How many times did Giovanni stand here for photos—hands folded like a good man — while the ground beneath him swallowed men whole? Holy king. Family patriarch. Professional sinner with clean gloves.
I press my palms into the cloth.
My head bows.
I see Pia.
Her face when she said, I’ll leave.
Like she ripped herself open and handed me the damage.
Then—
Guido.
Those wide, ruined eyes at his bedroom door. Looking at her like she was the last ghost sent to finish what the others started. Like I invited death into his haven and asked it to tuck him in.
He’s just a kid. A fucking child trained by trauma and exile like its heritage. And still—somehow—we made the fear worse.
Good job, Father.
The title curdles in my mouth.
I grind my hands into the altar like I might break it for telling the truth too late. Bone protests. Wood answers.
Romeo flashes behind my eyes.
His name burned into Giovanni’s ledger in ink red from implication.
TRAITOR.
My brother’s name is in the same handwriting that ordered murder and signed checks for orphanages. Romeo laughing. Changing the subject. Disappearing when he shouldn’t. Looking at Pia like he recognized her as an incoming explosion.
I’m losing everyone in fractals.
Zina in exile.Guido afraid.Pia gone.Romeo buried under secrets.
And I’m standing in the single building pretending we’re not rotted to the root.
“Is this what you wanted?” I whisper to the glass.
My voice shatters and climbs into the rafters.
“For your sons to choke on your sins? To choose between blood and betrayal while you rotted comfortably in secrets under your own fucking altar?”
Christ hangs above me.
Nails through feet. Frozen in carved suffering.
I stare up at his pretty agony, sculpted just enough to be acceptable.
“You died for strangers,” I mutter.“He killed for his blood.”
Silence.
God doesn’t speak here. Only corpses do.
One candle gutters out.
