Miguel finally speaks again.
“Giovanni didn’t know if Romeo would kill him,” he says. “But he knew Romeo could.”
I nod once.
Small.
Final.
“I know it too.”
The truth clicks into place too easily.
Romeo isn’t chaos.
He’s precise.
A blade waiting in plain sight.
And if he did this—
If he murdered our father—
If he used our family as kindling—
Then he is not my brother anymore.
He is a sentence.
And I am done pretending priests don’t know how to pass them.
Something inside me turns over.
Locks.
I’m not standing in a church.
I’m standing at the edge of a throne I never wanted.
And it’s screaming my name.
The Future King Steps Forward
Miguel watches me like a man staring at a ledge, waiting to see if I step off or jump.
The candles spit and crackle, wax sliding down their sides like slow blood. The church feels smaller now—tight, suffocating. Like the walls finally understand what’s been happening inside them and want out.
“What are you going to do?” he asks.
Not as a priest.
As a man who knows some answers don’t come back clean.
I straighten slowly, fingers peeling off the pew. My knees complain. My spine doesn’t. It locks.
For the first time tonight, the noise in my head dies.
No Pia disappearing through the gate.No Guido’s eyes blown wide with fear.No Romeo laughing.
