Emiliano doesn’t look away from me as he adds, almost gently:
“Turn around, Bishop.”
I don’t.
For one stubborn, suicidal heartbeat, I hold his stare and curl my fingers tighter around the knife.
Pia’s nails dig into my back.
“Santino,” she breathes. “Please.”
The plea is enough.
I turn.
Slow.
Be careful.
The lantern light barely catches the outline of the man now standing further down the tunnel behind us—gun raised, stance steady, eyes unreadable in the dark.
Not a stranger.
Not a guard.
Family.
“Step away from her,” the voice says.
And every piece of my world tilts.
Because I know that voice.
I grew up fighting it.
Praying beside it.
Bleeding for the same man it worshipped and feared.
“Romeo,” I whisper.
The tunnel holds its breath.
And so do I.
16
Pia
The Courtyard in Ruins
The cold hits me like a slap the second Santino drags me out of the tunnel—then lets go. Stone swallows our shadows. The darkness presses close. The courtyard is dead, empty, echoing, the place that remembers every sin ever dragged across its ground.
My lungs burn. White fog spills from my mouth with every ragged breath. My pulse hasn’t caught up with my body yet. My boots are still on the dirt, my skin is on edge, and Santino’s hand is clamped around my wrist. He is holding it as if he fears letting go would cause me to be swallowed.
I should shake from that.
I’m not.
