The Perils of Pure Intention

Previously

…Her eyes, though filled with tears, held a spark of defiance, a fierce promise he couldn’t quite decipher. He clung to that image, that sliver of hope, as the heavy steel door clanged shut behind him, sealing him away from the life he knew, from the family he loved, from the pure intention that had led him down this dark and unforgiving path. The system he had trusted had not only failed him; it had consumed him. And as the cold, sterile reality of his new existence began to settle in, Elias Thorne, once a man of unwavering faith, was left with nothing but a bitter memory and the gnawing question of how a simple act of reporting a crime could lead to a decade of lost life.