Chapter 8 #2
The tunnels fork twice. I take the left each time. My lantern skims over alcoves filled with rotting crates. Old weapons. Dead-drop symbols. Smuggling routes Giovanni used when he pretended to play god.
My fingers brush a carved X-over-circle — a sign meaning:Open this and start a war.
I swallow hard and push deeper.
The tunnel straightens, the walls smoothing to polished granite in places, cracked like old scars in others. The air thickens. The floor levels. Something here feels different—charged, waiting.
Then I see it.
A stone door.
Not a panel.Not a barrier.A fucking tomb built to bury truth itself.
Carved with Giovanni’s sigil.
The lion.The crown.The ring of thorns wrapping both like a noose.
My breath catches, sharp and painful.
It’s the same crest that hangs from Santino’s neck—warm against his skin when he pinned me closer, colder now that I’m standing in front of the version Giovanni hammered into stone.
The lantern flame flutters as if bowing to it.
This is the vault Santino and Romeo nearly ripped each other apart over.The vault Giovanni used to bury evidence powerful enough to shatter every Rivas still living.
Evidence I came here to steal.To expose.To use.To avenge.
My father’s death slams through me — the gunshot,the scream,Giovanni’s men dragging his body away before the blood dried.
A hot pulse climbs behind my eyes, fierce and lethal.
If Giovanni hadn’t killed my father, he would’ve chained him down here and let the dark finish the job.
I move closer.
The stone door radiates cold that bites through my skin. My fingers tremble when I lift my hand—not from fear, but from the weight of how close I am to ending the lie my life became the night they murdered him.
I press my palm to the carving.
The instant my skin meets stone, something shifts — a vibration, faint but real,like the door recognizes me.Like it remembers my father.Like it knows I’m not supposed to be here and wants to open anyway.
The air hums.
My heart pounds so hard I feel it in my fingertips.
If this opens…If the truth is really behind it…If the Rivas’ darkest sins are carved into whatever Giovanni died protecting…
Then Santino — the man who kissed me like a confession he wasn’t ready to speak — is standing on the wrong side of history.
The lantern flame kicks violently again, throwing my shadow across the stone as if the tunnel is swallowing me whole.
Something behind the door moves.
Breathes.
Wakes.
And the ground under my feet feels suddenly, violently alive.
Everything is about to fucking change.
The Door That Knows Her Name
The key slot is small—barely big enough for a finger—yet it feels like it’s staring back at me.
Judging me. Measuring every breath I take in front of Giovanni’s fucking vault.My lantern flame shivers against the carved lion crest, slicing jagged shadows over the stone.
The air here is colder than in the tunnels before it, as if the door is bleeding ice from whatever Giovanni buried behind it.
I crouch, tracing the keyhole’s edge with my fingertip.
I don’t have the real key.Not the main one.Santino does.
And if I’m lucky, he doesn’t know that yet.
But I didn’t come down here unprepared.
My hand slips into my jacket, brushing the thin metal imprint I stole—copied—from the fold-out hidden in my father’s journal. His last secret. His last warning. The last piece of him I got to keep before Giovanni had him executed.
I pull it out.
The steel plate glints in the lantern light, carved with the impression of a key that shouldn’t exist. My father called it the ghost key.
A second key.One Giovanni didn’t trust to a Rivas.One meant for someone outside the family.
My breath tightens.
I press the imprint into the slot.
For a moment: nothing.Silence.Stillness.
Then—
click.
Not a full unlock.Not an open door.Just a shift.
A mechanism stirs inside the stone, ancient and grinding, like bones waking up.
The hair on the back of my neck lifts. The design of the lock did not keep enemies out. It was designed to keep specific people—the Rivas bloodline—from ever getting in.
The stone groans, dust drifting out in a thin ribbon.
My pulse thunders against my ribs.
Something inside resets.Something deeper accepts the imprint.Something in the wall… recognizes me.
But the door doesn’t open.
Instead, something falls.
A scrap of parchment slips from the shifting gears, fluttering downward like a dead leaf. I snatch it before it touches stone.
It’s dry. Brittle. Old—older than Giovanni’s reign.
I lift it closer to the lantern.
The handwriting hits me like a blade.
Sharp.Angled.Pressed onto the page with furious pressure.
Giovanni’s.
There’s no mistaking the slanted script of a man who wrote like the world was failing him.
My breath catches.
This isn’t a ledger.Not a confession.Not instructions.
It’s a warning.
Four words carved into parchment so hard the quill nearly tore through:
NOT FOR RIVAS BLOOD.
My heart stops.
Cold sweeps down my spine so fast I almost drop the lantern.
Not for Rivas blood.
Not Santino.Not Romeo.Not Dante nor Guido.Not even Giovanni himself.
This door — this vault — this secret — was never meant for any of them.
My fingers tremble as I read the words again, pulse pounding in my ears.
Not for Rivas blood.
Then who the hell was this made for?
Why did Giovanni build a vault that his lineage could not touch? Why not destroy the entrance entirely instead of leaving breadcrumbs hidden deep beneath holy ground?
Unless…
Unless the secret inside destroyed my father.Unless Giovanni feared his own sons would use it.Unless someone in the Rivas line had already betrayed him long before my father died.
Pressure builds under my sternum—fear twisting into vindication, into something darker, hotter.
My father wasn’t paranoid.He wasn’t lying.He wasn’t delusional.
He was right to fear the Rivas.
The stone beneath my palm vibrates again, another mechanism shifting behind the wall—a second layer woken by the imprint.
The air thickens.The door feels alive.Listening.
Waiting.
I fold the parchment carefully and tuck it into my jacket, close to my chest—close enough that my heat might keep it from crumbling.
As I rise, the lantern flickers violently, carving fractured shadows across Giovanni’s sigil.
The door breathes.The stone hums.The entire tunnel holds still, like it knows what I’m about to uncover.
And for the first time since entering the underground, the terror crawling up my spine has nothing to do with who might follow me…
And everything to do with what Giovanni locked away.
Giovanni’s Final Words
The parchment is fragile in my hands—thin, brittle, older than the tunnels themselves, maybe. The edges crumble slightly at my touch, flaking into dust that settles on my palms like ash. My lantern flame trembles, as if even it senses this should’ve stayed buried.
I unfold the scrap carefully, breath tight, pulse thundering.
The ink is rusty, almost brown. Time has eaten at the strokes, but the violence in each line still bleeds through. Giovanni didn’t write this calmly. He carved it in with rage.
Four words.
Four words split the surrounding air.
A RIVAS BETRAYED ME.
The whisper leaves my lips before I can stop it. My voice cracks at the edges, trembling like I’m afraid the walls might throw it back at me.
But the moment the sentence leaves my mouth, something inside me breaks open.
My blood runs cold.
My knees almost give.
Because for the first time since I crawled into these tunnels—since I started digging for the truth my father died protecting—I know I’m not chasing ghosts.
He didn’t lie.He didn’t imagine it.He stole nothing from Giovanni.
Someone in the Rivas family did.
Someone close.Someone trusted.Someone Giovanni feared enough to bury the truth behind sealed vaults and dead men’s warnings.
A hand I didn’t notice curls into my hair. I drag it down my face, breath ragged, pushing back the burn behind my eyes.
I press the parchment flat to my chest, right over my racing heart.
Rage hits first—hot, sharp, blistering. It fills my lungs until it hurts to breathe.
Then vindication—a relief so fierce my throat tightens around it.
I wasn't hunting a ghost.I didn't grow up believing lies.My father wasn’t a traitor, despite what everyone called him.
Then fear—cold, creeping, familiar.
A betrayal like this isn’t small.Isn’t petty.It changes everything.
Giovanni wrote this in a panic.A warning.A confession he never meant for his sons to see.
Or maybe he did.Maybe he meant for someone else to find it.
Someone like me.
My lantern flickers violently, the flame stretching long and thin before shrinking to a trembling ember. The air grows colder, heavy with the weight of the names that could fit this accusation.
Giovanni had four sons.Four heirs.Four possibilities.
And I don’t know which truth terrifies me more:
That the man who destroyed my family was one of them…or that the one hunting me now knows I’m inches from exposing him.
My fingers tighten around the parchment.
I’m not here to steal anything.I’m not here to escape.I’m not even here for justice.
I’m here to expose a killer.
My father’s killer.Giovanni’s betrayer.The shadow that still moves inside this church like it owns every stone.
I swallow hard, fighting the burn rising in my chest.
Santino.Romeo.Dante.Guido.
Raised on loyalty, violence, blood, and expectation—but one of them broke Giovanni’s kingdom from the inside.
And that betrayal set fire to my entire life.
I lift the parchment again, letting the lantern’s dim glow brush over Giovanni’s handwriting. The strokes are desperate, jagged, carved in anger rather than written. The last line trails off the page, as if something tore the quill from his hand mid-sentence.
Like he wasn’t alone when he wrote it.
My throat tightens.
Whoever Giovanni feared…whoever he tried to warn the world about…was right here with him in these tunnels.
The lantern snaps violently, throwing warped shadows across the walls. The air tastes metallic. Old. Wrong.
I fold the parchment with shaking hands and tuck it into the inner seam of my jacket—hidden, protected, close to my body.
Because of this?This is the truth the Rivas buried.
And if they buried it…they’ll kill to keep it that way.
I lift my lantern, turning back toward the sigil-carved door—toward the vault that holds whatever Giovanni died protecting. The flame wavers weakly, casting a sickly glow across the stone.
My voice barely leaves my throat, but it echoes like a vow:
“I’m not leaving without the truth.”
Because now?I’m closer than ever.
And the next step I take won’t just be toward Giovanni’s secret.
It’ll be toward whoever murdered him.And toward the end of whichever Rivas thinks he can bury me next.
Footsteps in the Dark
The tunnel goes silent.Not the usual silence — the dangerous kind.The kind that presses against your eardrums, thick and expectant, like the air itself is bracing for what comes next.
I freeze, every muscle locking.
Then I hear it.
A footstep.
Soft.Slow.Measured.
Too controlled to be accidental.Too intentional to be harmless.
My breath catches.
Another step.Closer.
My fingers clamp around the parchment, crumpling Giovanni’s accusation into a trembling ball in my palm.
A Rivas betrayed me.
Not the moment to think about that.Not when someone else is down here.
I blow out the lantern.
The flame dies instantly.
Darkness swallows the tunnel—heavy, suffocating, absolute.
My pulse slams against my ribs. I press my back against the cold stone, letting it anchor me. If it comes down to running, I need direction. A plan. A miracle.
Another step.
Then another.
The sound warps in the tunnels—damp stone twisting the distance so I can’t tell if he’s three feet away… or thirty.
Then—
A flicker.
A small, sharp glow at the end of the corridor.
The scrape of metal.
A lighter flares.
The glow is weak, but enough to outline him.
And my blood turns to ice.
Not Santino.Not Romeo.Not Dante.Not Guido.
Not anyone who should be beneath this church.
He’s older.Broad shoulders. A relaxed stance that screams predator—not visitor.
And he’s smiling.
Not kindly.Not amused.
A slow, precise curl of the lips…like he’s been waiting for me.Like he finally found the thing he came down here to hunt.
My lungs burn. I press myself tighter into the wall, willing my heartbeat to quiet before it betrays me. Sweat slicks my palms. I force my fingers not to shake.
He lifts the lighter slightly.
Just enough for me to see the weapon holstered at his hip. Not concealed—displayed.
A warning.A promise.
His gaze drags along the tunnel.
Slow.Patient.Predatory.
Then he speaks.
His voice is low, smooth, rolling along the stone like smoke.
“Pretty girls shouldn’t wander alone down here.”
The words slither through me, cold and deliberate.
He knows.He sees.He’s hunting.
I inhale sharply through my nose—silent, small, my body bracing for flight or fight.
My muscles coil.My fingers loosen around the parchment—just enough to move.To run.To survive.
He tilts his head, sensing it.
Then—
Click.
The lighter snaps shut.
The glow extinguishes.
Total blackout drops between us.
And his footsteps start again.
Closer.
Hunting.