His hand slides from my wrist to my arm, up my skin like he’s tracing every place I’ve broken and claiming it as something holy instead. His palm settles high on my shoulder—grounding. Steady. Possessive in the way only safety ever is.
“I’m not a good man, Pia,” he whispers, and I hear the scar beneath every word. “I’m violent. I’m angry. I’m full of things that would make decent people turn away.”
He leans in until our foreheads meet.
“But I am yours.”
My knees nearly buckle.
It isn’t a confession.
It’s a surrender on his knees without ever kneeling.
My face breaks open anyway.
Tears fall before I can stop them—hot, quiet, unstoppable. He wipes them away without comment, thumb rough, touch steady.
“Santino…” I whisper. “I don’t deserve you.”
The words come from somewhere ancient inside me. A voice built by men who taught me love always came with a ledger. With interest. With pain.
He answers without slipping.
Without softening.
He takes my face in his hands like he’s anchoring me to this moment and will not let me drown backward.
“You’re wrong.”
Not sharp.
Not cruel.
Certain.
“You’re the only thing I’ve ever wanted that wasn’t a sin.”
The world tilts.
Not because I’m unsteady.
Because something inside me just rearranged itself around that truth.
I close my eyes.
Not to hide—
To survive.
“And I’m afraid,” I admit, voice finally allowed to fracture. “Not of you. Of what it means if this is real. Of what happens if I stop bracing for everything to be ripped away.”
His hands slide to my ribs, gentle over the ache, arms circling me like he would suture me into his body if I asked.
“Then lose it with me,” he murmurs into my hair. “If it burns, it burns together. If it breaks, it breaks on both of us.”
I breathe in the truth.
Smoke.Soap.Warm skin.
