Chapter 3 Santino
Santino
The Sacristy as a Confessional of Shame
Islam the sacristy door behind me and grip the marble basin so hard my knuckles ache.Holy water shivers under the impact.
My lungs burn.My pulse is still fucked from the hallway.And her scent—Jesus Christ—it’s still on me. Warm skin. Rain. Something wild and dangerous I should’ve walked away from the second she said my name.
I bend forward and splash holy water across my face. Cold. Sharp. Punishing.Not enough.Not even close.
I do it again.
It still doesn’t drown out the memory of her back hitting the stone wall under my hands… or the sound she made when I touched her… or the way I almost kissed her like I’d been starving for a lifetime and she was the first taste of relief.
“Fuck,” I rasp, bracing both palms on the stone counter, head hanging. “What the hell is wrong with me?”
I told myself I chose God.Told myself I buried the heir, the enforcer, the Rivas blood that ruined everything it touched.
But what happened out there… that wasn’t holy.That was instinct.Blood.Violence.Giovanni.
My father’s shadow choked me from the inside out.
I squeeze my eyes shut hard enough to see sparks. For a moment, all I could hear was her breath. All I can feel is the warmth of her body against mine. All I can think about is how fucking good it felt to stop pretending.
I shove that thought down. Bury it. Beat it to death if I have to.
Because I’m not that man anymore.I left that world.
I left the violence.
I left Giovanni too.
Except blood doesn’t leave.It stains.It lingers.It fucking owns you.
I straighten slowly, gripping the basin again. My reflection in the silvered glass looks like shit—eyes too dark, jaw locked, water dripping down my collar like I’m drowning in my skin.
“Forgive me, Lord,” I whisper.
The words feel cracked. Hollow.
Because I can’t say the rest.Not when the truth is still pounding through my veins.
I wanted her.Not temptation.Not a weakness.Want.Raw. Visceral. Undeniable.
I wanted to touch her.Taste her.Rip that good-girl mask off and see the fire underneath.
My stomach twists hard. My hands curl around the counter again, fighting the urge to put my fist through the wall.
I’m losing control.I can feel it.A slow, ugly unraveling beneath the collar I swore would make me clean.
Her voice echoes through my head.
Is it a sin to tempt a man of God, Father?
Fuck her for saying it.Fuck me for reacting.Fuck the part of me that didn’t want to stop.
I drag my hands down my face like I should scrub her out of my blood, out of my thoughts—but she’s everywhere. A ghost under my skin. A bruise I can’t see but feel down to the bone.
I press my forehead to the cold stone wall behind the basin.
Shame crashes over me—heavy, stifling, unending.Desire.Anger.Fear.Obsession.
It combines with something toxic. Something familiar. Something I spent years praying would die.
But it didn’t.It just waited.Like a monster pacing its cage.
And tonight… Pia cracked the door open.
My breath shudders out.
“I’m not my father,” I whisper into the stone.
But the tremor in my voice betrays me.
Because for the first time in years…I’m not sure it’s true.
Confrontation with a Woman Who Isn’t Afraid
The sacristy is quiet except for the slow drip of holy water sliding from my jaw. My pulse hasn’t settled—can’t settle—not after what I did, not after the way her body felt pinned beneath mine. I brace a hand on the marble basin, trying to inhale steady air.
It doesn’t work.
Her scent is still on my skin—warm, wild, rain-soaked temptation—and it crawls under my ribs like a bruise I can’t ignore.
Then the air shifts.
A presence.A shadow.A pull I fucking recognize.
I turn.
Pia stands in the doorway like she belongs here. One hand resting on the frame, posture relaxed but alert, eyes locked directly on mine.
Not scared.Not apologetic.Not even shaken after what happened in that hallway.
That rattles me more than anything else.
She steps inside—slow, measured, claiming space she shouldn’t have. “I was… checking on you.”
The line is vague enough to be harmless, sharp enough to be deliberate.
“You don’t get to ask me that,” I bite out.
She doesn’t blink. “And yet you’re answering.”
My jaw tenses. “What game are you playing with me?”
Pia tilts her head, studying me like she’s memorizing my tells, my weaknesses, every fault line I’ve tried to bury. “Maybe I’m not playing.”
A beat.Then, soft as sin:
“Maybe you just want me too much.”
It hits low. Violent. Shameful in how true it feels.
I step forward without thinking—instinct, anger, something darker. She doesn’t move. Doesn’t retreat. She watches me like she sees straight through the collar, through the shame, through the years of denial… straight into the part of me I buried.
“That’s not fucking funny,” I growl.
“Feels true,” she murmurs.
My breath punches out of me. I try to claw back control—any control—because she’s unmaking me one thread at a time and she knows it.
“You came here under false pretenses,” I snap, pointing at her because it’s the only distance I can manufacture. “You lied the second you stepped into this church. Why?”
Her gaze shifts past my shoulder, landing on the crucifix above the sacristy door.
That small, silent look—God help me—cuts deeper than every word she’s thrown at me.
She whispers she does not intend to confess everything to God.
The air thickens.Forbidden.Heavy.Pulling us closer instead of pushing us apart.
I take another step, careful and slow. Her lips barely opened. Her breathing hitches. Her eyes lock onto mine as though waiting to see which part of me wins:
The priest.Or Giovanni’s son.
“You shouldn’t be here,” I say, my voice low, rough.
“Do you want me to leave?” she asks.
I open my mouth—nothing comes out.
She notices.She always notices.
Her voice dips again, soft, dangerous. “I’m not afraid of you, Santino.”
My name in her mouth is a sin that hits my bloodstream. “You should be.”
“Why?” she breathes. “Because you grabbed me? Because you wanted to?”
My hands curl at my sides. Shame spikes through me like a blade. “I didn’t—”
But we both know it’s a lie, and the truth is still burning across my skin.
She watches the cracks forming inside me—clean, ruthless, unavoidable.
“You’re not the monster you think you are,” she says quietly.
“You don’t know a fucking thing about me.”
Her gaze softens—not pity. Something sharper. I might know more than you wish.
The room feels too small.The walls are too close.Her too near.
“You should go,” I whisper.
Internal War: Priest vs Heir
I should walk away.
God knows I should.
I should create distance between us, between the sin still burning under my skin and the woman who stood before me, appearing as if she was carved from temptation itself.
But Pia doesn’t move.
She lingers in the doorway—close enough for the storm light to paint her cheek in silver, far enough that I can lie to myself and pretend she isn’t affecting me.
Except she is.She fucking is.
My pulse hasn’t slowed since the hallway.
My body still remembers the way she gasped when I touched her, the way I wanted to taste that sound.
And the worst part?
She knows.
She feels it in the room.
She stands still.
She watches me, calm and observant. It's like she expects me to break down.
I pace.
Slow, precise steps across the sacristy floor, circling her like a man looking for stable ground in an earthquake.
Like movement might shake her out of my system.
It doesn’t.
The air still crackles around us, charged and forbidden.
“You shouldn’t have come in here,” I say, voice low, still rough from everything I haven’t admitted.
She lifts one shoulder—small, almost careless. “You didn’t lock the door.”
"It's sacristy," I snap. "I don't want people to barge in."
Her eyes flick to mine. “You expected me to?”
I stop pacing.
My jaw clamps so tight I taste metal. “No,” I lie.
Her lips curl—small, sharp, knowing. “You’re terrible at lying.”
Jesus Christ.This woman.
A muscle jumps in my cheek—rage, restraint, desire, all tangled beneath my ribs.
She is dragging a version of me to the surface I swore would never see daylight again.
The heir I buried. The enforcer Giovanni forged before I ran to God for refuge.
I left that man behind.
But Pia?Pia pulls him forward without even touching me.
“What do you want from me?” I snap, more raw than intended.
She doesn’t flinch. “Why do you think I want anything?”
“Because people like you always want something.”
“People like me,” she echoes, voice soft but threaded with challenge.
“Liars,” I bite out. “Manipulators. The kind who pretend to be harmless so no one questions why they’re really here.”
Her chin lifts—not defensively, but acknowledging the hit. “I’m not pretending.”
I laugh once, humorless and sharp. “Bullshit.”
She takes a step toward me—one deliberate step—and my breath stutters before I can stop it. She sees. She always sees. And she uses it like a blade.
“There it is,” she whispers. “The part of you that you keep trying to hide.”
I step back. Not because I fear her—but because she’s peeling apart layers no one has touched in years… and I don’t know how to stop her.
“You don’t know a fucking thing about me,” I say again—too fast, too defensive.
“Maybe I know exactly enough.”
My heart hits hard against my ribs. Her gaze drags across my face—slow, deliberate, intimate in a way that feels like a touch. Then her eyes lock onto mine, reading every thought I didn’t speak.
And suddenly everything inside me splits open.
The priest in me wants her gone.The heir in me wants her closer.The man in me wants her against the wall again.
The collision of those truths hits like a fist to the chest.
The conflict rips out of me in a single, unfiltered question.
“Who sent you?”
Her brows lift—amused, not startled. “Is that what you think this is? A mission?”
She’s wrong.
What I really meant was: