Carlo tilts his head, then reaches for the bucket. He plunges his hand into the slush like he’s blessing something already dead. Water sheets down his wrist. He lets one drop fall.
It strikes my knee like a bullet made of ice.
“We can take our time,” he says quietly. “Your priest gave us that luxury.”
I don’t answer.
I swallow.
Then I fix my eyes on the door like it’s a wound I’m trying to stitch closed with my will.
I imagine it.Count it.
I keep my mouth sealed and my heart loud enough to drown everything else.
I will not be the sound that breaks him.
Not now.Not ever.
Pia Takes the Pain Instead of Giving the Truth
Carlo doesn’t torture like a thug.He tortures like a man who learned patience the way other men learn music—by listening for the note that fractures everything.
He lifts the bucket and tips it slowly.
Meltwater spills down my wrists and slicks along my arms in thin, shocked ribbons. Every cut ignites, cold and heat colliding until my vision ghosts at the edges. It crawls along my ribs, seeps into the bruises flowering across my side, and pools in my lap like it plans to make a home there.
I bite the inside of my cheek until copper blooms on my tongue.
Carlo watches me the way a doctor reads a monitor.Not with concern.With appetite.
He sets the bucket aside and circles behind me, boots whispering over concrete. Then his hand fists in my hair and wrenches my head back until my spine bends like it might snap clean apart. My skull hums. Teeth knock together.
“You don’t get to look away,” he breathes.
He drags my head to one side and presses his thumb into a bruise he already mapped—one he tested once just to see where it screamed.
Light detonates behind my eyes.
I choke on it. Swallow it. Refuse the sound clawing for my throat.
I will not scream.I will not be his instrument.I will not give Santino that sound.
“You think you’re frightening?” I manage—voice cracked, but standing. “You think this is new?”
He leans into the pressure until stars scatter, and my body begs to disappear.
“You think Giovanni didn’t already take everything from me?” I spit.
Carlo releases me.
I fold forward just enough for air to exist again and gulp it like a thing stolen. He steps around into my line of sight and crouches until our eyes are level.
“Ah,” he murmurs. “There you are.”
His fingers skim my cheek—not kind, not cruel. A test touch. A lie.
“You handle pain well,” he says thoughtfully. “What you handle badly is loss.”
