LOGINChapter 159Monday morning came in thin gray light.Pastor Carter woke before the alarm. The bedroom was still dim, Margaret’s breathing slow and even beside him. He lay still for a full minute, staring at the ceiling, feeling the weight of the decision that had settled in him during the night. Silence would not protect him. Waiting would only give Aaron Blake more time to decide the terms. If the boy ever chose to speak—or to show proof—everything would burn. The church. The marriage. Leon’s future. Margaret’s place among the women. His own name. He could not let that happen on someone else’s schedule.He rose quietly, careful not to wake her. The floorboards were cool under his feet. In the bathroom he washed his face with cold water, brushed his teeth, and dressed in the dark trousers and white shirt he wore for weekday work. The charcoal jacket hung ready on the back of the door. He put it on, smoothed the front, and looked at himself in the mirror. The same face the congregation
Chapter 158Pastor Carter sat in the study long after the house had gone quiet.The single desk lamp cast a narrow pool of yellow light across the open Bible and the half-finished notes for midweek study. He had not turned a page in over an hour. The words blurred. His hands rested flat on the polished wood, fingers spread as if he could press the trembling out of them by force of will alone.Aaron Blake.The name sat in his mind like a brand.He could still feel the phantom stretch of the boy’s cock inside him, the way those strong hands had gripped his hips hard enough to leave marks that had only just faded. He could still hear the low, mocking laugh that had followed the removal of the black mask. Surprise, Pastor. The guy who’s been fucking you senseless all this time… is your son’s classmate.Carter closed his eyes and dragged in a slow breath through his nose. The study smelled of old paper, lemon polish, and the faint trace of the cologne he wore every Sunday. Ordinary smells.
CHAPTER 157The house smelled of chicken and rice and the faint lemon polish his mother used on the tables. Ordinary Sunday smells. His mother stood at the sink with her back to him, sleeves rolled up, washing a pot that did not need washing. The radio on the counter played something soft and Christian at low volume. She did not turn when the door closed.“I’m home,” Leon said. His voice sounded almost normal. Almost.“I know.” She kept scrubbing. “Your father’s in the study. He wants you to finish the reading for tomorrow’s youth group before supper.”Leon set his backpack down by the stairs. The apple was gone; he had left it on the library table like evidence he no longer wanted to carry. “Okay.”Silence stretched between them. He watched the careful line of her shoulders. Something had changed—tighter, held too precisely. She had found the dildo and the lubricant. He was almost certain of it now. The way she had not looked at him properly in two days. The way her voice stayed flat
Chapter 156Leon stayed in the stall long after the final message arrived.The fluorescent light hummed overhead. His hands would not stop shaking. He could still feel the stretch of his own fingers, the cold porcelain against the backs of his thighs, the way his breath had caught when he forced himself to look at the camera. The phone sat on the toilet-paper dispenser, screen dark, but the words remained burned behind his eyes.I’ll find you. I’ll bend you over the nearest surface. And I’ll fuck you until you forget how to pretend you’re still pure.He swallowed against the rawness in his throat and wiped his mouth with the back of his wrist even though there was nothing there. Everything felt scraped clean and left open.He stood slowly. His knees protested. He cleaned himself with the thin paper as best he could, movements mechanical and detached—tuck, zip, buckle, smooth the front of his jeans as if fabric could erase what had just happened. At the sink he washed his hands twice,
Chapter 155Leon stared at the message until the words burned into his vision.Anonymous: Well well well. If it isn’t my little mouse.The nickname hit exactly the way it always did—condescending, intimate, and designed to remind him that the person on the other end had been watching longer than Leon liked to admit. He glanced around the second floor of the library. No one was close. The college students near the windows were buried in their laptops. The sleeping man hadn’t moved. Still, Leon angled the phone lower and typed with stiff fingers.Leon: Can you do it or not.The reply came fast.Anonymous: Straight to business. No ‘hello’? No ‘missed me’? I’m wounded, mouse. It’s been months. I was starting to think you’d finally grown a spine and deleted my number.Leon’s jaw tightened.Leon: I need a video taken down. Every copy. Cloud, phones, backups. It’s being used to blackmail me. Can you scrub it or not.Anonymous: Blackmail. How dramatic. Send me what you have. The file, any sti
Chapter 154Leon walked the twelve blocks to the library with the apple untouched in his hand. The skin had already warmed from his palm. He turned it over once, then again, but never brought it to his mouth. Eating felt like something that belonged to a different version of the day—one in which he had not stood in a church hallway while four girls held his future between their phones.The library was half-empty when he arrived. Sunday afternoons always were. A few college students occupied the long tables near the windows. An older man slept upright in one of the armchairs with an open newspaper across his chest. The air smelled of paper and the faint lemon cleaner the staff used on the desks. Leon chose a table in the far corner on the second floor, where the shelves of bound periodicals created a partial wall and the only camera sat too far away to read a phone screen clearly.He set the apple down. He opened his backpack. He took out a textbook he had no intention of reading and p
Chapter 4The entire classroom was plunged into an eerie silence. It didn’t take long for the sound of flesh slapping together to resume. The squelching sounds coming from Aaron sliding his cock in and out of her wet hole filled the air.Leon was a trembling mess. His heart slammed against his ribs
Chapter 3The ice bath had left Leon trembling throughout the night. When morning reached, the cold has turned into a burning fever than clung on to his skin. His head throbbed with a dull ache, and every joint in his body hurt like he had run a marathon race in his sleep.For a moment, he consider
Chapter 2The computer turned on with soft hum that sounded deafening to Leon’s ears. He squeezed his eyes shut tightly, his nails digging crescent moon shapes into his skin as he braced for impact. He was expecting his father’s voice to thunder in the room. He expected scriptures to tear from his
Chapter 1Leon was hunched over his desk, the blue glow of his computer reflecting on his sweet filled face. His room was filled with silence and the only sound slicing through the air was him clicking away at his keyboard. The words he typed didn’t register in his eyes. Instead, they took form, i







