“If I get out,” I repeat, stubborn. “I won’t forget this. I won’t forget you.”
Silence stretches between us, tight as wire.
Softly, through steel and shadow:
“Good.”
The door does not move again.
But the air still whispers.
And somewhere beyond the vault, something is already waiting.
Pia Wants to Tell Him Everything… But Can’t Yet
Silence settles between us, thick enough to taste.
Not the kind that feels safe or soft.
This one is heavy. Watching. Waiting. Listening to everything I’m not saying.
My head rests against the steel, eyes closed, breath still unsteady from… all of it. The chamber smells of metal and old blood and my fear. My clothes cling to my skin—damp with sweat, with tears I swore I wouldn’t shed, with the ghost of everything I just let happen between us through six inches of steel.
His voice cuts through the dark—low, rough, close enough that I feel it in my bones.
“Pia… what were you trying to tell me?”
My chest tightens so fast it hurts.
He heard it.
The almost-confession. The words that slipped out between I need you and God forgive me. The truth that’s been living in my heart since the day my father’s body hit the floor.
The coded map in my pocket.The evidence hidden in my coat.The cassette tape and Giovanni’s voice promising a quiet death.
Why I came here.What I really want.What I’m going to do.
I swallow and lean harder into the cold steel. The chill bleeds up my spine.
“I—” My voice scrapes free, small and raw. “I wasn’t ready.”
The admission tastes wrong. Weak. Not like me at all.
I’m the girl who walked into a Rivas church with a knife and a plan. The one who lied to their priest and smiled while doing it.
Now I’m shaking in the dark, afraid of my own truth.
On the other side, he exhales—a slow, steady breath. Not angry. Not accusing.
Just… there.
Waiting.
Of course he is.
That’s what he does.He waits you out. Like confession is inevitable.
“Tell me now,” he murmurs, softer than I’ve ever heard him. “You don’t have to hide anymore.”
