Chapter 13 Santino
Santino
Santino Breaks Free and Finds Hell
The blade at my throat bites just deep enough to draw blood — a thin, hot sting sliding down my neck — but the bastard behind me hesitates.
Rookie mistake.
You never hesitate when you’ve got a Rivas by the throat.
Especially me.
He exhales as if he thinks he’s already won. “Don’t fight, padre. Makes this easier.”
Wrong fucking thing to say.
I slam my head backward — hard. The crack of bone meeting cartilage is loud, sick, perfect. His nose shatters beneath my skull with a wet crunch, warm blood spraying across my cheek.
He swears, grip loosening.
I don’t wait.
I twist, catching his wrist long enough to wrench it. The knife clatters to the floor. I drive him into the wall, stone vibrating from the impact. His head snaps back; he stumbles, dazed.
Good.
I want him to be conscious for this.
One punch — his jaw jerks sideways.Second — he hits the shelves so hard ledgers spill to the floor.Third — he drops, wheezing, folding like a rag doll.
He scrambles away, hands slipping in his own blood, eyes wide with a fear he should’ve felt two minutes ago. He staggers into the dark tunnel and disappears.
I don’t chase him.
I don’t give a shit about him.
Because something else hits me harder than any blade ever could —
A sound echoing through stone.
A scream.
High. Raw. Broken.
Pia’s.
My heart seizes. The ground tilts beneath my feet. I snatch the lantern off the shelf and run — faster than I’ve ever run through these tunnels. My lungs burn; boots slam against damp stone.
“Pia!” I shout, my voice tearing out of me.
A turn left. Then right. The lantern light swings, wild, frantically. My pulse roars like a snarl in my ears. I hit the next corridor at full speed, skidding around the corner—
And my stomach drops.
They sealed the second vault door.
Every lock is engaged.Every bolt turned.Steel closed tight as a coffin lid.
“No.” The word scrapes out of me, hoarse, strangled. I drop the lantern and slam my fist against the metal hard enough to split my knuckles.
“Pia!”
A sound answers — faint, panicked — smothered by the heavy steel.
“Santino—! I’m—inside, I can’t.”
Her voice breaks on the last word.
And something inside me breaks with it.
“Jesus Christ,” I choke, pressing my forehead to the cold metal. My palms flatten on the door. My breath shudders out in sharp, uneven bursts.
She’s trapped.
She’s terrified.
She’s alone in a room built for torture.
And I hear it — not with my ears, but somewhere deeper — the moment panic clamps down on her. There’s a tremor in her voice I’ve never heard before. A fear that doesn’t belong to the girl who walked into my church with a knife and dared me to hate her.
“Pia,” I rasp. “I’m here.”
I slam my fist into the door again — useless, desperate.
“Pia!”
Her answering sob is faint, muffled—
But it destroys me.
My vision blurs. My throat tightens. Something sharp presses behind my ribs, cutting deeper with every breath.
She’s not just trapped.
She’s trapped in his chamber.
My father’s vault.His hell.
And the thought of her down there —breathing recycled air,surrounded by old blood,thinking no one is coming—
Something savage cracks loose inside me.
Not fear.Not anger.Something worse.
But one thing is certain, bone deep and absolute:
I will tear this place apart, stone by fucking stone, before I let Pia die in there.
The Vault Is Soundproof…But Not Emotion-proof
Her knocking is the worst sound I’ve ever heard.
Not because it’s loud—it isn’t. The steel swallows most of it, turning each strike into a dull, smothered thud that barely makes it through Giovanni’s six-inch-thick paranoia.
But it’s her.
I know it’s her because every uneven hit lands dead center in my chest, like she’s pounding on my ribs from the inside.
“Pia,” I rasp, palms flattening against the steel. My breath fogs immediately, haloing the cold metal. “Listen to me.”
Another frantic burst of pounding—too fast, too wild. Panic, not logic. She’s spiraling.
Fuck.
I lower my forehead to the door, forcing my voice steady. “Step back.”
The knocks stutter.
“Pia,” I say again, softer, pulling every shred of control I have around the tremor in my spine. “Do you hear me? Step back from the door.”
Silence settles like a weight. Heavy. Uncertain.
Then—a faint scrape, boots shifting across stone.
She heard me.
“Now,” I say, my tone sharper. “Get clear.”
I don’t give myself room to hesitate.
I brace my shoulder against the vault handle. The metal bites into my split knuckles, cold enough to burn. I inhale and shove.
Every muscle in my back strains. Pain rips down my spine. My neck throbs with effort.
Nothing.
The door doesn’t move a fucking millimeter.
A growl tears out of me as I shove harder—jaw clenched, boots sliding, tendons screaming.
Still nothing.
“Fuck,” I hiss, breath ragged. Sweat beads along my brow. I step back and throw my weight into it again.
Steel. Unmoved. Unbothered.
This door wasn’t designed to open. It was designed to hold.
I stagger back, fury clawing at my lungs. My fist slams into the metal—a crack of bone against steel that sends fire up my arm.
The sound reverberates into her chamber. It must echo inside those sound-dampening walls—rolling over her like thunder in a tomb.
Because I know exactly what this room is.
Giovanni’s perfect little nightmare.
No windows.No ventilation except what he allowed.Reinforced walls meant to swallow screams whole.A place where men confessed things they’d never done.A place where they begged for mercy they never received.
And she’s in there.
I flatten my palms against the cold door again, fighting the instinct to rip it apart with sheer will. “Pia!”
Her reply is faint—barely a vibration through steel—but the tremor in her voice is unmistakable.
It guts me.
“Breathe,” I say, voice rough, nearly breaking. “Do you hear me? Breathe.”
I rest my forehead against the metal again, my breath uneven. “I’m here.”
It’s not reassurance.
It’s a fucking vow.
The rage in me tightens, molten and blinding. Giovanni designed this chamber like a god crafting a punishment. He tested these walls. Adjusted thickness. Calculated the acoustics of suffering.
And now his sins are wrapped around her.
“Son of a bitch,” I breathe, not sure if it’s aimed at him, the bastard who locked this door, or at myself—for letting her step into this damn church alone.
The steel burns against my palms as my fingers spread wider, like I could reach her through force alone.
“Pia.”
For a moment—nothing.
Then I feel it.
A faint, almost imperceptible pressure on the other side of the door. Her palm. Meeting mine.
Separating us are inches of steel, bloodlines, lies—yet somehow, this contact hits harder than any blow I’ve ever taken.
Her breath hitches. The sound is small, but carries through metal and memory.
My own breaks in answer.
My voice drops to a hoarse whisper. “I’ve got you.”
My fingers splay, imagining hers doing the same. The entire world narrows to that single point of pressure—her hand against mine, separated only by steel we both want to rip apart.
For a breath, the torture chamber, the blood on the floor, the sins etched into these walls—none of it exists.
Just her.
Just me.
Just six inches of steel failing to mute what’s happening between us.
“I swear to God,” I murmur, forehead pressed harder to the door, “I will get you out.”
A tiny sound answers me from the other side—a soft thump.
Her forehead.
Resting opposite mine.
The sound is faint.
The impact is devastating.
At that fragile point of contact, I feel something I shouldn’t—her trust. Forced. Fragile. Fucked-up as it is.
And I know with brutal clarity:
This door isn’t the only thing I’m trying to break open tonight.
Panic Turns to Honesty
Minutes stretch into something ugly.
I don’t know how long I stay pressed against the vault door—shoulder burning, lungs dragging in air that tastes like dust and rusted metal. The only way I can measure time is by her breathing.
Fast.Thin.Too fucking shallow.
“Pia,” I rasp, angling my ear toward the seam. “Breathe with me.”
For a second, I think she doesn’t hear me.
Then her knuckles thud against the other side—one, two, three frantic hits—and I feel it more than hear it, the vibrations running through steel and straight into my bones.
"I can't breathe," she gasps. The door warps her voice, but the panic punches through anyway. “It’s too small—I can’t—”
Her words crack apart.
“I can’t do this again.”
Again.
The word slices straight through my chest.
This isn’t the first time she’s been trapped. Not the first time someone shoved her somewhere dark and walked away like she didn’t matter. Not the first time her lungs had closed around air that wasn’t enough.
My knees hit the stone before I realize I’m moving. Pain spikes up my legs, but I barely feel it. I spread both palms against the door, trying to cover as much surface as I can—trying to make myself bigger, closer, more real to her.
“Talk to me,” I murmur, forcing steadiness into my voice. “Keep your voice moving. You stop talking, you give the panic room to breathe. Don’t give it shit.”
She lets out a broken, breathless half-laugh—something jagged and raw—and it burns in my throat.
“You are right in front of me,” she says, voice trembling. “Just… on the wrong side.”
The wrong side.Of a door.Of a family.Of the line I keep pretending exists between us.
“Look at me,” I whisper, leaning harder into the metal. My forehead drops against it with a dull thunk. “Pretend I’m right there with you. Eyes on me—not the walls.”
Silence.
Then a soft scrape—her boots dragging against stone. She slides down the wall, her weight settling with a hollow sound that carries through the frame.
My chest tightens.
I mirror her without thinking, lowering myself until we’re sitting back-to-back on opposite sides of six inches of steel.
“Good,” I say roughly. “Stay with me.”