Giovanni’s note.
My fingers go numb.
He used me even when I wasn’t there—just the idea of me.The good son.The priest.The boy who “escaped.”
I wasn’t running from sin when I joined the seminary.
I was walking straight into the machine powering his kingdom.
My stomach lurches.
I slam the ledger shut. The crack echoes through the vault like a gunshot. Dust trembles off the shelves. My pulse throbs in my ears.
I press the heel of my hand to my forehead, breathing hard.
All those years I thought if I stayed on my knees long enough, if I said enough Hail Marys, if I bled in ways that looked holy instead of violent… I could outrun him.
Outrun this.Outrun what he made me.
But my name is on these pages.
Permanent.Unforgiving.
Proof that I was never separate from Giovanni’s empire.
He wove me into it.A thread in his design.
My hand drags down my face, shaking. The room feels tighter. The ledgers stare back at me, dozens of black leather spines whispering the same truth:
You were part of it.You were always part of it.
I grip the spine again, knuckles white.
“I didn’t know,” I rasp. My voice sounds broken. “I didn’t fucking know.”
But the paper doesn’t care.
Numbers don’t care.
Intent doesn’t erase impact.Ignorance doesn’t erase blood.
I force my breath steady and flip to the most recent entries.
If Giovanni used me…who else did he use?
And which one did he mark the way he marked Pia’s father?
The answer isn’t here.
It’s deeper.Buried.
Waiting in the next ledger like a loaded gun.
What Giovanni Was Afraid Of
The air changes the moment I turn the page.
The ledgers were already a coffin of sins, but this — this feels different.
