All Chapters of THE PASTOR'S SON'S DIRTY LITTLE SECRECT : Chapter 221 - Chapter 230

Chapter 216What Damian KnewFor a moment nobody moved.YThe crowd on the steps had gone quiet in that avid, pretending-not-to-listen way. Phones hovered half-raised. Somewhere to the left, someone whispered the word *writer*.Leon felt Aaron's fingers tighten around his, not a warning, exactly. A question.“It's okay,” Leon said under his breath.“It isn't.” Aaron's eyes never left Damian. “He told you nobody would ever choose you. In a hallway. In front of people.”“I know what he said.”“Then why...”“Because he looks scared.” Leon turned his head and met Aaron's eyes. “I've never seen him look scared.”Aaron held his gaze for a long, tense second. Then, with visible effort, he let go. He didn't step back far. He just shifted his weight, folded his arms, and said to Damian in a flat, quiet voice, “Five minutes. I'll be right there.”“I don't need a bodyguard,” Damian said.“Not for you.” Aaron's mouth curved without any warmth. “For him.”---Damian led him around the side of the

Chapter 218Dinner at the Blake HouseThe Blake residence didn't look like a home. It looked like a decision someone had made about how the world should see them.Aaron's car crunched up a long gravel drive lined with trimmed hedges and lamps that cast perfect circles of gold on the ground. The house at the end of it was pale stone and tall windows, every light on, every curtain open. Nothing about it hid anything.Leon had put on his one good shirt. It still felt like a costume.“You don't have to eat anything,” Aaron said, killing the engine. His hands stayed on the wheel. “You don't have to agree to anything either. If it gets bad, say my name and we leave. I mean it. I don't care what he says.”“Okay.”“Leon.”“I heard you.” Leon turned toward him. “Are *you* okay?”Aaron's smile was thin. “I've been coming to this house for nineteen years. I've never once been okay.”He got out before Leon could answer.---A housekeeper opened the door and led them through a hallway of polished

Chapter 220 The Study DoorAaron drove like someone who had stopped caring about speed limits.Neither of them spoke. Leon sat with his phone clenched in both hands, rereading his mother's messages until the words stopped meaning anything. *Your father asked me to leave the house.* In eighteen years, his father had never asked his mother to leave a room.“I'm coming in with you,” Aaron said as they turned onto Leon's street.“No.”“Leon...”“If you walk through that door, it stops being about me.” Leon's voice shook, but he held it. “It becomes about the trustee's son and the priest's son, and Hargrove gets exactly the story he wants.”Aaron's jaw worked. He pulled up half a block from the house and killed the engine. For a moment he stared straight ahead, hands tight on the wheel.Then he reached over, took Leon's phone, tapped the screen a few times, and handed it back.“It's recording,” he said. “Put it in your pocket. If anything goes wrong, I want it on tape.”“That's...”“Legal

Chapter 222The Boy in the Dark CarLeon sent one word.Leon:...Mouse.He watched through the study window as the dark shape at the end of the street went from perfectly still to out of the car in what felt like two seconds. Aaron crossed the road at a half run, then seemed to remember where he was, slowed to a walk, and smoothed his jacket with both hands. By the time he reached the porch, he looked almost composed.Leon's mother opened the door before he could knock.“You must be Aaron,” she said.“Yes, ma'am.” His voice was polite and careful, a version Leon had never heard. “I'm sorry about the hour. I didn't mean to...”“You've been sitting in the cold for an hour.” She stepped aside. “Come in before you freeze.”Aaron blinked. Clearly, he had prepared for a great many outcomes, and *kindness* had not been on the list.---Matthias waited in the hallway with his hands clasped behind his back, the same posture he took at the church door after Sunday service. Aaron stopped in front

Chapter 224 The AssemblyThe auditorium was packed to the walls.Leon had sat in this room for four years of morning announcements and award ceremonies, but he had never seen it like this. Every seat was taken. Students lined the aisles. Teachers stood along the back wall with their arms folded. In the front rows sat the trustees in dark suits, and at the center of them, perfectly composed, Principal Hargrove, with a leather folder resting on his knee.Leon's family took seats near the front. His mother held his hand so hard it hurt. His father sat on his other side, spine straight, eyes fixed on the stage like a man waiting for a verdict.Aaron wasn't with them. He had gone straight to the side door with his father's binder under his arm, and Leon hadn't seen him since.The lights dimmed. The murmur died.Hargrove rose and walked to the podium with the slow, benevolent step of a man who had given this kind of speech many times.“Good morning, Crestwood.”His voice was warm, grave, a