But I don’t.
Not this time.
My eyes drop to the street. To the corner where the van swallowed the only honest thing in my life.
“Forgive me,” I say again.
And now I know exactly who I’m talking to.
Not God.
Pia.
Forgive me for doubting you.For letting you leave alone.For letting my father’s shadow touch you even after he was in the dirt.
Fog snakes around my ankles. Stone drains the heat from my bones. The thick wood and cold iron of the church doorsbehind me are locked, as if trying to hold me inside the life Giovanni carved for me.
But Pia isn’t inside.
She’s somewhere dark. Somewhere filthy. Somewhere that smells like blood and unfinished wars. Somewhere, men still speak the name Rivas like a curse.
My hands knot into fists.
This collar didn’t stop Giovanni from turning faith into theater.It didn’t stop me from becoming his weapon.And it sure as hell won’t bring her back.
Something small and exact fractures inside my chest.
Clean.Final.
Not belief.
That died years ago.
This is worse.
This is the moment I stop pretending the body is still warm.
I close my eyes once — just long enough to see her face slick with rain, lips forming don’t before they dragged her away.
Then I open them to the street.
To the truth.
“I’m sorry,” I murmur to her absence.
Sorry won’t save her.
But who will?
He won’t be wearing this collar when he walks into hell.
Removing the Collar: A Ritual of Rebirth
My hands shake when they rise to my throat.Not a weakness.Voltage.The kind that hums right before something dies.
The collar is still damp from fog and skin, edges curled where my body tried to claim it like it knew it was leaving. It’s obscene how small it is. How light. How easily I could rip it away like any other scrap of cloth.
But that’s the lie, isn’t it?
