He still doesn’t break free. He just stares at me with that infuriating Rivas calm—the same look Giovanni wore before he ruined someone’s life.
Romeo’s jaw twitches. “If you open that vault,” he says slowly, “you’ll wish you never did.”
The air freezes.
My grip loosens—not because I choose to let go, but because my body reacts before my mind does. The warning lands in the place I don’t look too closely. The place where Giovanni’s dying confession still festers. For years, I pretended that my ribs didn't have that place carved into them.
Romeo sees it.
He straightens a fraction, breath evening out. When he speaks again, his voice is lower, stripped of sarcasm and sharpened to a quiet threat.
“You’re not ready, San.”
The words hit center mass—right where Giovanni’s approval used to sit, right where guilt still crawls like a parasite.
“You think you’re the saint in this family,” Romeo says. “But Dad didn’t build this place for saints.”
The truth slices, clean and merciless.
I know he's right. I hate that he's right. Part of me is terrified he's always been right.
My fingers slip from his shirt. Slowly. Reluctantly. Like peeling my hand away from fire. The anger doesn’t fade—it condenses, sharp and heavy in my chest.
Romeo watches me with an expression I can’t place. Not pity. Not anger. Not even hatred.
Resignation.
The look a man gives before he walks out knowing whatever happens next might damn everyone still standing behind him.
I take one step back.
He doesn’t move.
For a long, suffocating moment, we just breathe the same stale crypt air, surrounded by the bones of the king who raised us to break each other.
Romeo moves first.
He pushes off the sarcophagus. Brushes dust from his jacket. Turns toward the door like we didn’t just threaten to tear each other—and this room—apart.
At the threshold, he pauses.
Doesn’t look back.
Doesn’t need to.
His voice pierces the darkness:
“Whatever you’re looking for… you won’t like what you find.”
The words echo down the stone walls, across Giovanni’s carved name, straight into my spine.
The crypt door slams behind him.
And I’m alone again — with the dead king and every secret he left rotting beneath our feet.
The Missing Key
The crypt feels bigger once I’m alone.
