I draw a breath that barely makes it past my ribs.It shakes on the way out.
“I told you I wasn’t here for God.”My voice is thin, scraped raw. “That part was true.”
Santino doesn’t move.He stands there as if he’s carved out of shadow—broad shoulders, jaw locked, blood drying on his collar like a warning only I can read. The small lamp on my nightstand throws his profile into sharp planes, dividing him between light and dark. Salvation and sin in the same man.
His rosary glints against his chest.Accusation.Temptation.Both.
My fingers twist together in my lap. I force myself to look at him.
“My father worked for Giovanni once,” I say. “Not directly. Just… on the edges. A numbers man. Quiet. Careful. He handled ledgers for a small faction under the Rivas.”
Santino’s expression barely shifts.
“What did he find?” he asks.Straight to the blade.
I swallow, anger tightening behind my ribs—not at Santino, but at memory sinking its claws in again.
“He found something he wasn’t supposed to see.”
The lamp flickers. The shadows crawl up the wall as if they’re listening.
“He found proof Giovanni framed him,” I whisper. “Proof my father didn’t steal from the Rivas. Proof he didn’t betray anyone.”
This part always cuts deepest.
My throat closes. When the next words come, they barely sound at all.
“Giovanni had him killed anyway.”
The room goes still.
Santino exhales slowly—like the truth punches straight through bone. He looks toward the wall, but I can tell he isn’t seeing it. His gaze goes distant, past the room, past the present. Toward ghosts only he knows.
“My father…” He swallows, voice low. “Did many things I didn’t know about.”
A bitter laugh slips out of me, hollow and small.
"They took everything from us," I say. “My home. My future. My father’s name.”
My arms wrap around my ribs. “After he died, they called him a thief. A traitor. They spat on his grave.”
Santino turns his head toward me—slowly, like the truth weighs more than he expected.
My voice softens into a whisper.The kind you only admit when there’s no turning back.
“I came here to get it back.”
The words sit between us—fragile and sharp enough to draw blood.
One truth.Not the whole one.
Santino watches me, shoulders tense, eyes dark with something torn between pity and something far more dangerous. He looks like a man split in half—the priest who wants to rise above violence, and the son shaped by it.
He steps closer. Not touching. Not sitting. Just shifting into my space, tightening the air between us.
“Pia,” he says—my name rough in his mouth. “If what you’re saying is true—”
“It is.”
