Not even a twitch.
Instead, he moves in until the cold air can’t reach me anymore. Until our breaths tangle and the quiet itself seems to hold still just to listen.
“When I took off the collar,” he murmurs, “it wasn’t about walking away from God.”
My heart stumbles inside my ribs.
His hands come up slowly, carefully, reverent—like he’s afraid I might fracture beneath them. His fingers fold around my wrist, thumb brushing my pulse like he’s memorizing proof I can’t vanish on him.
“It was about choosing you.”
The words don’t arrive gently.
They land like impact.
They rewrite history.
My throat constricts so hard it burns behind my eyes.
“Santino—” I whisper, but he doesn’t let me collapse inward. He meets me in it.
He lifts my knuckles to his mouth and presses a kiss there that feels like confession and vow and apology tangled together.
“I spent my whole life being told who I was supposed to be,” he says quietly. “A soldier while I was still a boy. A saint before I ever learned how to sin. A son who never measured up. A judge who learned early that mercy always came with a body count.”
He lifts his eyes to mine.
A priest.
He never says it.
He doesn’t have to.
It lives in his bones.
“And the only time I’ve ever felt real,” he continues, “was when I was with you.”
Something caves in behind my eyes.
Not loud.
Not violent.
Soft.
The way glass finally gives when it’s exhausted pretending to be steel.
“Santino,” I breathe, but there is no language savage enough to hold what he’s just handed me.
“You saved me,” he says.
The air itself shudders.
“From him.”
My stomach knots.
“From myself.”
