“What does that mean?” I demand, stepping closer, cutting down what’s left of the space between us. “Who’s hunting me? Why are you—”
But I stop.
Because her eyes flick past my shoulder.
A tiny movement.A single shift.
Then—
A shadow crosses the stained-glass window.
Not the storm.Not headlights.Human.Still.Watching.
Footsteps echo in the hallway—light, deliberate, not belonging to anyone who should be in this part of the church.
Every muscle in my body freezes.
Pia reacts first.Of course she does.
While I’m still processing the threat, she backs away—not toward me, not toward the main door—but toward the narrow exit on the far side of the sacristy.
“Santino,” she whispers, urgency slipping beneath the softness, “you need to understand—this isn’t about your church. It isn’t even about me.”
I move toward her, but she’s already shifting, already planning, already gone.
She slips through the door with a quickness that screams training, not instinct.
“Pia—wait—”
But the storm swallows her whole.
The sacristy feels cavernous and empty without her, the stained glass trembling under the roar of the wind. The footsteps vanish. Whoever was listening is either gone…
…or hiding somewhere I can’t see.
I force myself to breathe.Slow.Controlled.A lie.
Control is a memory now.
I look down at the parchment in my hand.Giovanni’s handwriting glares back at me.
A map.A code.A door hidden beneath my feet.A secret older than my priesthood.Older than my guilt.
Older than my defiance.
My throat tightens.
“What did you do, Father?” I whisper, the words scraping out raw.
Thunder cracks so violently it rattles the bones of the church.
And for the first time since Giovanni died—
I feel him here.
Not as a ghost.
As a threat.
