Santino doesn’t react.
The silence vibrates between them—dangerous, electric. My heartbeat pounds in my ears so loud I swear the whole alley can hear it.
Rocco shifts his stance, weight tilting onto his back foot, testing Santino, testing the space, testing me. His hand twitches near the pocket where he always kept his knife.
My vision blurs.
Not with tears — with fury.
Not because I’m scared — because I fucking remember.
The night my father died.The hands dragging me.The voice whispering lies and threats.The look in the scout’s eyes when he realized I wasn’t dead.
And now — he’s here.In this alley.Staring at me like unfinished business.
I feel Santino’s tension spike—sharp enough that my skin prickles.
Then Rocco smiles—slowly, cruelly, taunting.
“There she is,” he says softly. “The one that got away.”
My breath stutters.
Santino exhales—once, controlled.
And in that single breath, I recognize the shift.
The priest is gone.The heir is awake.And the man standing between me and Rocco?
He will let no one touch me.
Not tonight.Not ever.
Santino’s Darkness Unleashed
Rocco barely finishes his sentence before Santino moves.
It’s not priestly.It’s not holy.It’s not even human.
It’s pure Rivas blood.
One second Rocco is smirking—thinking he’s won, thinking he still owns the fear he carved into me years ago—
—and next, Santino is on him.
The impact is brutal.A crack of bone against brick that splits the night like a gunshot.
Rocco gasps, the sound punched out of him.
Santino’s hand clamps around his throat, knuckles white, jaw clenched with lethal fury. His other arm pins Rocco’s body to the wall, forearm braced across his chest, weight pressing in like he’s caging a threat—and he is.
“No one touches her,” Santino growls.
I’ve never heard his voice like this.Raw.Possessive.Murderous.
It sends a shock through me so hard I nearly sway.Not fear.Not safe.
Something darker.Something I shouldn’t feel.Something that fills the empty spaces inside me like wildfire.
