All Chapters of Forgive Me: Marked By The Priest: Chapter 221 - Chapter 230

MALRICK’S POV.Two days.After decades of failure, of imperfect alignments and impure vessels, of rituals that collapsed into ash and screaming, it had finally come down to two days.I stood in my office and stared at the map pinned across the far wall, the old chapel grounds circled in black ink, sigils layered over ancient stone. The Watcher would sleep. The cracked bell would remain silent. The thorns would remember why they were grown. Perfection.I had been fascinated with nature since I was a child. Not the soft, poetic nonsense people romanticized—the flowers and sunsets and seasons. No. I was fascinated with its violence. With how it consumed and rebuilt the entire world. That's what I thrived on. That's why my father hated me. I was enthralled with how rot birthed life. How blood fed soil. I wanted more than to observe it. I wanted to control it. My father used to say I asked too many questions about death.He shouldn’t have. He shouldn’t have underestimated me. I was fift

EZREAL’S POVThe next day, I was halfway through a stack of contract documents I had neglected for a while when Vincent walked in without knocking.That alone told me everything. Something had happened. Plus, I didn't lock the door so he could enter anytime he wanted. He shut the door behind him, his expression composed but tight around the edges. “Boss, I'm sorry for coming in without knocking. We have one more day,” he said. “Malrick will move tomorrow night.”I didn’t look up immediately. I finished signing the document in front of me, set the pen down carefully, then leaned back in my chair. “I’m aware, Vincent. What about the men?” I asked.“They are ready and awaiting your command, Boss.” I nodded once. Of course they were. I’d been preparing for this longer than Malrick realized.Longer than Lucien suspected.“Make arrangements for my mother,” I said. “She has to leave before this danger escalates. She'll go somewhere quiet. I don't want anyone to trace it back to us. I don't

Every night, I hear the boy I used to be whisper… “you broke him.” Every morning, the man I am answers… “I will fix what I shattered.” BARON'S POV The chapel air shifted. My father’s expression hardened. “Watch your mouth.” Ezreal didn’t blink. “And why did he try to get close to Baron?” His tone sharpened. “You call this sin, but you protect monsters. Hypocrite doesn’t even begin to cover it. You're a crazy son of a bitch, do you know that?” For a split second, something flickered across my father’s face. Not outrage. Recognition. He knew. Or at least suspected. “You think you understand the Order?” my father said coldly. “You think you understand sacrifice? There are things you cannot comprehend.” “I understand enough,” Ezreal replied. “I understand that you preached purity while letting rot grow beneath your altar.” The words echoed. I felt my chest tighten—not from fear, but from clarity. I had spent years believing my father was righteous. That everything he did was ho

EZREAL’S POVBy the time we reached the estate, the gates were already open. Security lights cut across the driveway in clean white beams. Everything looked controlled. Predictable.It was the only part of today that was. My mother was already outside. She stood near the front steps with two small suitcases beside her, wrapped in a dark shawl despite the mild air. When I stepped out of the car, she smiled. That smile. Soft. Certain. Like I was still a boy who scraped his knees instead of a man preparing for war. She walked toward me immediately. “Ezra,” she said gently.I bent slightly and kissed her cheek. “How are you?”“I’m fine,” she replied. Her eyes searched my face. “How did it go?” I shook my head once. That was all I could manage.Behind me, Baron stepped out of the car slowly. He wasn’t speaking. Hadn’t spoken much since we left the chapel. But I could feel him. The weight in his silence. The fracture in his breathing.I had seen the way he used to look at his father. Like

If grief has teeth, then let it bite;I’ve survived worse than pain—I survived losing you.BARON'S POVI knew I needed Ezreal the moment I stepped into our room. I needed to break down, I needed to let the tears fall and honestly, it felt like a weight had been lifted in my chest. I needed my husband—yes, my husband. Not as a distraction, not as an escape but rather as an anchor. When I asked for the playhouse, I wasn’t asking for just normal, regular sex. I was asking to be stripped of everything that felt like it was suffocating me. My father’s face. His lies. The image of him standing behind a pulpit while destroying lives behind closed doors.It kept replaying in my head like a broken recording. And I needed something louder. I needed to be told what to do. I needed to surrender the weight.Ezreal’s hand was still wrapped around my wrist, firm and grounding. His grip wasn’t cruel. It wasn’t violent. It was certain. And that certainty steadied me more than anything else.“Look a