Just one ugly truth sitting in the middle of my chest:
I’m Giovanni Rivas’s son.
Pretending I’m not is what got us here.
“For the first time,” I say, my voice low and unfamiliar in my own ears, “I’m going to act like Giovanni’s son on purpose.”
Miguel flinches. It’s small, but I see it.
Good.
Someone should.
There’s no pride in it. No swagger. Just the acceptance you feel when you realize the bullet is too deep to pull out.
“I’m going to find out if Romeo killed our father,” I continue.
The words taste like gunpowder.
“And if he did…”
My jaw clamps. Pain hums up the side of my face. Images hit fast, viciously — Romeo as a boy, knuckles split, standing in front of me to take hits that weren’t his.Romeo as a teenager, grinning through a busted lip. Relax, Santo, I’ve got this.Romeo as a man, eyes too sharp every time Pia’s name comes up.
Miguel swallows. I hear it.
“You’d kill your own brother?” he asks quietly.
My eyes burn.
“I’ll judge him,” I say.
My voice doesn’t shake.
“Like he judged everyone else.”
The church absorbs it. No lightning. No thunder. No divine objection.
Of course not.
God checked out of this family a long time ago.
I turn from Miguel and face the altar one last time. The same stone where Giovanni posed for cameras, palms pressed like a saint while the tunnels below filled with ledgers and bones.
This stone watched him rule.
It’s about to watch me.
My gaze drags up the crucifix, tracing the carved ribs, the nails, the tilted head.
“Have you ever noticed something, Father?” I murmur.
Miguel steps closer. “What?”
“He’s not standing on anything,” I say. “Not the ground. Not heaven. Just hanging there.” I huff out a humorless breath. “That’s what you did to us. You and him. Left us dangling between mercy and justice and called it faith.”
Miguel’s face tightens, shame cutting through the lines time already carved.
I don’t let it move me.
