Chapter 19 Santino #3
The warehouse. The men. Carlo’s mouth and his gun. The stink of oil and old blood and money rotting in steel barrels.
Gone.
There is only Pia in front of me—hurt, furious, unbent.
And I know.
More sure than I ever knew God.
I love her.
Not the way men pray.The way men kill.
Carlo chuckles like he’s watching a show he paid extra for.
“Well,” he says. “Isn’t that touching?”
I don’t look at him.
If I tear my eyes off her, she might vanish again. Like she did in the street. Like I let her.
“Let her go,” I say.
My voice doesn’t shake.It could crack bones.
“I’m yours.”
Her head jerks up, hard.
“No,” Pia spits. “Don’t you fucking do this. Don’t—”
I take a step forward.
One slow stride.Then another.
The guards tighten. Guns lift a fraction. It doesn’t matter. The world has already rearranged itself; they’re not heavy enough to move it back.
“Take me,” I tell Carlo, still not looking at him. “Do whatever ceremonial bullshit makes you feel powerful. But she walks out of here.”
Her breathing changes. I see it in the rise of her chest. Feel it, like my lungs are moving to her rhythm instead of mine.
“Santino,” she says, softer now, pride losing a fight with terror. “I’m not worth this.”
I stop directly in front of her.
Close enough to smell her—blood, sweat, smoke, and that dark electricity that’s only ever been hers.
I lift my hands—not to surrender.
To touch.
But I don’t.
They’re watching.
So, I aim my voice where they can’t reach.
“You don’t decide what you’re worth,” I murmur.
Her eyes widen.
“I do.”
She swallows. Her mouth wobbles once, then clamps down in stubbornness.
“You idiot,” she whispers.
I nod.
“For you,” I say. “I can live with that.”
Carlo snorts, but there’s less amusement in it now. Less certainty.
“Romance in a shithole,” he muses. “Giovanni would be so proud.”
My gaze finally drags off her.
I look at him.
Straight into the rot inside his skull.
“Say his name again,” I tell him calmly, “and I’ll show you what vox mortis feels like without a Bible.”
His smile stutters.
Then he pastes it back on.
They always do.
Until they can’t.
“Brave,” he says. “Stupid. But brave.”
I turn back to Pia, letting him talk to my back.
“Listen to me,” I say.
She shakes her head hard, chains clinking with every denial.
“No. You don’t get to leave me here like this. You don’t get to be noble about my kidnapping. You don’t—”
“Pia.”
Just her name.
It drops into the space between us like an order and a prayer at the same time.
Her eyes shine.
For a second I see her like the first time—furious, terrified, alive in a way that ruined me on sight.
“I’m not choosing death,” I tell her softly. “I’m choosing you.”
Carlo clears his throat, louder now, like he’s trying to claw back control.
“I hate to interrupt,” he says. “But this is exquisite and all—and here I am without a hankie.”
I ignore him.
“Whatever happens next,” I whisper, “you remember this part.”
She bares her teeth in something that wants to be a smile and can’t quite get there.
“I’ll remember everything,” she says.
My chest caves.
Because so will I.
Carlo claps once.
Sharp. Final.
“Enough,” he announces. “Take the girl back. Our guest is making me nostalgic.”
A guard clamps a hand around her arm.
Too tight.
She flinches before she can stop herself.
That’s all it takes.
That tiny break. That flash of fear she tried to kill before it reached her face.
Something in me detonates.
Not loud.
Deep.Final.
I step forward again.
“Touch her again,” I say, flat enough to sound holy, “and I will turn this place into a museum of your mistakes.”
Carlo lifts a brow.
“And you’ll do that how, priest?”
I look at Pia one more time, burning every line of her into whatever I’m becoming.
“I’m not a priest,” I tell him.
And for the first time since she staggered into that doorway — I feel the truth of it all the way down.
He Declares War
Carlo lifts his hand.
Two guns rise with it.One aimed at my chest.One aimed at Pia.
The symmetry is obscene.
“This is touching,” Carlo says, almost fond. “Truly. But if you want her back—bring us the ledger. And your father’s private keys.” He lets the words settle, enjoy themselves. “And your brother.”
The air thins.
“Which brother?” I ask.
Carlo’s mouth pulls wider.
“Romeo.”
My blood doesn’t cool.It drops.Hits somewhere deep and breaks.
“You’re lying,” I say quietly.
He shrugs like we’re discussing rain. “We want him. You know why.”
Pia’s breath stutters—sharp, involuntary—and I hear it the way I used to hear prayers at midnight: fragile and real and completely useless.
The room tilts.
Giovanni’s confession, sour with half-truths.The ledger that paired names that should’ve never touched paper together.Routes interrupted were too clean.Shipments that vanished like they were never alive.Ambushes with timing too perfect to be chance.Romeo’s shadow, always half a step ahead of the light.
Or—
Someone wanted it to look like Romeo.
None of it matters.
Not now.
Because I can see the only future this moment allows.
If I give them what they want, Pia dies.If I fight here, Pia dies.If I walk away—
I become my father.
I close my eyes.
Once.
I breathe in oil and blood and the ghost of incense that lives nowhere but my marrow.
Then I open them.
And I step forward.
The gun at my chest doesn’t waver.The gun at her skull doesn’t blink.
I look at Carlo like he’s already a body.
“I don’t trade in family,” I tell him.
He chuckles softly. “You will.”
“No,” I correct. “I won’t.”
I turn my head so that Pia is all I see.
Just a second.Just long enough to carve her into whatever’s left of me.
She’s shaking.
Not from fear.
From the rage that doesn’t know where to go yet.
“Santino,” she whispers.
I answer it with a promise.
“You hear me?” I say to Carlo without breaking my gaze from her. “Touch her again, and I will erase you from this city. I will salt every grave you ever stood near. Your blood won’t even remember your name.”
Carlo’s smile dulls.
Just a shade.
“I like threats,” he says mildly. “They make me hard.”
I look at him.
And I let him see what took up residence in my skull when I stopped being afraid of hell.
“I declare war on the Vescari.”
The warehouse goes still.
Even the rats seem to hold their breath.
Carlo’s eyes narrow.
“If you touch her again,” I continue, voice level as a guillotine, “I will end every one of you.”
The guards adjust.
Knuckles white on triggers.
Muscle memory crackles through the room like exposed wire.
Pia shakes her head, raw.
“No,” she breathes. “No. Don’t do this.”
Her voice fractures.
“Santino… run.”
I don’t move.
I don’t look at her.
I don’t blink.
“I didn’t come here to run.”
Then—
I turn fully back to Carlo.
Slow.Deliberate.Final.
“I came here,” I tell him quietly, “to kill you.”