What the hell does she want?
I force myself to stay in the role, even as something coils low in my spine.
“What did you come here for?” I ask.
She doesn’t hesitate.
“To take something back.”
The sentence cuts through the booth like a blade.
My heart kicks—not from fear but from recognition.
Take something back.
Not to confess.
Not seek solace.
Not ask forgiveness.
Take.
My pulse spikes, hot and unwelcome, and my mind runs through possibilities I swore I’d buried with Giovanni.
Has his old enemies sent her?
One family he crossed?
Someone who heard the whispers—that Giovanni hid things under this church that had nothing to do with God?
Or worse…
Does she already know what lies beneath these stones?
“I think you should leave,” I tell her, because suddenly the booth feels too small, too exposed, too fucking dangerous.
She ignores me.
“You heard me,” she says softly. “I came to take something back.”
My breath knots in my throat.
My fingers rise to my collar—an involuntary gesture I hate myself for. The little strip of white feels like it’s choking me.
This is wrong.
She is wrong.
And yet—
I can’t pull away.
Even through the thin wooden lattice, her attention feels like a hand closing around my throat.
She does not know who she’s playing with.
And God help me—
