LATE MARCH

The rains had abated to a persistent but bearable patter that rapped against the car’s windows as it wound up into the Blue Ridge Mountains. The winds had died down enough that it was once again safe to venture out of doors, but the damage Hurricane Lilith had wrought on Virginia was readily apparent in the downed power lines and fallen tree branches lining the road. The Commonwealth was still tabulating the toll in both lives and dollars, but whatever it ended up being, it would be too damned much.

Of course, federal relief for the disaster would be considerably easier to get out here. The debris and damaged utilities would inconvenience politicians fleeing DC’s sweltering heat in the summer to come. Other areas smashed by the catastrophic storm would be shit out of luck.

“We’ve got about a half hour until we reach the cabin, Mr. Costas,” the driver informed Nico over his shoulder. “If you wanted some time to watch the news, you might do it now.”

Nico smiled with genuine warmth. General McClosky’s people were always friendly beyond mere professional courtesy, which wasn’t something he could say for the staff employed by some of his clients. He never got that cold, I’m looking down my nose at you but it’s not my place to say anything vibe from anyone when he had a contract with the general. And there was no question that the driver knew exactly what services “Octavio Costas” performed for McClosky; he was, after all, the one who had to clean the upholstery and air out the car whenever their contracts involved travel.

“Thank you, Darrin.”

“How’s your thesis going?” Darrin asked as Nico tucked his memory cards and projection glasses into his bag and tidied up the back of the car, where he’d been working for several hours.

“Slowly. How’s yours?”

He caught Darrin’s grimace in the rearview mirror. “Public course servers and connections were damaged in the storm,” he answered. “Everything has been offline for weeks. The only students getting any work done are the ones who can pay first-tier tuition. Apparently their servers are up and running just fine.”

Nico sighed and shook his head. Due to setbacks like this, Darrin had been working on his degree for as long as Nico had been seeing the general as a client—some six years now. Each delay meant his degree took longer, and he was paying for more terms than should have been necessary to finish it.

“I’m sorry,” Nico murmured.

Darrin shrugged. “Not your doing. It’s not like I plan to stop working for the general, anyway. Finishing it is mostly a point of pride at this point.”

Reading between the lines, it sounded to Nico like Darrin was giving up, or at least contemplating it. There was nothing he could say to that. The fact was, Nico could afford first-tier, private university tuition and all the preferential treatment it entailed, and both he and Darrin knew it.

“Anyway,” Darrin continued, “if you want to watch the news, go ahead.”

“Thanks,” he said again, and Nico raised the privacy partition. “Display,” he called. A heads-up display appeared on the partition. “Video. News. Politics,” he instructed. An image quickly came into focus on the HUD, revealing the familiar face of one of the ubiquitous Sunday-morning pundits, Daniel McNary.

“Here with us now is the Reverend Maurice Houtman, communications director for the Righteous Word Party. Reverend, with this latest wave of attacks, accusations are once again being leveled at the RWP, claiming the Righteous Action League is the terrorist arm of your party, operating with the RWP’s knowledge and cooperation. How does the RWP respond to this?”

“The same as we always have, Mr. McNary.” Even through the video screen, Houtman’s eyes burned with a zealot’s fire and the smile on his gaunt face stopped just short of smug. “The Righteous Word Party is dedicated to—”

Houtman’s diatribe—which had all the earmarks of becoming the same sort of sermon that was broadcast to millions of people every Sunday morning from Houtman Ministries mega-cathedral in Indianapolis—was overridden by the chime of a call coming in on Nico’s tablet. He pulled it from his bag and redirected the signal to the left half of the HUD, compressing Houtman’s creepy mug on the right.

“What’s up, Mom?”

“You rearranged the schedule.” On the display, Silvia Fernández’s artfully painted lips were pressed together in a tight line, her eyes narrowed with annoyance. Nico allowed himself a moment of amusement, wondering if the rest of the nation—who knew his mother as Marina Costas, owner of the wildly successful escort agency Costas Companions, outspoken advocate for sex worker rights, detractor of the corporate brothel system, and easily the most recognized madam in the western hemisphere—had ever seen her wearing any expression other than a charming smile. Certainly they’d never seen her play the role of mother hen. “Marcus was supposed to have the McClosky job tonight.”

“McClosky is my client.”

Silvia dipped her head, acknowledging the point. “For personal engagements, certainly, but this is one of his other jobs.”

“All the more reason for me to handle it.”

“Marcus has taken special jobs for Logan before.”

Nico blew out an impatient breath. “I prefer to do it myself.”

“Nicolás—”

“Is there a reason you don’t want me to take this job, Mother?” he demanded sharply.

Silvia sighed. “The information Logan gave me made it seem like it wouldn’t be very pleasant. To the point where it seemed like he would rather I assign it to someone else.”

“Well, wasn’t that considerate of him?” Nico smiled softly. “I appreciate that the general was thinking of me, but it doesn’t change the fact that he’s my client and we shouldn’t be distributing these special jobs to our other employees if we can avoid it. I don’t mind if it’s not the most enjoyable evening I’ve ever passed.”

Silvia’s eyes narrowed again, this time with an assessing look. “You don’t have to prove anything to Logan, you know.”

“Don’t worry, Mother. I’m not in love with General McClosky.” He rolled his eyes, flicking a glance at the right side of the HUD where another talking head was heatedly countering something the Reverend Houtman had said.

“Of course not.” Silvia smiled with open amusement. “I know you’re not that foolish, and if you were, you’d never have another engagement with him again. But I do think you very much want to impress him, for whatever reason.”

Nico shrugged uncomfortably. “He’s been a good friend to me. To us. And my point remains: the fewer people we involve in these special jobs of his, the better. I’m fine doing it myself.” Nico reached for the controls on the armrest and turned up the volume on the talk show. “Are you watching McNary?” he asked, changing the subject.

On the left side of the display, he saw his mother reach for her own controls. “I am now.”

“He’s talking about the attack on the Buffalo Yes on 46 campaign office.”

Houtman was back to pontificating. “—bringing the Lord back into our system of government and overcoming the corrupting and immoral influences in our society by peaceful and legal means.”

Nico suppressed a snort. Houtman’s moral stance would be a lot more convincing if most of the funding for the RWP’s campaign against legalizing independent sex work didn’t come from the corporate brothels. For obvious reasons, enabling sex workers to operate as independent, contracted service personnel—which Costas escorts already did in states where it was legal—wasn’t a notion the brothels approved of. Because God forbid whores might work for something more than a starvation wage, operate outside of facilities that claimed most of their income in “fees” for leasing and managing their work space, schedule their appointments as though they weren’t on an assembly line, or have the right to refuse service to abusive clients.

Beside Houtman’s image on the HUD, it was Silvia’s turn to roll her eyes. “It’s all well and good for McNary to ask the question, but the RWP has too many highly placed supporters for any serious investigation of their connection to the Righteous Action League to get off the ground.”

Nico shrugged. “Someone is shunting money to the RAL, and it’s damned convenient that their targets just happen to be whoever is the subject of Houtman and the RWP’s rants du jour.”

Until last year, the league had only carried out their attacks on reproductive clinics and shelters for queer youth. Then they had branched out to hit the administrative offices for grassroots organizations trying to get sex work out of the hands of corporate brothels. Since Costas Companions was making significant contributions to those campaigns, and Silvia was acting as a spokesperson for them, this impacted Nico’s livelihood directly.

“So the RWP condemns these attacks?” McNary prompted on the display as Nico and his mother fell silent.

He smiled at the screen, letting his eyes roam over McNary’s chiseled jaw and piercing eyes. No political pundit had any business being so gorgeous. Unfortunately, according to all the rumors, he was completely devoted to his wife. Of course, many of Nico’s clientele were attached to similar rumors, but he had been to five functions at which McNary had been in attendance and he’d never gotten so much as a lingering glance from the guy.

McNary was also damned good at not letting people on his show off the hook when their responses reeked of bullshit, which made him a veritable treasure among pundits, as well as Nico’s favorite fix for his political-talk-show addiction.

Idly checking his immaculate trousers for lint or wrinkles, Nico flicked his gaze to the display as the reverend tilted his head in a half shrug, his expression obnoxiously complacent. “The RWP is in no way complicit in these attacks, nor do we know who the perpetrators are.”

“Sure you don’t,” Nico muttered, and the corner of Silvia’s mouth lifted.

“It doesn’t matter what they say, mijo,” she murmured. “Momentum is on our side. People can overlook the human rights abuses in the retail and industrial sectors, but once you add in the element of sex work, that brand of wage slavery becomes human trafficking, and that’s a lot harder to ignore.”

Nico chuckled. “That’s nice. Was that from the speech you gave at the last Yes on 46 fundraiser?”

“Paraphrased,” Silvia said with a blithe wave of her hand. “The point stands.”

Yes, the point stood. Getting corporate brothels legalized some fifty years ago had been an easy sell; they’d campaigned on a public health and safety platform, claiming it would reduce crime and the spread of sexually transmitted infections. But the more the brothels began operating like the industrial tenements, the more obvious the human rights abuses in the whole system became. The sex element got people’s attention like nothing else did, which made it harder for the brothels to resist grassroots efforts to legalize independent sex work. That was why most of the arguing against legalization efforts was coming from religious fundamentalists like Houtman, quietly backed by the brothels. And now, apparently, the extremist terrorist groups were getting in on the act.

“How is security at the fundraisers you’ve been doing?” Nico asked with a frown. “Do you think they could—”

“Not likely.” Silvia shook her head. “We’ve got the entertainment industry taking our part. Too many notable names at those events. They wouldn’t dare.”

That was true. Attending awards ceremonies and opening nights with a Costas Companions escort on one’s arm had become a status symbol, a way for cinema, televid, and music bigwigs to revel in being shocking and controversial. Some flaunted the fact that they were hiring a rentboy or call girl for the evening, while others truly appreciated the services Costas Companions offered beside the obvious. His mother’s contractors were trained to provide far more than just a sexual experience.

Nico was about to caution his mother to be careful of her security anyway when something Houtman was bloviating about on the HUD caught his attention.

“—Nevertheless, it must be said that one need only look at the targets to discern the hand of God behind the tragedies. The United States has become a modern-day Sodom and Gomorrah. The more corrupt and dissolute we become as a society, the more often we will see the Lord allowing His servants to smite the wicked in His name . . .”

Nico’s jaw slowly dropped. “Oh my God. Did he just . . .?”

Zach choked, coughing as he stared in disbelief at the video monitor. He frantically looked down at the computerized notepad of talking points they had gone over before the broadcast. The reverend was off script. As usual.

A headache began to throb in Zach’s temples, and his stomach started to burn. Fumbling, he tucked the notepad under his arm and dug into his inner breast pocket, withdrawing a prescription bottle. He stuck one of the quick-dissolve tablets under his tongue and resumed perusing his notepad, waiting for the pain to ease before he put the bottle away. By then, his father had doubled down on his hardline rhetoric, prompting Dan McNary to call for a commercial break, ending the reverend’s segment.

Zach produced a handkerchief, holding it out before his father arrived at his side. The reverend dabbed his sweating brow, and Zach saw the disgruntled look in his peripheral vision.

“Look up and greet me properly, Zacharias. Don’t just fling a rag at me like you can’t be bothered.”

“Sorry, sir.” Zach lifted his gaze from the notepad and fixed it on his father. “I was just checking our notes. You veered off the talking points.”

The reverend spared an indolent shrug. “The audience wants to hear something exciting, something that will get them charged about the message we’re putting out.”

“By ‘the audience’ you mean ‘the voters,’ don’t you, sir?” Zach shook his head, accepting the now-damp handkerchief back and tucking it into his pocket. “Yes, I’m sure people will get plenty excited over the implication that God is working through terrorists. If you’re serious about running for Senator Davis’s seat, those are not the sort of quotes you should be making headlines with.”

His father gave him a repressive look. “The people want God back in our government, Zacharias. That means they need to see His hand, active among us, and know that He will not abide the current, immoral status quo.”

Zach’s headache renewed and stabbed at him again, like an ice pick drilling into his eye. His vision blurred, making his father swim before his eyes. He wanted to get out of this studio and get home to his dark, quiet bedroom.

“I can guarantee you, no one is going to vote for a man who claims innocent people died because God decided to use terrorists to smite them.”

The reverend scowled. “The targets of those attacks were not innocents.”

Zach hung his head. Why did he bother? There had once been a time when his father would listen and heed the voice of moderate reason, a time when the message he preached from his pulpit had been about God’s love and mercy, but since he’d helped found the Righteous Word Party, those occasions were becoming increasingly rare. Now his sermons were about God’s wrath bringing down the wicked.

“They were a cancer in our society, corrupting us, and it needed to be destroyed,” the reverend continued. “I won’t compromise my beliefs to get votes. If the people can’t handle God’s truth, if they are happy with a government that sanctions the fornicators and sodomites and idolaters, then they’re not going to vote for me anyway.”

“God’s truth includes ‘thou shalt not kill’ and ‘love thy neighbor,’ and ‘vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord.’ When does the voting public get to hear that truth?”

“It also says ‘honor thy father,’” came a sneering voice behind him before the reverend could spit out the blistering retort twisting its way to his lips. “Or are we ignoring that commandment today?”

Zach turned to see his little brother standing there with a smug smile. Jacob was seventeen, the youngest of Maurice Houtman’s five children, and as such, Zach knew his brother had a tendency to feel shorted and overlooked. Unfortunately, he also had a habit of trying to offset that feeling by currying favor with their father. Or so Zach carefully reminded himself when he grasped for the love he was supposed to feel for all God’s children, especially his little brother. In his less charitable moments, though, he was inclined to accuse Jacob of being a suck-ass. It had become worse since their father’s dogma began to take on more shades of fire and brimstone, too.

Zach forced himself to smile. “Of course not,” Zach conceded. Locking horns with Jacob was just as futile as trying to sway his father, and it certainly wouldn’t help get rid of his headache, so he kept that bland smile pasted on and turned to retrieve the reverend’s coat.

Still aghast at the Reverend Houtman’s faux pas on the McNary show, Nico ended the call with his mother and idly skimmed from one broadcast to the next for the remainder of the drive.

“. . . I think we need to look at the economic conditions that led to these efforts to begin with, Michael. The tenements operate like the mining camps of the late-nineteenth century before unionization forced reform. Employees amount to little more than feudal serfs serving at the mercy of their corporate overlords . . .”

He was about to change the channel again when Darrin called back to him over the intercom, interrupting the congresswoman’s rant. “We’re almost to the cabin, Mr. Costas.”

“Thank you, Darrin.” He smiled and sat up straighter, smoothing his hair and then the fine wool of his suit coat. He switched off the HUD, popped a mint into his mouth, and shifted into the rear-facing seat of the limousine.

The car decelerated with a soft whine and turned off the two-lane mountain highway onto a long, wooded driveway. Five minutes after that, they came to a stop before a cozy, rustic-looking cabin. Nico remained seated as Darrin parked and got out of the car to ring the doorbell. He waited patiently for nearly another ten minutes before a broad-shouldered man with graying black hair opened the door. Darrin escorted him to the limousine and opened the door, then returned to the cabin and emerged with a suitcase, which he stashed in the trunk while McClosky slid into the seat opposite Nico and closed the door.

“Nicolás. It’s good to see you.” A warm smile split the general’s ageless face, and Nico ducked his head at the reminder that this man—the first and favorite of his clients—had known him long before he’d adopted the professional pseudonym Octavio Costas. To the general, he was still Nicolás Fernández.

“It’s always a pleasure, General,” Nico replied with complete sincerity.

“You know you can call me Logan.” As General McClosky looked Nico up and down, Darrin returned to the wheel and pulled the car away from the cabin.

“It wouldn’t feel right, sir.” Nico’s formality in no way diminished his fondness for the general; any more casual form of address just rubbed at his nerves, chafing.

The general gave him a fond look. “Thank you for coming out all this way to meet with me. I wasn’t going to have time, otherwise.”

“I didn’t mind the ride at all. It was relaxing.”

“Still working hard on your thesis?”

“Yes, though, I think I’ll be done with it before the holidays. But of course, my schedule is usually booked fairly tight with clients, so finding time for something other than school or work can be a challenge. A nice afternoon drive in the mountains is a refreshing change of pace.”

McClosky favored him with another warm smile. “And how is Silvia?”

“Devoted to you, as always, sir.” Nico grinned, settling back against the soft leather. “She sends her regards and hopes you’ll be able to come by and see her sometime soon. She also asked me to assure you that the usual precautions to make the transaction untraceable are all in place.”

“Excellent. I might be able to arrange a visit sometime next month. Worst-case scenario, I definitely wouldn’t miss her midsummer celebration.” McClosky reached for his briefcase and pulled it into his lap, popping it open. He withdrew a memory card and handed it to Nico. “This is the man. You’ll find all the information you need and a picture so you’ll be able to spot him. He’ll be staying at the hotel after the convention tonight, and he’ll be in the bar looking for companionship. All you need to do is make sure he has a smile on his face in the morning for our meeting with the joint chiefs. I very much need this recommendation to go my way.”

“And should subtle hints and pleasing smiles not work?” Nico’s hand drifted almost unconsciously to the vial of oil in his pocket.

“You have my permission to use whatever means are at your disposal.” McClosky knew exactly what was in that vial. Hell, he’d provided it specifically for occasions such as this.

Nico took his HUD glasses from his bag and put them on, then slotted the card into them and fell silent, perusing the file. His intended mark looked like an appealing enough man. He’d certainly entertained far less attractive clients. He ejected the card and handed it back to McClosky, folding and putting away the glasses. “As usual, I can’t guarantee his vote, or recommendation, or whatever you’re after from him, but I can certainly guarantee he’ll have a smile on his face and he’ll be feeling reasonably amenable.”

“I have every confidence in your abilities.” The general nodded and relaxed in his seat, his knees parting. Nico slid out of his coat and laid it on the seat beside him before slipping to his knees on the floor of the limousine. McClosky reached out to stroke the side of Nico’s face as Nico reached for the fly of his uniform. “It’s been too long, my boy.”

“It’s always a pleasure, sir,” Nico repeated, smiling, and dipped his head to suck the general deep into his mouth.

He’d lost track of the number of people—male, female, and all points in between—he’d pleasured, but McClosky would always stand out from the masses. When Nico had declared his intention to work for his mother’s escort agency once he turned eighteen, Silvia’s first order of business had been to hire one of her best rentboys to tutor him. Then, for his first job, she’d booked Nico for a week with McClosky. That engagement had been something of a graduation, and it had taught Nico more than six months with his “tutor” had.

He supposed he would be in love with the general if he were idiotic enough to fall in love with anyone at this point in his life and career. There was an edge of danger to McClosky, despite the fact that he was always very proper and courteous outside the bedroom. Nico suspected that people who dealt with McClosky on a daily basis would say he was not a good man, that he was firmly convinced that the ends justified the means, but moral ambiguity had a certain appeal.

Pushing all that aside, Nico refocused his attention on the cock in his mouth, on the general’s groans, taking him deeper, working him with tongue and lips and throat, using every bit of skill he’d acquired since that first week-long engagement. McClosky shuddered and came down Nico’s throat. Nico rocked back on his heels, smiling as he wiped the corner of his mouth. McClosky’s fingers gently petted his hair, and Nico closed his eyes in pleasure at the touch. He wondered if the general noticed he was doing it.

“Will you be going straight to your town house in Arlington, sir?”

McClosky nodded, tucking himself away and fastening his trousers before he dug through his briefcase for a tablet and his own HUD glasses to plug into it. “Yes. Though, of course, you’re welcome to have Darrin drive you into DC if you need.”

Nico discreetly pressed his own unattended cock into a more comfortable position in his trousers and moved back into his seat. Clearly McClosky had too much going on to make this more of a mutual encounter, and Nico wasn’t here for McClosky’s pleasure this time, anyway. The blowjob had simply been a freebie. “Thank you, sir, but I’ll take my own car. I know it’s not likely anyone will notice me stepping out of the limousine and trace it back to you, but why take the chance?”

“Very well. If the secretary doesn’t attend to your accommodations tonight, take a room and add it to my bill.”

Nico contained a frown. He’d really hoped the general might invite him back to his house after he’d done his job. “As you wish, sir.”

One corner of McClosky’s mouth tipped up, and his eyes passed over Nico slowly from behind the projection goggles. “Will you be heading back to Princeton in the morning?”

“I have no reason to remain in DC, but I certainly have the availability. You told my mother that the secretary can be a little rude when he plays with his toys, so I don’t have any clients scheduled for a few days.”

“I told her that in the hopes that she would send someone else for the job. I wouldn’t want to see you hurt.”

Nico licked his lips, smiling slowly. “I don’t mind some wear and tear. You taught me to enjoy that, if you recall. Though, it has been a while. I find I rather miss it.”

“Well, then, I hope the job doesn’t disappoint.” The general’s eyes darkened, his nostrils flaring slightly. “But just in case, come back to the Arlington house after you check out tomorrow. There’s no reason you can’t stay there a few days to recuperate. I’ll leave instructions with Peter to let you in if I’m not home yet.”

A tingly surge of anticipation seized Nico’s nuts and squeezed gently. His ass clenched almost greedily as his hands gripped his knees. “Like I said, it’s always a pleasure, sir.”

Having dinner guests had become a nearly nightly event since the reverend had thrown his hat into the political ring. Strategists, consultants, fund-raisers, and donors all seemed to converge upon the Houtman’s Indiana home, an overdone—to Zach’s eye, at least—mansion in the country, surrounded by corn and soy fields. They all seemed to have an agenda, and very little of that agenda appeared to have anything to do with the Lord. His father assured him that their motivations were irrelevant, but Zach couldn’t accept that God’s work was being done by people whose only interest was earthly power and wealth.

Not for the first time, Zach wished he’d stuck to his guns and gone to seminary. But by the time he was getting ready to choose his major in college, his father had been laying the groundwork for establishing the Righteous Word Party and moving Houtman Ministries into the political arena. The reverend had insisted that Zach could do far more good studying political science and marketing, working as an aide and adviser to the RWP than he could as a pastor. It hadn’t been the work Zach felt called to by God; he’d wanted his own ministry, perhaps do some missionary work in the tenements or inner cities. But the reverend had been relentless. He’d painted a rosy picture of Zach shaping a movement to redirect the government toward principles according to Christ’s teachings, principles of charity and compassion. The actual party line had been quite a disappointment.

Zach would be expected at dinner. He wasn’t sure why his father insisted on it, since his input as one of the RWP’s political advisors—which was his official title, though more often than not he just held the reverend’s notes—was uniformly disregarded.

With a reluctant sigh, Zach concluded a brief, silent prayer for patience, a necessity before these dinners. Then he adjusted his tie, straightened his glasses, and made his way toward the den where his father’s colleagues were enjoying a drink.

“. . . instant polling shows a strong response to your appearance on McNary’s show this morning,” said George Welshman, a media consultant so greasy Zach needed a shower after shaking the man’s hand. Welshman had no principles, much less anything as powerful as ethics or morals. All that mattered was winning and getting his consulting fee. If Zach truly had the influence his father had promised him, firing Welshman was the first thing he’d do.

“It’s as I’ve been saying all along,” he continued. “The harder you come out swinging, the more impact you’re going to make. Building momentum right now is crucial.”

“That all depends on the kind of impact you want to make,” Zach replied, coming to a stop in the doorway. He felt his father fix him with a narrow-eyed look for interrupting, much less contradicting, the consultant, but he refused to meet it. “What sort of momentum is a negative impression truly going to build?”

Welshman waved the question off with a negligent flap of his hand. “Doesn’t matter. At this point we’re after brand recognition. Maurice could go on the talk shows promising drugs and orgies for everyone who votes for him and it wouldn’t matter what he said so long as the voters remembered his name once he declares his candidacy.”

A low chuckle rumbled from across the room, and Zach’s stomach twisted. Jacob was sitting next to their father, practically beaming at being admitted to the inner circle. The avarice in his smile made Zach uneasy, as always. He’d tried for years to reach out to Jacob, tried to counter that sense of entitlement and superiority and model humility and compassion for his younger brother. But Jacob’s spite was just too strong, and Zach didn’t have the energy to be the voice of reason in his father’s campaign and be continually rebuffed by his brother.

“We need to keep hammering this prostitution business,” another voice added. Zach glanced over to see Bishop Karl Craven nursing a tumbler of whiskey. “The liberal media is determined to make a tragedy out of those bombings. We need to focus people on the positive side of these acts.”

“Positive side?” Zach blinked incredulously. “I wasn’t aware there was a positive side to wanton slaughter.”

The bishop’s mouth pulled into a tight, disapproving line. “The targets of those bombings were panderers and whores.”

“Yes, they were, but when Christ came upon the adulteress about to be killed, He invited anyone without sin to cast the first stone. He told her to go forth and sin no more. He didn’t tell His apostles to firebomb her home.”

His father’s gaze bore down on him, making his chest tighten. Sweat beaded on his forehead, but he refused the silent command to back off.

Jacob jumped in before the reverend had a chance to dress Zach down. “No one wants to see God as some toothless old geezer who lets sinners traipse off with only a stern lecture.”

Zach smiled tightly. “I’m fairly certain that only applies to children who have inflated ideas of their own self-importance.”

A ruddy flush darkened Jacob’s acne-marked cheeks. A rash retort twisted his lips, but their father laid a hand on his arm before he found his voice.

“Enough, boys.” He stood and gave them each a quelling look, the fury in his pale blue-gray eyes carefully masked until his back was to the room. His voice was perfectly modulated, just the right tone for patronizing affection. “Despite his blasphemous phrasing, Jacob is making much the same point I made to you earlier, Zacharias. Clearly you’ve been working too hard lately and the stress is beginning to tell. We can do without you at dinner tonight. Why don’t you go check in on your youth group, see how they’re managing since you retired?”

Being summarily dismissed was as infuriating as being required to attend in the first place. Having the reverend use his youth group as an excuse to get rid of him—the same youth group he’d made Zach sacrifice to free up more time to work on the campaign—was the final insult. Zach glowered at his father for a moment before he spun on his heel and strode from the den and toward the front hall.

“I’m going downtown,” he threw over his shoulder. “If anyone needs me, I’ll be helping out at the Center Street Shelter.”