t give him what he wants…”
“Then we deal with it together.” Her hazel eyes, more green than gold in the dim light, hold mine with fierce determination. “I’m not afraid of your past, Adrian. I’m only afraid of losing you.”
The words break something in me. My hands find her face before I can stop them, my wrapped knuckles rough against her soft skin. She leans into the touch, her eyes fluttering closed, and I’m lost.
“You should be afraid,” I whisper, my forehead dropping to rest against hers. “You should run as far from me as possible.”
“Too late.” Her breath mingles with mine, warm and sweet. “I’m already in too deep.”
I want to kiss her. Want to lift her onto this weight bench and make her forget everything except my name. Want to claim her so completely that Tommy and the Bishop and every threat circling us will know she’s mine.
But footsteps echo on the basement stairs, deliberate and measured. We break apart just as Bishop Carmine appears at the bottom of the staircase, his steel-gray eyes taking in the scene with unnerving perception.
Charlie and me, standing too close. My hands still raised like I was touching her. Her flushed face and rapid breathing. The sexual tension is so thick it’s almost visible.
The Bishop’s expression is unreadable as he looks between us, but I see the calculation in his eyes. The pieces clicking into place. The confirmation of whatever he’s been suspecting.
“Father Cross,” he says quietly. “Miss Davis. This…will be brought up in our interviews.”