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He was abruptly thrust forward, and he stumbled, just catching himself before he fell. When he righted himself, his gaze clashed with a man escorting a fellow reveler down the hall, the man's truncheon pressed tight against the poor cove’s neck.

Felix’s gut dropped. The blood in his veins froze. The gaze was steely hard, glinting with something sadistic that had bile creeping up Felix’s throat. And with a slowness at odds with the chaos surrounding them, those lips—lips that had so gently dusted over Felix’s earlier—slid into a sneer.

All fight fled Felix. An odd vacant buzzing stole over him, everything growing distant, hazy, as he was herded toward the exit at the end of the hall. He was trapped in William’s stare. All the softness that had been there earlier was gone, replaced by a thick, ugly contempt.

Felix couldn’t take it any longer and finally looked away. He barely saw where he was being shepherded, barely heard the ruckus surrounding him. Like he’d been submerged in the Thames.

It’d all been a lie.

A scheme to entrap him.

Father had warned Felix that some men would pretend to be like him in their quest to eradicate sodomites.

But there was a far greater threat. Internalized shame.

That was a volatile, dangerous thing. There were men who might share Felix’s desires, but because society had taught them to loathe themselves, they were compelled to punish others like them— the real deviants .

A sick form of atonement. Never in Felix’s darkest imaginings did he ever believe any reformer would go as far as William had.

Felix’s eyes slid shut, realization flooding his lungs, stealing his breath. He was the one who had told William about this alehouse.

He’d led the enemy here.

He knew he should be afraid. Of the consequences. Of what happened next. But all he could feel was…nothing.

Cold, numbing betrayal.

“You.” A man pointed at Felix, where he sat on the floor in the cell in the watchroom—Felix and at least twenty other men from the alehouse.

Two constables entered, yanked Felix to his feet, and ushered him out of the cell.

He had no idea how long he’d been detained; he’d lost all sense of time.

It had been long enough that quite a few men hadn’t been able to hold their bladders any longer.

He drew in a cleansing breath as he was finally greeted with air that didn’t hold the sharp stench of urine.

He had no doubts as to where he was headed. They’d slowly been taken away from the holding room one by one. To be set before the magistrate.

Felix’s gut tightened so hard he had to clamp his mouth against a gag. He had to hope there wasn’t sufficient evidence to charge him of anything warranting more than a fine. Or imprisonment. Dear God.

But that was better than hanging. They wouldn’t hang him, would they?

A peer had never been hanged for sodomy.

Everyone always fled before it reached that extreme.

The only small positive in this nightmare was Benedict had never joined him in the cell.

Which had to mean he got away. Felix's eyes drifted shut for a breath. At least one of them had.

He was brought into the courtroom, and his knee bounced erratically as the magistrate droned on, words Felix couldn’t hear over the panic buzzing in his ears.

They had no proof. The only thing he could truly be charged with was attempted sodomy.

He tried to take a calming breath. A fine.

A short imprisonment. That was the worst of it.

He had been alone in his room. No one witnessed anything.

They had no proof. He chanted it over and over in his mind.

A witness was called to the stand, and Felix’s head jerked up. A witness? Witness to what? There had been nothing to witness.

And that was when everything grew so much worse.

The air turned cloying, too thick to breathe.

Because William approached the stand. Felix watched as the man who'd just been intimate with him earlier that night, went on to inform the magistrate that he witnessed Felix committing a most “unnatural and heinous crime” with another man. That if Felix was inspected , they would have sufficient proof of Felix’s crime.

Felix hadn’t realized a person’s body could hollow out, like someone had taken a scalpel and sliced out each one of his organs until he was left nothing but an empty bleeding mess.

He shifted on the hard wooden bench where he sat, the uncomfortable sensation of the evidence William had left behind drying on his skin.

A glaring mark of the man’s betrayal. And Felix was helpless to do anything about it because if he said anything, it would only implicate him.

So, he had to sit in silence, while the first man he’d ever allowed inside him condemned him to the gallows.

A clerk approached the magistrate and slid a note before him. The magistrate’s eyebrows lifted infinitesimally as he scanned it, but then he nodded. “Charges are dropped. The plaintiff is dismissed.”

William’s mouth dropped open, and he sputtered in outrage.

“Order!” the magistrate barked, cutting through the man’s tirade. “This hearing is concluded.”

A heavy silence fell over the courtroom.

The clerk approached Felix and beckoned him to follow.

What on earth was happening? All eyes in the courtroom burned into his back as he followed the man.

His body shook, as though the chaos of the night had eaten away at his muscles, leaving them weak and ineffectual.

Why would the magistrate dismiss his charges, him, so swiftly—for no apparent reason?

Once in a back hall, the man paused and lifted a key. “Let me help divest you of those, my lord.”

My lord . Elation and panic surged through him. Which the man must have noticed. “No one besides myself and the magistrate knows.”

How? Who? What did…? Felix couldn’t form a single question, his mind a discordant echo of disorientation.

“He’s awaiting you in the carriage just outside.” The man pointed toward the discreet exit.

Felix sucked in a breath, hoping he was going to see who he thought he was going to see when he stepped out of the building.

Please, please, please.

He passed through the exit and froze, gaze landing on his father sitting in the carriage in the back alley of the courthouse.

In the next moment he was at the carriage’s opening, yanked into his father’s arms, tight, warm reassurance wrapping around him in a painfully fierce grip.

The kind only a father could give. One that said if he squeezed Felix hard enough, held Felix close enough, he could ward off all harm, all threat from his son. God, Felix hoped his father could.

Felix sank into that unyielding hold, and the agony of the night finally broke free.

Sobs wracked his body, violent, consuming, choking off his air.

He let it all out, one convulsing cry at a time—the betrayal, the fear, the helplessness—until all that remained was the quiet, steady belief that he was finally safe in the protection of his father’s arms.

“H-How did you know? How did you f-find me?” he said hoarsely, his words muffled in his father’s neck.

His father rocked him softly, fingers tightening in Felix’s hair where he held Felix to him, the same way he had when Felix had been a small child. “Benedict came to us. Reckless lad stole a horse to get to us. Told us of the raid.”

Felix deflated slightly. Benedict was safe. And he had saved Felix.

He pulled back from his father and settled against the squabs at his father’s side, his head falling on his father’s strong shoulders.

“What about the rest of them?” he whispered.

“There is only so much I can do, son.” Felix met his father’s gaze. “Without drawing any more attention to this than I already have.”

Felix’s heart sank. “We were set up,” he said quietly, chin dipping in shame. “He—they—fooled us. Pretended to be one of us like you had warned me of. And now… Will those men back there hang?” Because of me .

His father tilted Felix’s chin up. “Most will end up with a fine and imprisonment for a brief period. But it depends on the charges. Charges like yours…with proof and witnesses…” His father swallowed. “A time in the pillory, and if they survive that, then the gallows.”

Felix’s eyes slammed shut. “It’s my fault, Father. The man I was—I think I drew them to this molly house. Because I told him of its existence. Brought him there. They’re going to hang because of me.”

“What do you mean?” Father’s sharp words snapped Felix’s attention to his.

Felix swallowed. “I had been discreetly seeing a man, and tonight we arranged to meet here to finally… He led me to believe—” He broke off and the muscles in his face contorted as the pain of William’s betrayal washed over him.

His father’s large, warm hand settled on Felix’s and squeezed.

“The charges he laid against me,” Felix whispered.

“They were his doing. He said he caught me in the middle of the act.” Anger, anguish, and shame rose inside him like a wave in a turbulent storm.

“He left our room for refreshments after the heinous act he participated in,” Felix spat.

“And then the raid happened. He was amongst the reformers apprehending us.” He met his father’s gaze.

Something hard and unreadable flashed there.

“Do you have his name?”

Something uncomfortable slithered over Felix’s skin at the threat in his father’s tone.

It wasn’t often Felix heard his father sound anything but jovial and light-hearted.

But there was a reason the Earldom of Bentley had the reputation it did.

A legacy built on power, prestige, and an unwavering command that few dared to challenge.

“I doubt it’s his real name,” Felix finally murmured.

The carriage rolled to a stop.

“Your mother is waiting for you with your siblings. Benedict as well. The coach is ready. You’ll depart for Thornfield Hall forthwith.”

Felix’s eyes widened. “It’s the middle of the night.”

“You need to be far away from tonight’s events. I want there to be no way to place you anywhere near this. Now go. All staff has been informed we left for the country two days prior. And that is what happened. Understood?”

“Yes, Father.”

The carriage door opened, and Felix hurried down the steps to the pavement. But his father didn’t follow. “Are you not coming?”

“There is more that needs to be dealt with. A name, Felix.”

“William Minton.”

His father nodded. “Now go. I’ll follow when my work here is done.”

Felix turned and swiftly made his way into his family’s townhouse. This proved, more than anything, the only people he could trust were his family and Benedict.

Felix would never make that mistake again