She doesn’t hide.
She doesn’t beg.
My anchor.
Not the cross I burned out of my chest.Not the God who watched and did nothing.Not Giovanni and his throne of bones.
Her.
“Stay behind me,” I murmur.
My voice comes out wrong in the best way—low, quiet, dead calm. It doesn’t sound like a priest. It doesn’t sound like a son.
It sounds like something pulled from the earth and sharpened for one purpose.
Her grip tightens on my arm. “If they take you—”
“They won’t.”
No room for doubt.No room for argument.
I didn’t survive Giovanni’s fists—his loyalty lessons carved knuckle-deep into my ribs—just to die face-down on someone else’s concrete. I didn’t wear a collar for four years, confessing sins I didn’t regret to a God who never answered just to let Carlo’s leftovers write my ending.
If death wants me tonight, it can fight for the privilege.
I ease back half a step so her chest meets my spine. I feel her breath through my shirt. Feel her heat.
Real.
Anchoring.
The footsteps close in.
Left.
Right.
Behind the crates at nine o’clock.
They think they’re circling prey.
I roll my shoulders once, loosening muscle, feeling every old wound wake up—Giovanni’s temper, street lessons, alter guilt—everything tightening into something cold and lethal.
The priest who walked into this building already died downstairs. Somewhere between Carlo’s gun and Pia’s scream, the last of him burned out.
What’s left isn’t holy.
“Santino.”
Just my name.
It’s enough.
I swallow the last ragged scrap of hesitation like bad wine.
“Listen to me.” My eyes stay on the dark ahead. “If they shoot, you drop first. Stay low. Crawl if you have to. You don’t stop unless I tell you—or unless you’re outside.”
She shakes her head hard. “I’m not leaving you. I’m not—”
