A pull I can’t ignore.
The key glints in my fist.
I grab my coat, shove my feet into my shoes, and step into the hallway. The church is silent except for the storm, shadows stretching long across the stone floor. I move quickly, quietly, past the empty sanctuary, past the altar dripping candle wax, past the confessionals that suddenly feel like lies in wooden boxes.
I reach the hidden stairwell.
I descend into the underworld beneath my father’s church.
The key burns in my hand the entire way down.
The Door That Should Never Be Opened
The tunnels feel different tonight.They always smelled of damp stone and old incense—a graveyard’s breath trapped underground. But now the air has weight. Pressure. Like something is holding its breath with me. Like the walls know exactly where I’m going—and what I’m about to wake.
I move fast, but my steps stay controlled. Each footfall echoes in sharp, rhythmic bursts along the curved stone. The storm above sends vibrations through the ceiling, rattling dustloose from the archways. The whole church feels like it’s groaning.
Or warning me.
The key in my hand drags my arm down, heavy as sin.A serpent coiled around a crown, that's Giovanni's crest, and it gleams when lightning flashes. His favorite symbol. His philosophy carved into metal:
Power belongs to the one willing to hold the knife.
My throat tightens. I swallow hard and push deeper.
The air thickens.The temperature drops.The silence stretches.
And then I see it.
The vault door.
It rises from the stone, fossil-like—huge, arched, and carved with the serpent-and-crown emblem. With surgical precision, Giovanni's initials etched the center plate beneath the crest.
GPR.Giovanni Pietro Rivas.Father. King. Tyrant.Liar.
The same door Pia had reached for earlier.The same door that refused her touch.
Good.
Because whatever is behind it…It’s not meant for her.
And it sure as fuck wasn’t meant for me.
I stop directly in front of it.My pulse slows.Steadies.
The key slides into the lock as if it has always belonged there—as if Giovanni planned this moment long before I ever arrived.
I rotate it.
The metal resists.
A tension crawls up my arm, the lock bracing against me. Like the vault is alive, jaw clenched around the secrets buried inside.
My teeth grind.
“Open,” I mutter, voice ripping out of me from some place deep—somewhere exhausted, furious, and done with being haunted.
I twist harder.
