A faint scuff cuts across the dust ahead.
I stop cold.
There — a dragged footprint, sliding sideways like someone stumbled. I crouch and brush my fingers through the disturbed dust. The grit clings to my skin.
“Good,” I whisper. “Just stay alive, Pia.”
I keep going, lantern raised, breath tight.
The tunnel narrows, the ceiling dipping low enough that my hair brushes cold stone. The shadows stretch longer. Deeper. My free hand stays flexed at my side — ready to grab, block, strike, kill. Whatever the hell waits for me up ahead.
Another smear catches the lantern’s glow. Dark. Shiny. Fresh.
Blood.
“Fuck.”
I lift the lantern higher.
And that’s when I hear it.
A voice — low, sharp, familiar enough to send a bolt of black anger straight down my spine.
“…you didn’t think we’d stop looking for you, did you?”
Rocco.
Rocco fuckin’ Rocco.
Every muscle in my body goes still. My breath dies in my throat. The flame of the lantern shivers as if it wants to hide.
I snuff it out.
Darkness swallows me whole.
Good.
Let the monster come out.
I blink until my eyes adjust, until shapes sharpen in the faint glow spilling from somewhere up ahead — a side chamber, carved into the stone decades before I was born. Giovanni always called it the chapel of debts.
They settled debts with blood down here.
Rocco has her inside it.
I move silently, hugging the wall, breath slow, controlled, every instinct sharpened to a lethal point. The closer I get, the louder their voices become — the scrape of boots, the tremor of Pia’s breath, the uneven rhythm of fear she tries to hide.
I reached the threshold.
And the world narrows to one sight.
Pia.Pinned against the wall.Rocco’s hand gripping her shoulder hard enough to bruise.A knife gleaming near her ribs.
Her breath shivers.But her eyes — those fucking eyes — burn with fight.
Rocco leans in, voice dripping venom.
“You’re worth too much to too many people, sweetheart.”
