Black, unmarked except for two red letters:
P.M.
Pietro Moretti.My father.
My throat closes so hard I nearly choke. My vision blurs as I touch the tape like it might crumble beneath my fingertips.
“No,” I breathe. “Please… no.”
But I’m already reaching for the old recorder Giovanni kept beside the safe—a relic for collecting confessions he didn’t want digitized. My fingers shake violently as I push the cassette into place.
The recorder clicks.Whirs.Engages.
I press PLAY.
Static crackles.Then—
Giovanni’s voice fills the chamber.
Cold.Precise.Unhurried.
“You should not have seen that report, Pietro.”
My breath rushes out in a tremble.
Then — the voice I’ve been chasing for years.The one I feared I’d forgotten.
My father.
“I stole nothing,” he says, strained, pleading. “I swear to you, Giovanni—I only checked the numbers because they didn’t add up.”
My hand flies to my mouth as a sound breaks out of me—small, wounded, uncontrollable.
Giovanni’s reply is soft.
Too soft.
“You were loyal. That makes this unfortunate.”
A scuffle.Fabric scraping stone.A chair tipping.My father’s choked cry.A sharp blow.A wet, strangled sound that tears something open inside my ribs.
“Someone has to take the fall,” Giovanni murmurs. “And you… you will die quietly.”
I slam the PAUSE button.
A sob rips out of me—raw, violent, impossible to contain. I fold forward, one hand braced against the table, the other pressed hard to my mouth as if that could stop the scream clawing its way up my throat.
This is it.
This is the proof I’ve hunted my entire life.My father’s innocence.Giovanni’s guilt.My revenge, crystallized in cheap plastic and dying breath.
I force myself upright—barely. My chest burns. My eyes sting. I don’t remember the last time I cried like this, like something is being torn out of me piece by piece.
But now—
Now Santino exists in this world.In this blood.In this sin.
And I am falling for him.
