I hate that wanting him to stay hurts worse than the idea of facing Giovanni’s ghost alone.
My fingers lift from my knee and drift to the door. I press on the steel without thinking, searching for him like instinct alone knows the way. The metal is cold—but beneath it, faint heat hums back.
Him.
Always there.
“I can’t…” I whisper. “Not all of it. Not yet.”
The words feel like failure.
I brace for disappointment—sharp breath, clipped reply, the scrape of him stepping away.
Instead, he stays.
I hear the quiet shift of his body against the other side of the door, like he’s coming closer instead of retreating.
He says, “Give me whatever you can afterward.” “Keep the rest until you’re ready.”
My eyes burn.
Who does that?
Who lets someone ration the truth?
Who takes scraps and calls it enough?
This man.
This priest.
This fucked-up, dangerous, loyal son of the man who ruined my life.
“I don’t know where to start,” I admit, my voice cracking. “Everything feels like a trap.”
“For who?” he asks gently. “You… or me?”
I squeeze my eyes shut.
“Both.”
The honesty slips out before I can catch it.
A beat.
After that—
"We will enter it together," he whispers. “When you’re ready.”
Something splinters inside my chest.
I want to collapse into it—into him, into the idea that maybe, just once, I won’t have to carry every secret alone.
But I can’t.
Not yet.
Not with Giovanni’s voice burning a hole through my pocket.Not with my father’s blood on his family’s hands.Not with the tape that could end him and his brothers resting over my heart.
