Chapter 1: The Pen and the Altar
Part 1 Beside him stood Sister Chloe, twenty-two years old and five months pregnant with his child, holding the legal decree that stripped me of [more…]
Part 1 Beside him stood Sister Chloe, twenty-two years old and five months pregnant with his child, holding the legal decree that stripped me of [more…]
The engine hummed low in my compact sedan, a steady drone against the sudden silence of the valley road. Beyond the closed gates of the [more…]
Chloe watched Silas with narrowed eyes, her carefully composed serenity starting to crack. The phone to the financial coordinator rang again, then went to voicemail. [more…]
The county annex office smelled of old paper and stale coffee, a scent that clung to the stacks of yellowing folders surrounding us. Ruth and [more…]
Silas was a man unraveling. He stalked through the deserted administrative wing, his phone pressed to his ear. The sanctuary’s central server rack, a hulking [more…]
Elder Ruth’s home was a small, two-bedroom cottage nestled on the outskirts of the sanctuary property, a stark contrast to the grand, modern structures Silas [more…]
The main auditorium of the Sovereign Grace Sanctuary buzzed with an uneasy energy. Four thousand five hundred compound members, dressed in their finest Sunday attire, [more…]
Chaos erupted in the auditorium. Whispers turned into shouts, questions into panicked exclamations. Silas stammered, trying to regain control. “A-a trick!” he blurted, his voice [more…]
The administrative wing of the sanctuary was no longer a place of quiet reverence. Panic had set in. Board members, their faces pale, shouted into [more…]
Fury contorted Silas’s face. His eyes, usually so charismatic, now burned with a desperate rage. He had lost control of his money, his image, and [more…]