I flip deeper.
The entries change—larger numbers, bigger risks, notes written faster. His handwriting sharpens, gets sloppy in places like he was writing in a rage.
Dates jump closer to the present.
I skim the margins—
—and my heart stops.
My name.SANTINO R.
The letters stare back at me, clean and undeniable, like a fist slamming into my chest.
I stop breathing.
It’s not listed beside an account.Not under “accomplices.”
It’s under a different header:
COVER.
The entry reads:
“Funds moved through the Bishop. No suspicion.”
For a moment, the words make little sense.
Then they do.
Bishop.
Not the title I refused.The role I played just by existing.
My presence at the church.My collar.My name.
Giovanni used me for cover.
All those “generous” donations to quiet projects, all those church repairs, all those checks he wrote under my parish’s umbrella—people trusted them because he had a son in the priesthood.
Why question the grieving widower whose son served God?
I wasn’t a son in his eyes.
I was a shield.A holy prop.A fucking smokescreen.
My throat tightens painfully.
I flip back a few pages, hunting for my name again—needing to know if it was a one-off or a pattern.
It’s a pattern.
SANTINO R. — appearance at charity gala.Funds cleared. No questions.
S.R. — presence confirmed at orphanage fundraiser.Transfer completed. LA account.
And the worst one:
“The Bishop’s shadow is enough.”
