With my chest.
He exhales.
Long.
Unsteady.
And my lungs follow without permission.
We breathe together.
Like something ancient.
Like something learned in another life.
The underground hums. Pipes groan. Water drips somewhere behind us like a ticking clock counting down something neither of us can name.
Then even that fades.
The fortress dissolves.The Rivas machine grinds to dust.
There is only this.
Steel.Breath.
Two wrecked souls pressed onto the same axis.
I close my eyes.
Let the dark take me.
Finally safe enough to come apart.
My throat burns.
The words lodge first—thick and raw—but once they start, I can’t stop them.
“You saved me,” I whisper.
My voice shatters the silence like glass.
The confession is barely sound.
“Twice now,” I add, lips trembling as the truth pushes harder. “You didn’t have to.”
My face presses into my knees.
I wait for the answers men like him are trained to give.
Denial.Deflection.Jokes.Strategy.
Instead—
“You’re wrong,” Santino murmurs.
His voice seeps through the wall, low and soft—
—and lethal in sincerity.
