Santino’s hand.
He tucks a strand of hair behind my ear—the same motion he used once when he was furious, shoving it aside so he could pin me with that cold, unrelenting stare.
But now…
Now his fingers are gentle.Tentative.“Pia,” he murmurs, leaning close enough that his breath grazes my cheek. “Don’t make me protect you blindly. Tell me what I’m protecting you from.”
My chest tightens, sharp and sudden.
He means it.
He killed for me tonight.He walked into the darkness for me.He chose me over his own soul without thinking twice.
And I’m still lying to him.
Something fragile inside me cracks—quietly, like ice splitting under weight.
“I can’t tell you everything,” I breathe. “Not yet.”
He doesn’t move. Doesn’t accuse. Doesn’t recoil.
He just waits.
So, I give him something small.Something true.Something that won’t destroy my plan but might keep him from pulling away.
“I’m not innocent,” I whisper.
The confession drifts between us like smoke.
His jaw shifts—barely.Not in anger.In understanding.
I swallow.
“But I’m not lying about my father.”
Silence folds over us, thick and heavy.
Santino exhaled unevenly, shakily, as the truth hit him. A place Giovanni carved out long before “Father Santino” ever existed.
He looks at me—really looks—and something in him softens.
For the first time since the moment I stepped into his life dripping with half-truths…
Santino believes me.
I see it in the slight drop of his shoulders, the subtle lean toward me he doesn’t notice, the way his gaze holds mine like he’s finally seeing with me, not through me.
“Pia…” he says, my name low and rough in his mouth.It sounds like surrender.
“I don’t want to be blind to you.”
A breath escapes me—thin, trembling, stolen off the edge of panic.
“You’re not,” I whisper.
Not the whole truth.But enough.
Enough to tether him.Enough to keep him close.Enough to make his belief—a dangerous, precious thing—feel like warmth I forgot existed.
