Like that’s what part of me did when I watched my father stumble backward, red blooming across his chest like some sick fucking flower. His eyes never left mine. Like he was trying to apologize for dying.
Santino’s jaw tightens.
His hand curls once at his side and doesn’t loosen.
"I found out later," I forced out, "that someone buried the only proof that showed my father was innocent—the ledger that showed Giovanni arranged everything—under the church." Locked away with all your father’s other sins. Entombed like holy relics.”
I lift my gaze to his.
No shelter left.
“I came to you because you were the key.”
The confession tastes like copper.
“The priest’s son. The unwanted heir. The man who stood with one foot in faith and the other in blood. You were the lock. The church was the door.”
My hands are shaking so hard around the rosary that the beads bite through the skin.
“I lied to get close,” I say. “I practiced being soft. Practiced being harmless. I memorized your routines. Learned the tunnels. Counted the steps from altar to vault. Listened when your brothers talked like I wasn’t even standing there.”
My mouth trembles.
“I was going to seduce you just enough to get what I needed and disappear.”
There it is.
The rotten truth.
The one I never believed I’d say out loud.
“I came to steal from you and leave you bleeding,” I whisper. “That was the plan. That was all I was ever supposed to be.”
I breathe in, and it almost destroys me.
“But then you looked at me like I wasn’t poisonous.”
My voice collapses to nothing.
“And I didn’t know how to survive that.”
The Moment She Admits She Fell First
I force myself to hold his gaze even though every instinct in me is screaming to look away.
“I didn’t mean to fall for you,” I say, my voice stripped raw between us.
My throat tightens. My chest aches.
“I didn’t mean to care if you slept,” I whisper. “If you ate. If you prayed to a God who never showed up.”
The words come slower now—delicate, dangerous—like they’ll shatter if I press them too hard.
Santino doesn’t move.
Doesn’t blink.
He watches me with that lethal stillness, like he’s bracing for impact… or deciding whether to become it.
