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Heavenly’s soft gasp blended with the collective grumbles of revulsion coiling through the room. They barely registered. All Beck could focus on was the worst of the confession yet to come.
He darted a quick glance at Gloria, who had tears in her eyes. Though he’d given her the condensed version of his life in Messiah City, she was about to learn all the most damning details.
Gripping his mental scalpel, Beck closed his eyes and sliced deep, carving open his wounded soul. “When I turned sixteen, I was considered old enough to marry in the eyes of God, so I asked my father’s permission for Blessing’s hand, who was thirteen at the time. We’d secretly been talking. I’d even boldly kissed her one day while she hung her family’s laundry out to dry. She was special, kind. I can’t say I loved her, but I couldn’t stomach the thought of her being married off to one the elders—most four times her age—so they could rut all over her and breed her every ten months. I wanted to spare her that fate.
“When my father refused, I was crushed and angry. But like always, the Messiah turned on the charm. He said God had bigger plans for me, and Blessing wasn’t a proper match for a man of my status.
“When I wouldn’t accept that she was unworthy, my father tore off his ecclesiastic mask and preached at me. ‘No Messiah should be so blinded by temptation that he falls prey to the sins of the flesh,’” Beck mimicked. “He meant I should want to please him more than I wanted pussy. To him, women were merely God’s vessels for sexual ease and reproduction, the garden in which man planted his seed. They definitely weren’t worthy of emotional investment or fidelity. A man’s duty was to spread his mighty sperm with multiple wives so the word of God could spread throughout the land.”
“I have clients who have more respect for women than that.” Gloria shuddered.
“The next day, under the guise of saving my fragile soul and removing temptation from my path so I could become the next true Messiah, my father announced that he would take Blessing as his new spiritual wife. She was number thirty-one.”
The debilitating betrayal, rage, and impotence he’d felt that day slammed Beck again. Body trembling, bile rising in the back of his throat, he clenched his fist and struggled to keep his shit together.
“Two days later, my father married Blessing. That next afternoon, I found her crying behind the barn. Going against every rule I’d been taught since birth, I hugged her and kissed her and told her everything would be all right. That was the first lie I’d ever told.”
“You tried to comfort her.” Heavenly looked up at him from her place on the cozy rug between his feet, curling a gentle hand over his knee.
“It didn’t do any good. Six weeks later, my father called me to his office to tell me I might be getting another brother from Blessing. I wanted to puke. But when he told me he’d never lain with a less enthusiastic bride and that removing her from my path had hardly been worth his trouble, I wanted to kill him.”
“What a cocksucking bastard,” Seth growled.
“Oh, it gets better.” Beck scrubbed a hand over his face. “After I listened to a sermon about Messiah-worthiness for two hours, he finally promised that he and the Lord would find me an appropriate wife to deflower and breed soon. He hoped she’d be far more committed to continuing our illustrious bloodline than Blessing. After all, I would need sons to secure my future.”
Raine made gagging noises.
River just shook his head. “What a tool.”
“And not a very sharp one,” Beck shot back. “When he dismissed me, I was livid. He’d blatantly manipulated me—and I hadn’t seen it coming. For months, I festered. I tried to burn off my rage with manual labor. That didn’t help. All I realized was that if what he’d done to Blessing—and all the other little girls he fucked—was religion, I wanted no part of it. But watching my father’s child grow in Blessing’s belly and the life slowly dim in her eyes…” He breathed out a heavy sigh. “I knew something had to give.”
“The following summer, Blessing and I were talking in the barn when her water broke. Her labor was premature. We both panicked. I picked her up and carried her to my father’s house. Reluctantly, he called the midwife. I waited in the family room for hours, listening as Blessing’s screams grew weaker. She was too young, her hips too narrow… There wasn’t anything the midwife could do.” Beck tried to shove down the fresh rage and regret so he could go on. “After twelve hours of excruciating hell, Blessing and my baby brother died.”
When his voice cracked, Heavenly was there again with a consoling touch. Seth was beside him, too, squeezing his shoulder. But the tears in Gloria’s eyes nearly spawned his own.
“Ken…” She gripped his hand. “I didn’t know.”
There were a few things he hadn’t confessed. It had all been too raw. He’d been too ashamed that he hadn’t been able to protect Blessing. “I couldn’t find the words.”
“Oh, sugar…”
“I need to go on. You know there’s more.” He kissed her hand and set it aside. “Their deaths didn’t faze my father. He simply spouted some crap about it being God’s will. But I was annihilated. And I couldn’t stomach his hypocrisy and unfeeling bullshit anymore.”
Beck launched from his chair and trekked past his friends to pace the large room. His skin felt tight. His stomach knotted.
Now he had to tell the worst of the story, the part that might have some condemning him.
“At the funeral, my father stood at the open grave, spewing platitudes about them being at peace in the house of God. I couldn’t tear my eyes off Blessing and the baby—each wrapped in a white sheet and tossed into the ground. She was a wife of the Messiah, yet my father didn’t even bother to have a proper coffin built. I silently screamed out my apology to her, but the guilt and fury ate me alive as I watched two elders shovel dirt over their cold, dead bodies. I couldn’t speak as we left, especially when another of his flock came forward to offer his condolences—and his daughter—to help him through his grief. She’d just gotten her first period the week before.”
“Was he crazy?” Seth asked.
Beck shook his head. “Ambitious. Anyone connected to the Messiah in any way, especially through marriage, was automatically more important.”
“That’s horrible,” Heavenly breathed.
“It’s why I couldn’t stay. My father said he’d stop by the man’s house that night to inspect his daughter—he had no idea who she was—then led me to his truck. By then, I was so grief-stricken that I didn’t argue when he peeled off his suit coat, tossed it onto the seat, and told me to get in. He said something about picking up grain for the livestock. All I could think about was stealing his truck and leaving that fucking place.
“A couple miles down the road, he turned into the town’s lone gas station and parked beside the building. I was confused because we weren’t anywhere near the feed store. Then he turned his crazy black eyes on me, and I swear I could see the maniac inside him—the one who delighted in every unconscionable act he performed. I knew I was only seeing this face because he didn’t intend for me to talk to anyone again. A cold chill raced up my spine. I was terrified. When I looked around for someone to save me, I realized we were alone.”
