Chapter 5 Santino #4
Her lips part. No sound comes out. For a second, the bravado slips and something else breaks through—something that looks terrifyingly like a plea.
Not for forgiveness.Not for mercy.
For a witness.
She doesn’t want to be invisible.She doesn’t want to run alone.
“I told you,” she whispers. “I’m not here for God.”
Her eyes lock onto mine, unblinking.
“And I’m not here to save you.”
The words should feel like a bullet.Instead, they feel like the truth—raw, unfiltered, unavoidable.
She isn’t here to redeem me.She’s here to drag me to the edge of the same darkness that made me.
My darkness.Giovanni’s darkness.The kind that leaves scars on bones, not skin.
And I’m walking toward it anyway.
I inhale, slow and raggedly.
“Then why are you here?” I ask.
She hesitates.
For the first time, she doesn’t have an answer ready.
And in that silence—heavy, charged, dangerous—I feel it creeping in, cold and deliberate:
Whatever brought her into this church…whatever she’s protecting...whatever ghost she’s chasing…
…it’s already tied to mine.And its shadow is getting closer.
The Shadow in the Hallway
Pia walks ahead of me, her steps quick, her shoulders tense, like the hallway itself has teeth.
The old rectory is darker at night—narrower somehow.
Every shadow feels alive, breathing, watching.
Part of me tells myself I’m imagining it.
The other part—the one Giovanni carved out of bone and instinct—knows better.
I slow my steps, letting my senses sharpen. The storm pressing against the stained glass murmurs like a warning, the candlelight flickering in uneasy patterns. My breathing adjusts, falling into the quiet, measured rhythm my father drilled into us. The predator’s breath. The hunter’s calm.
I take one step after her.
Then I see it.
A shape detaches from the far end of the corridor.
Tall.Broad.Wrong.
Not Dante—too big.Not Romeo—too quiet.Not a parishioner—parishioners don’t move like that.
This one moves like a ghost trained to kill.
My whole body locks. A violent, instinctive stillness. My lungs freeze mid-breath.
“Pia—” I try to warn her, but the word catches, swallowed by the silence.
The figure shifts—one fluid step backward—then dissolves into the darkness like the shadows open a mouth and swallow him whole. Every muscle in my body draws tight, coiling, ready to strike or shield or both.
The hair on the back of my neck stands on end.
Someone is in my church.
Not a Rivas.Not a volunteer.Not a fucking friend.
A hunter.
And they’re here for her.
Pia finally hears my footsteps—too fast, too sharp—and turns. Her eyes widen when she sees the look on my face.
“What is it?” she breathes.
I don’t answer.
Instinct takes over. I reach for her arm, gripping her firmly—no room for softness—pulling her behind me as my body moves automatically into the position Giovanni drilled into us when we were barely old enough to hold guns.
Protect.Shield.Kill if necessary.
My voice comes out low and lethal, the priest long gone, the heir standing in his place.
“You are not safe here.”
She blinks, confusion flickering into fear. Genuine fear. The kind she can’t mask even with all her practiced lies.
“What do you mean? Who—”
“There’s someone in this hallway,” I growl. “Someone is watching you.”
Her breath stutters. She looks over my shoulder, but the corridor is empty now—just candlelight flickering against stone and shadows clinging too close.
“Stop,” she whispers, shaking her head. “Don’t—don’t scare me like that.”
“I’m not fucking scaring you. I’m telling you what I saw.”
She swallows hard.
And her mask fractures.
The confident woman who lies easily, who pushes me until I snap, who pretends she’s untouchable—that facade slips right off her bones. What’s left is raw and shaken.
She believed me.
Finally, fucking believed me.
My pulse kicks faster—fury, adrenaline, and a darker edge crowding my veins. Whoever that man was… he wasn’t afraid of being seen. He wanted me to notice. He wanted me to know Pia isn’t running from shadows—
—she’s being hunted by someone willing to walk onto holy ground to get her.
“Stay behind me,” I say.
She doesn’t argue.
That scares me more than the fucking shadow did.
I step forward, scanning the corridor. My senses flare wide, catching everything—the draft whispering along the floor, the tremble of a warped wooden beam, the faint metallic tang of something that doesn’t belong here.
But there’s nothing now.
Only the echo of danger.Only the memory of that silhouette slipping into the dark.Only the knowledge that someone crossed into my sanctuary without hesitation.
Pia touches my arm—barely. A whisper of contact.
But it jolts through me like a brand, sharp and territorial.
“Santino…” she says softly, “who would follow me?”
I turn just enough to catch her eyes.
And I tell her the truth neither of us wants to face.
“Someone who knows exactly who you are.”
Her inhale trembles—fear curling through her like smoke.
“And someone who’s not afraid to break into a church to get to you.”
Her fear turns to ice.My rage turns to fire.And something else coils low inside me—dark, violent, promising retribution.
I take her hand—because I need her close, because I need to keep her alive, because I can feel the threat circling us like a wolf—and pull her deeper into the rectory.
This night is not over.This danger is not over.This obsession between us sure as hell isn’t over.
The storm rattles the stained glass. Thunder rolls like distant artillery. Candle flames bow low, trembling.
And in that trembling light, I understand the most terrifying truth so far:
Whoever is hunting Piawants her badly enoughto walk through God’s houseto take her.
And I will kill him before I let that happen.