Chapter 6 Pia #2
I shiver. The alley feels too small, too loaded, like the air itself is crackling from the force of Santino’s rage.
Rocco’s gaze darts to me—desperate, hateful, pleading for mercy he doesn’t deserve.
I don’t move.
Santino notices.His grip tightens.
“This is what you do?” Santino hisses. “This is who you follow? Men who torture women? Who hunts them down like animals?”
Rocco’s breath rattles in his chest.
Santino’s voice drops to a whisper that scrapes straight down my spine.
“You should have died the first time you touched her.”
My knees nearly buckle.
His fury isn’t aimless. It isn’t blind. It’s pointed—at Rocco, at the faction that murdered my father, at the nightmares clawing at my heels.
Anyone who dares think I’m unprotected.
A new crack fractures open inside me, sharp and bright.
Santino shouldn’t care.Not like this.Not violently.Not protectively.Not obsessively.
And yet—
He does.
I feel it in every inch of him.
He won’t let anyone take me.Not again.Not ever.Not while he’s still breathing.
Rocco’s knees give out. His face reddens, eyes bulging, breaths thin and broken. Santino is seconds away from crushing the last air out of him.
And I should stop this.I should say something.
But when my mouth opens—
nothing comes out.
Because the truth is terrifying:
I don’t want him to stop.Not yet.
The Moment Pia Chooses Him
The alley reeks of fear.And blood.And something else—heat, tension, possession.
The air is thick with it, hot and suffocating despite the cold night. It coils around us, sinks into my skin, crawls straight down my spine. I can taste metal at the back of my throat from the brick dust drifting through the air. Rocco’s strangled breaths stutter like a dying engine.
Santino turns just enough to look at me.
And it hits me—hard, brutal, inescapable.
His eyes aren’t the eyes of a priest.They’re not soft.They’re not forgiving.They’re not restrained.
They’re on fire.They’re fury.They’re a man’s eyes — a man who would kill for me without hesitation.A man who already has.
My lungs tighten. Something deep inside me buckles.
“You know him,” he says.
Not a question.A verdict.
I feel exposed, stripped bare under that gaze—like he can see every lie I rehearsed, every sin I buried, every scar I tried to hide beneath layers of calm.
“Yes,” I whisper. “He’s from the faction that killed my father.”
The words slice through the air like a confession ripped out of the center of my chest.
Santino’s grip on Rocco’s throat tightens so abruptly Rocco’s feet lift off the ground.
I flinch.Not because I want Santino to stop — but because a part of me, a dark fractured part, wants him to finish it.
Rocco’s hands claw at Santino’s wrist, fingers trembling. He tries to gasp, to speak, to bargain—something. But Santino doesn’t give him enough breath to form a word.
The veins in his forearm stand out, taut and pulsing. His tightly strung shoulders make me feel the tension from feet away.
Rocco kicks. Weak. Useless.
Santino doesn’t glance at him.He’s still staring at me.
And it’s that—the unwavering attention, the silent promise, the brutal loyalty—that shatters something inside me I didn’t know was still intact.
My legs weaken.My chest aches.My vision blurs at the edges.
I should be terrified of this version of him.The monster Giovanni Rivas forged with his own hands.
But I’m not.
I’m drawn to him.To the violence.To the certainty.To the way he didn’t hesitate to put himself between me and death.
Something dark cracks open between us — a shared understanding, a shared sin, a shared hunger for vengeance.
It binds us.Irreversibly.
Rocco wheezes, the sound pathetic and fading. His eyes roll back. His boots scrape uselessly against brick.
I should tell Santino to let go.I should say his name.I should stop this before he crosses a line he can’t return from.
But when I open my mouth — nothing comes out.
Because the truth is terrifying:
I’m not choosing mercy.I’m choosing Santino.I’m choosing the man whose rage feels like protection.The man who didn’t blink at violence done on my behalf.The man whose darkness recognizes my own.
He shifts his stance slightly, tightening his hold on Rocco, and the alley seems to tilt around us—as if the night itself senses the choice forming in my chest.
The world holds its breath.Rocco fades into a blur.
And the only thing I can see clearly — the only thing my body recognizes as inevitable — the only truth my soul leans toward—
is Santino Rivas.
Not the priest.Not the saint.Not the man pretending he doesn’t want me.
But the man who would spill blood for me without looking away.
My voice escapes in barely a breath.
“Santino…”
He finally looks away from Rocco—only to look deeper into me.
Whatever breaks nextwill not be small.
Desire in the Aftermath of Violence
Rocco loses consciousness, slumping to the ground in a heap.
Not dead—but close.The sound of his body hitting the wet concrete echoes up the brick, a dull, ugly thud that should make me flinch more than it does.
His head lolls to the side, mouth slack, one arm twisted under him.
His chest still moves—barely. A wheeze. A ragged drag of air. Proof of life.
For now.
My heartbeat is still trying to tear out of my chest. My palms are cold, my mouth dry. I should stare at Rocco, checking that he’s truly down, that he won’t get back up and drag me into another fucking car.
But I’m not looking at him.
I’m looking at Santino.
He turns toward me slowly, chest rising and falling with sharp, uneven breaths.
His hands tremble—adrenaline, restraint, something darker.
Now that the immediate threat is facedown on the ground, I see everything he’s holding back.
The way his shoulders twitch is like he’s shaking off the ghost of something violent.
The way his fingers flex like they’re still wrapped around Rocco’s throat.
The tight muscle in his jaw is like he’s fighting the urge to go back and finish what he started.
He just chose not to kill a man.And the restraint looks almost as dangerous as the violence.
He steps closer.
Then closer.
The wall behind me feels like it moves, but it’s me. I’m the one inching back without realizing it. My heels scrape across the gritty alley floor until—
My back hits the brick wall.
Cold, damp stone jolts against my shoulders, anchoring me in place. I’m pinned between an ancient brick and the man who nearly choked someone out for daring to come near me.
“You could have died tonight,” he says quietly, voice raw around the edges.
It’s not an accusation. Not quite. More like a confession—fear, anger, and something he doesn’t want me to hear bleeding into six words.
My throat works as I swallow. I should look away, look past him, look anywhere that isn’t his mouth… but my gaze refuses to move.
“I didn’t,” I whisper—my voice is not fully mine. “Because of you.”
The second the words land, something inside him snaps tight. His jaw flexes, eyes darkening with a fierce heat that has nothing to do with God or forgiveness.
He shouldn’t touch me.He knows he shouldn’t.
I watch the war play out on his face—the collar, the restraint, the priest he’s pretending to be—battling the man who slammed another human being into a wall because he thought I needed protecting. Because he wanted to.
But the moment my voice cracks on that last word, the fragile truth of it—
He stops thinking entirely.
His hand comes up and cups my jaw.
Heat explodes under his touch. His palm is cold from the night, but his grip is strong, sure, tilting my face up so I can’t look anywhere but at him. It feels inevitable, like I’ve been walking toward this moment since the second I stepped into his confessional.
My breath catches.
The alley narrows until it’s just us—not the church, not the city, not the bleeding man on the ground. Just his hand on my jaw and the look in his eyes — like we’re both seconds from doing something we can’t come back from.
“Tell me to walk away,” he murmurs.
The words ghost over my lips, close enough that I taste his breath—smoke, bitterness, and something that feels like every bad decision I’ve ever survived.
I should tell him to go.I should say his name like a warning, shove him back, remember he’s a priest and I’m a liar.
But I can’t.
I won’t.
My silence screams louder than any command I could give.
His lips crash into mine—violent, desperate, claiming.
There’s nothing soft about it. No gentle testing. No hesitation. Its impact—everything coiled between us detonating at once. His mouth is hot and furious, and I meet him just as hard, fingers fisting in the front of his shirt to yank him closer.
Fabric bunches under my hands as his muscles tense beneath my grip. He growls into the kiss, a low, frustrated sound that sends a bolt of heat down my spine.
His chest slams into mine, pinning me harder against the wall. He cages me in with an arm braced beside my head, his body a barricade of heat and strength. I arch into him, dragged by something I don’t have a name for.
Forbidden.Addictive.Inevitable.
I taste blood—maybe his lip, maybe mine. I don’t care. The only things holding me up are the brick at my back and Santino pressed against my front, kissing me like he wants to erase every man who ever hurt me and become the only sin I can’t repent for.
I’m not supposed to want this.Not with him.Not here.Not now.
But the truth is brutal, humming beneath my skin:
I’ve never felt saferthan in the arms of the most dangerous man I know.
Heat Before the Gunshot
The world narrows to heat and shadow.