My fingers peel off Rocco’s throat one by one, stiff and reluctant, like they don’t want to let go. His head drops back against the stone with a flat, ugly thud that echoes through the chapel and burrows under my skin.
I sit back on my heels, chest heaving, sweat cooling at the base of my neck.
For a moment, all I can hear is my breathing.Harsh.Ragged.Wrong.
Then I look at my hands.
They’re shaking. Split knuckles. Blood smeared in dark, uneven streaks.
These aren’t a priest’s hands.
Priests bless.Absolve.Lay hands on the dying and offer mercy.
These hands don’t know mercy.
These are Giovanni’s hands.Hands that kill for the family.Hands that fix problems in blood.
My heartbeat slams against my ribs like it’s trying to break out. Nausea rolls through me so hard I have to brace one palm against the floor to keep from folding over.
Because I know what I’ve done.And I know what it means.
I crossed a line I swore I’d never touch again.
And yet—
Under the sickness, under the shock, beneath the thin shell of Father Santino and his pretty vows…
I feel powerful.
That’s the part that terrifies me.
The rush is still there, buzzing under my skin. The certainty. The brutal simplicity.
He was a threat.I removed him.She’s alive.
Nothing in confession, nothing in scripture, nothing in the catechism has ever felt that clean.
Behind me, Pia’s uneven breaths break the silence.Soft.Shaky.Too loud in the still air.
I don’t turn around.
Not yet.
I’m afraid of what I’ll see in her eyes—fear, disgust, the confirmation that I’ve become exactly what I swore I wouldn’t be. Giovanni’s heir in all the worst ways. A priest who kills when it suits him.
I stare at my shaking hands a moment longer, flexing my fingers, watching dried blood crack across my knuckles.
Who the fuck am I now?
The man with the collar?Or the one who just snapped a neck without hesitation?
“San…”
Her voice reaches me first—small, raw, too close.
I force myself to turn. Slowly.
She isn’t where I left her.She’s steps away from the wall—steps toward me.Just a few feet now. Bare inches from where Rocco lies cooling on the stone.
