“But you did.”
The night presses in, colder.
I want to argue. I want to say I knew of Guido's brokenness before entering this church. That whatever Giovanni did to that boy’s mind is the real horror here—not my face in the dark.
It doesn’t matter.
Intent doesn’t erase what he saw.
I scrub at my eyes with the heel of my hand, harsher than I need to. “You think I enjoyed it?” My voice frays. “You think I get off on making children look at me like I’m some kind of fucking nightmare?”
His gaze doesn’t soften.
It burns.
“That boy’s been hunted by shadows his whole life,” Santino says quietly. “By men with guns and God on their tongues. By my father’s enemies. By our enemies. He finally finds a sliver of safety, and what does he see when he opens his door?”
His eyes rake down my body and back up, and I’ve never felt more naked while fully clothed.
“You,” he finishes. “In the dark. In our house. Wearing the same fear he breathes in his sleep.”
My breath stutters.
The courtyard shrinks. The walls edge closer. The church behind me presses in like a witness I never consented to.
“I was there to help you,” I say, clinging to the original script like it still matters. “I was there to get you out, to make sure you didn’t die down there. Him—” I falter. “I didn’t know he’d be there. I didn’t plan that.”
“That’s the problem,” Santino says. The dull grief in his voice sharpens into steel. “You don’t plan the collateral. You just collect it.”
The words drive straight through my chest.
“You don’t know me,” I snap, because if I don’t bare my teeth, I will collapse at his feet. “You don’t know what I’ve done to stay alive—what I’ve had to crawl through—”
“I know what I saw,” he cuts in.
Silence slams down between us.
The only sounds left are our breathing and the distant thrum of the city beyond the walls—cars, sirens, life moving on while we stand in a graveyard someone had the nerve to call holy.
I push myself up slowly, legs shaking but holding. Standing doesn’t make me bigger. It only puts us eye to eye, and there’s nothing safe in his gaze now.
He takes a step back.
Just one.
It isn’t much distance.
It’s everything else.
Something tears inside my chest—clean and vicious. I feel it, hot and raw, numbing my fingers from the inside out.
“Santino,” I say again, and there’s too much in it this time. Want. Guilt. A sound that borders on begging. “Don’t look at me like that.”
“Like what?” he asks, flat.
“Like I pulled the trigger on your entire fucking family.”
His face doesn’t crack.
