My Cult Leader Stepfather Dumped Four Yards of Concrete Over My Truck to Trap Me — Until My Daughter Pointed at His Porch
While the deputy elders debated outside, their voices rising and falling in waves of confusion and anger, I cornered Tobias alone in the isolated compound supply barn. The air was thick with the scent of old hay and motor oil, a stark contrast to the fervor outside.
He sat on an overturned crate, his face pale and etched with exhaustion. I stood over him, the steel cylinder still heavy in my hand.
“Why, Tobias?” I demanded, my voice raw. “Why would you do this? My truck, the money, the cards… what was it all for?”
He looked up, his eyes a depthless blue, full of a pain I hadn’t recognized before. “Mara, you don’t understand.”
“I understand embezzlement,” I shot back. “I understand fraud. I understand abandoning your flock.”
He shook his head slowly. “I wasn’t stealing the tithes for myself. Never for myself.” He paused, a long, ragged sigh escaping his lips. “I spent three years, Mara. Three years quietly, meticulously arranging every detail. The escape papers, the funds… everything was to transport the children.”
My mind reeled. “The children? What are you talking about?”
His gaze met mine, unwavering. “The Council of Elders. They were planning forced marriages. For Ruth, for all twenty-two of them, once they reached the age of thirteen. They were going to marry them off to families in the northern compounds, to strengthen their alliances. It’s an old Covenant tradition, one I fought against. I had to get them out, Mara. All of them.”
He wasn’t a greedy thief. He was trying to save them.
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