I sat in the darkness, My back remained straight, my hands clasped in a prayer of endurance. I had spent fifteen years tempering my spirit, forging my will into a blade of iron. I believed I was untouchable.
Then she entered.
I didn't need to see her to know it was Serafina. The air shifted, carrying a scent that didn't belong in a house of God—jasmine and something metallic, like blood or hot rain. The soft click of her heels on the marble floor echoed through the silence of the cathedral before she slid into the booth.
"Bless me, Father, for I have sinned," she whispered.
Her voice was a low vibration that seemed to bypass my ears and settle directly in the base of my spine. It wasn't the voice of a penitent. It was the voice of a predator who had found a particularly interesting pie
