Chapter 8
Pia
Under The Alter
Idon't budge until Santino's footsteps fade, vanishing into the shadows he pulled me from. The rectory door hangs half-open, just enough to see the empty corridor stretching ahead, but I stay tucked behind it like a coward.
My hands won’t stop shaking.Not from Rocco.Not from the gun.Not from the blood on the ground.
No.
I’m shaking because of him.
Tonight, Santino revealed something terrifying, more so than any scout or soldier.
He killed for me.He bled for me.He shielded my body with his like I was something he’d die protecting.
Like I belonged to him.
A broken breath catches in my throat. I press my palms to the cool wooden door, grounding myself in the sting of splinters digging into my skin—anything to distract from the heat crawling under my ribs.
I shouldn’t care.I shouldn’t feel this… this molten pull in my stomach when I think about the way he shoved me behind him. The way he snarled my name like a threat and a prayer. The way his hands were still trembling with adrenaline when he touched me.
But I do.
I shut my eyes, trying to steady my breathing. I can still feel him—his chest pressed to mine, his breath ghosting my lips, the grip of his fingers on my hips. It lingers as if it’s branded into my bones.
I’m not here for him.I have a mission.A purpose.A clock ticking down faster every day.
I remind myself of that—again and again—until the pounding in my chest finally dulls. There’s no room for softness in my world. No room for saints or saviors or men with haunted eyes who look at me like I’m the only thing tethering them to the earth.
I push open the door and take one long, steady breath.
Focus.
I hold the folded parchment I copied earlier in my hand — the crude, hand-sketched layout of the church Giovanni once used like a fortress. A map no one here knows I stole.
I pull it out, smoothing the creases with my thumb. My father taught me the shape of these tunnels when I was ten—told me every king built a place to hide the sins he couldn’t kill. Told me Giovanni’s were buried deep.
“My girl,” he whispered once, “if the day comes when you need the truth… start beneath the altar.”
And Giovanni had him executed less than a year later.
Tonight, I came so fucking close to losing myself—to forgetting who I am and why I’m here. The memory of Santino’s mouth on mine tries to slither back in.
I crush it. Hard.
I can’t afford distractions.Not now.Not when I’m close enough to Giovanni’s secrets to touch them.
The air inside the rectory is cold enough to raise goosebumps along my arms, but it’s nothing compared to the chill that hits when I realize something:
If Santino had gone back into the alley even thirty seconds later…
I wouldn’t have survived.
Rocco wouldn’t have hesitated.And neither would the man who sent him.
The man hunting me.I can’t afford to want Santino.I can’t afford to feel anything at all.
Because wanting him will get me killed.And worse — it’ll get him killed too.
I push away from the door, my heartbeat finally settling into something sharp enough to use.
Tonight, I start the real reason I came here.
I adjust the strap of my bag and slip silently through the dim hall. The rectory is quiet—too quiet—like the building itself is holding its breath. The storm outside rattles the stained-glass windows, thunder rolling through the walls like distant gunfire.
I pause at the threshold of the sanctuary, fingers gripping the doorframe.
One last deep breath.
Then I whisper to myself—hating the tremor in my voice:
“Get it together, Pia. You know why you’re here.”
I won’t allow the lie I’ve been drowning in — the lie named Santino Rivas — to follow me into the dark.
Not where I’m going.Not beneath holy ground.
The Descent Beneath Holy Ground
The side entrance of the church yawns open just enough for me to slip through. I move fast and silently, shoulders brushing cold stone as I ease the door shut behind me with a soft click.
The storm outside muffles everything—thunder rolling over the city like distant artillery, rain hammering the roof in relentless sheets. Inside, the sound becomes a low, steady growl settling deep in my bones.
I cross myself out of habit.
Not faith.
The sanctuary stretches before me, cavernous and dim. Rows of empty pews stand in rigid lines like soldiers awaiting orders. The air smells of incense burned hours ago and old wood soaked in decades of whispered sins.
Lightning flashes.
For one sharp heartbeat, the stained glass windows erupt in color—scarlet, gold, deep blue—saints and martyrs staring down at me with painted eyes. The shadows they cast spill across the pews like torn cloaks, holy figures turning into specters.
My pulse trips.
Not from fear.
From anticipation.
This is what I came for.
Not the priest with wolf eyes.Not the kiss that still lingers like heat on my mouth.Not the way his hands trembled after he almost killed for me.
I’m here for what Giovanni buried.
I move down the center aisle, boots whispering across worn stone. At night, the church feels different—less sanctified, more honest. The crucifix above the altar seems to stretch longer in the dark, as if even Christ reaches for something hidden beneath his own stage.
My fingers slip into my pocket, brushing the folded map again. A reminder. Proof I’m not imagining all of this. Proof my father wasn’t just telling bedtime stories when he warned me about men like Giovanni burying truths where daylight couldn’t reach.
“Under the altar,” he’d once said, voice low, smoke curling around his words. “That’s where kings keep the sins they can’t afford to confess.”
Back then, I thought he was being dramatic.
I didn’t know he was giving me instructions.
Lightning flashes again, bathing the altar in stark white. Up close, the carved wood looks almost alive, shadows pooling beneath it like a mouth waiting to open.
My pulse kicks harder.
I step behind it.
The altar feels huge, heavy, immovable—but I know better. Nothing built by men is permanent. Not their power. Not their churches. Not the kings who pretend to rule beneath them.
I crouch, sliding my hand along the underside until my fingertips catch the faint seam I marked earlier—just a woman “praying too long” when no one bothered to look twice.
There.
A loose board.
Exactly where my father said Giovanni hid things he couldn’t bury in daylight.
I wedge my fingers into the gap. The wood scrapes my skin as I pry it up, slowly and steadily. It resists at first—years of dust clinging to the seams—then gives with a soft, reluctant creak.
A gust of cold air rushes up at me.
I freeze.
The tunnels breathe against my face—damp, ancient, carrying the scent of wet stone, rust, and something older. Something like bones and secrets.
My heartbeat thunders against my ribs.
This is it.
No Santino to drag me back.No Romeo watching from the shadows.No one to pull me out if this goes wrong.
Just me.My father’s ghost.And Giovanni’s sins rotting beneath holy ground.
I adjust the strap of my bag and lower myself through the opening. My boots hit the first step—narrow, slick stone. The cold wraps around me immediately, crawling up my legs, seeping into my clothes.
Thunder fades with every step I descend, swallowed by the earth until the only sounds left are my breath and the faint drip of water somewhere below.
When my head dips below the floor, I reach up and pull the board into place.
The slab settles with a muted thud.
Quiet.
But final.
It feels like a lock sliding into place, sealing me inside the dark winding beneath the church.
I pause, letting my eyes adjust. My flashlight sits in my bag, but I don’t switch it on yet. Not until I’m deeper. Not until I know I’m alone.
I listen.
Nothing.
No footsteps.No voices.No priest shouting my name.
Just the steady beat of my heart and the slow drip-drip-drip echoing down the passageway.
I take another step. Then another.
Each footfall ricochets off the walls, the sound swallowed and returned like a prayer the ground refuses to believe. It feels like I’m walking into the throat of something ancient—something that’s been waiting a very long time to swallow me whole.
“Too late to turn back now,” I whisper.
The tunnels don’t answer.
So I keep going.
The Tunnels of the Rivas Dead
The tunnel swallows me whole.
The last breath of sanctuary air disappears as the darkness clamps around me, thick and cold, like the ground is dragging me deeper with greedy hands. My flashlight flickers with every step, throwing frantic slices of light across the walls.
These tunnels are older than the church.Older than Giovanni.Older than the fucking crown the Rivas men bleed for.
My father once whispered that the ground remembers everything men try to hide. Down here, the air breathes with that memory. Wet. Heavy. Angry.
The ceiling dips so low that stone grazes the top of my ponytail. The walls narrow; the air tightens; the temperature drops until it stings. My lungs pull in cold that feels like it’s scraping me from the inside out.
And the walls…
God.The walls are carved with ghosts.
My lantern catches symbols etched so deep the grooves look like wounds—spirals, slashes, a lion crest so ancient Giovanni must’ve stolen it from the bones of someone far older. Tally marks gouged into stone by someone who counted their days until they bled out.
A chill crawls up my spine.
Every shadow looks like a hand.Every drop of water sounds like a footstep chasing me.Every breath tastes like secrets I shouldn’t fucking know.
But I keep moving.
I didn’t come here to tremble.I didn’t come here to remember Santino’s mouth on mine, or the way he pinned me against a wall like he couldn’t decide whether to save me or ruin me. The memory drags heat across my skin anyway, low and dangerous.
Not now.Not here.Not underground where want turns into weakness fast.
I force it back and focus on the map my father left me—inked warnings, scrawled symbols, the knowledge that got him killed.