He turns sharply.
His head snaps toward the alcove where I hide.
My breath stops cold.
Did he hear me?Sense me?Smell the shift of air?
His stare slices through the shadows like a blade—sharp, suspicious, lethal. I press deeper into the darkness, but it doesn’t matter. Something in him already feels me, like instinct.
Santino takes one slow step toward the alcove.
My pulse slams.
Another step.
My lungs tighten.
Another.
The storm outside cracks, lightning throwing a jagged flash across the stone floor—and in that frozen, breathless slice of time, his eyes lock directly onto mine.
He freezes.I freeze.
And in his eyes—suspicion flares into something darker. Hotter. Sharper.
He didn’t see me clearly.He didn’t see everything.But he saw enough.
Enough to know I’m here.Enough to know I’ve been listening.Enough to know I am not who I pretend to be.
His voice drops into a rough whisper, low enough to shake the shadows.
“Who the hell is there?”
I don’t move. Can’t move.
He steps closer, breath taut, shoulders squared, the predator in him rising—one heartbeat away from dragging me into the open and pinning me to the stone until I confess every truth I’ve buried.
One more inch.One more breath.One more second—
And everything shatters.
His voice cracks the silence again.
“Come out.”
My entire body coils—fear, adrenaline, and something dangerously close to desire burning through my veins.
Because if I step into the light now, everything changes.Everything breaks.Everything I came here to do twists into a dangerous, impossible tangle of him.
I hold my breath—
—I hold still hidden in the dark,Santino staring straight into the shadows,both of us seconds from detonating the truth between us.
5
Santino
The Hallway of Sins Waiting to Happen
