“So it’s happening,” Nathan said.

Samuel lowered himself to one knee so they were face to face. “What Jehovah said would happen does happen,” he replied. “But that doesn’t mean we stop trusting him. It means we trust him more.”

The congregation was changing too. Meetings were no longer held in the open. Communication became careful. Directions came through secure, discreet channels. Brothers and sisters began gathering in smaller groups, in private homes, quietly and with prayerful caution.

One evening, Samuel, Sasha, and Nathan entered the home of an older couple from the congregation just after sunset. The curtains were drawn. A lamp burned low in the corner. Shoes were set quietly by the door. Every voice inside the room carried the same quality—a deliberate softness that was not fear exactly, but awareness.

The older brother conducting the discussion read a scripture. No one rushed to comment. The words seemed to linger longer now, as if everyone knew they might need to live on them more deeply than before.

Nathan sat close to Sasha. Samuel kept one arm along the back of the sofa behind them both.

There was comfort in being together.

There was also strain.

Everyone in that room knew what the destruction of false religion meant prophetically.

And everyone knew what question remained.

When would the attack turn toward Jehovah’s people?