Chapter 20 Pia
Pia
The Moment Santino Walks Into Hell
The first thing I notice is his throat.Bare.
No white strip of mercy at his neck. No rosary bruising his fingers. He contained absolutely no softness, nor holiness.
Santino steps through the warehouse door like dying isn’t on the schedule, and something inside my chest caves in with a sound only I can hear.
They’ve chained my wrists behind the chair.
The metal is cold enough to burn—teeth of iron gnawing into skin that’s already gone numb.
My shoulders howl from being dragged. My mouth tastes like rust and spit.
The lights are wrong—too bright, too cruel—bleaching the world into concrete and shadow and gunmetal.
And then there he is.
No collar. No hesitation. Just that terrible calm—the kind men wear when they’ve already chosen a grave and decided it isn’t theirs.
He walks toward Carlo like the distance between them isn’t mined with bullets. Like it isn’t a mouth waiting to swallow him whole. As if nothing in this room has permission to stop him.
I’ve seen Santino soft.
In the confessional, when his voice went thin around my name.In the courtyard, when his hands hovered like he didn’t trust himself not to break me.
This man?
This isn’t the priest.
This is Giovanni’s heir.A weapon in a tailored shadow.A blade that learned how to pray.
My stomach knots—not because I think I’m going to die. The idea perished within hours, inside a chamber lacking windows, with men who treat pain like normal business.
I feel sick because he’s here.
He’s offering them everything — his life,his future,his soul — if they’ll take it.
For me.
“Santino…” My voice leaks out before I can cage it. Thin. Fractured. A prayer to a God who never answered me once.
“Don’t.”
The word hits dead air. Too small to matter.
He doesn’t look at me.Not even for a breath.
His eyes are on Carlo—unyielding—even when a guard shoves the muzzle higher into my spine.
That terrifies me more than the steel warming into my skin.
Because I know that look.
I grew up around men like him. Men with blood stitched into their last names. Men who stopped being sons and became weather.
It’s the face of a man who’s done pretending he might still be saved.
My heart slams against my ribs like it wants out.
I shake my head hard enough that heat spears my skull.
No.
If he looks at me—if he lets me in—he’ll break.And if he breaks, Carlo will kill him.
So he doesn’t.
He keeps his stare locked on the devil in front of him like he’s already chosen which hell to drag him into.
Carlo’s voice slides through the space, lazy and razor-edged. “You came alone.”
Santino doesn’t blink. “I came ready.”
The words hit harder than any fist tonight.
Ready for what?
To die.To burn.
I choke on it.
Love isn’t supposed to look like this.It’s supposed to be soft. Or kind. Or safe.
Not a man wearing his own execution and daring the world to hurry.
My fingers curl inside chains that don’t give.
My chest hurts in a place I didn’t know existed.
I whisper his name again, just in case something out there still listens.
He doesn’t hear me.Or he does—and refuses.
Because if he turns — if he sees my face like this—
He’ll wreck the world for the right to keep breathing the same air as me.
And I will not be the thing that kills him.
I swallow blood and terror and a sob that never gets a body.
I watch him take the last step.
And I know—with a clarity that makes me nauseous—
Whatever comes next…
He is not walking out the same man who came in.
The Torture Begins
Carlo lifts two fingers.
That’s it.
Hands fist into my hair—right at the roots—jerking my head back until the ceiling swims. My neck screams. A boot bucks into the back of my knees.
I go down, then I’m airborne again, hauled backward across concrete that chews through denim and skin alike.
I twist and kick and claw, my nails scraping uselessly against sleeves and gunmetal and bodies bred for this.
I scream for Santino like oxygen depends on it.
“Santino—”
Iron slams.
The word dies in my mouth as the door crashes shut between us. Thick. Final. The sound of metal swallowing me whole.
The room is a box.
No windows.Concrete sweating cold.One naked table in the corner.A rust-stained chair bolted to the floor.A bucket of melted ice—gray with old dirt.Zip ties scattered like shed skins.
And tools.
Not random ones.
Recognition hits slow and sick, the way it only does when nightmares once had court transcripts. My father’s file flashes behind my eyes—evidence photos, captions typed by men who thought distance meant safety.
Flattened pliers.Thin wire.The knife that doesn’t look dangerous until it’s already ruined everything.
They shove me into the chair. Plastic snarls as it cinches around my wrists. Too tight. Instantly too tight. Fire blooms beneath the bands, then spreads up my arms in hot, merciless lines. Every heartbeat drives the zip ties deeper.
Carlo takes his time.
He sits across from me like we’re about to share espresso. Cuffs clean. Jacket smooth. His mouth rehearses sympathy it doesn’t feel. He flips the knife open slowly enough to make the click intimate.
A promise.
“You should have stayed away from Giovanni’s church,” he says softly. Not angry. Almost kind. “You should have left the King’s secrets buried.”
I bare my teeth. It’s either that or cry.
He reaches out and tips my chin with the flat of the blade. “Tell me where the ledger is.”
The air holds its breath.
My laugh tears out of me—wrong and cracked and sharp enough to hurt my throat. It surprises even me. It ricochets off the walls like a confession I don’t believe in.
“You’ll kill me either way,” I say. My voice trembles. My spine doesn’t. “So, no.”
For a flicker of a second, something like disappointment crosses his face. As if I canceled plans.
Carlo exhales through his nose and nods once—like I’ve only confirmed what he already knew. “You’re right.”
Then, he drives the knife down.
It spears the table inches from my thigh.
Wood splits with a sound like bone breaking. Dust lifts in a quiet scream. The blade shivers where it’s buried.
My heart detonates.I taste metal.
I lock my jaw.
Force the scream back.
Everything inside me goes silent except for the pulse in my ears. I stare straight ahead, chin high like armor.
Because if Santino hears me—
If my voice leaks through that door even once—
He will break.
And he cannot break.
I will not be the sound that ruins him.
Carlo studies my face like he’s waiting for a melody only he can hear. When he doesn’t get it, his eyes change—not in anger.
Curiosity.
“You’re braver than you look,” he murmurs.
“I had practice,” I say.
And I think of my father.
Carlo tilts his head, then reaches for the bucket. He plunges his hand into the slush like he’s blessing something already dead. Water sheets down his wrist. He lets one drop fall.
It strikes my knee like a bullet made of ice.
“We can take our time,” he says quietly. “Your priest gave us that luxury.”
I don’t answer.
I swallow.
Then I fix my eyes on the door like it’s a wound I’m trying to stitch closed with my will.
I imagine it.Count it.
I keep my mouth sealed and my heart loud enough to drown everything else.
I will not be the sound that breaks him.
Not now.Not ever.
Pia Takes the Pain Instead of Giving the Truth
Carlo doesn’t torture like a thug.He tortures like a man who learned patience the way other men learn music—by listening for the note that fractures everything.
He lifts the bucket and tips it slowly.
Meltwater spills down my wrists and slicks along my arms in thin, shocked ribbons. Every cut ignites, cold and heat colliding until my vision ghosts at the edges. It crawls along my ribs, seeps into the bruises flowering across my side, and pools in my lap like it plans to make a home there.
I bite the inside of my cheek until copper blooms on my tongue.
Carlo watches me the way a doctor reads a monitor.Not with concern.With appetite.
He sets the bucket aside and circles behind me, boots whispering over concrete. Then his hand fists in my hair and wrenches my head back until my spine bends like it might snap clean apart. My skull hums. Teeth knock together.
“You don’t get to look away,” he breathes.
He drags my head to one side and presses his thumb into a bruise he already mapped—one he tested once just to see where it screamed.
Light detonates behind my eyes.
I choke on it. Swallow it. Refuse the sound clawing for my throat.
I will not scream.I will not be his instrument.I will not give Santino that sound.
“You think you’re frightening?” I manage—voice cracked, but standing. “You think this is new?”
He leans into the pressure until stars scatter, and my body begs to disappear.
“You think Giovanni didn’t already take everything from me?” I spit.
Carlo releases me.
I fold forward just enough for air to exist again and gulp it like a thing stolen. He steps around into my line of sight and crouches until our eyes are level.
“Ah,” he murmurs. “There you are.”
His fingers skim my cheek—not kind, not cruel. A test touch. A lie.
“You handle pain well,” he says thoughtfully. “What you handle badly is loss.”
My mouth goes dry.
Then he lances it straight through me.
“You’re afraid of losing the priest.”
The pain vanishes.
In its place—ice.
Not the kind poured on skin.The kind that crawls into bone.
I shake my head once, sharply as I can make it. “You don’t know a damn thing about me.”
His smile thins.
“We know everything,” he whispers. “We know how he watches you when he thinks you can’t see him. We know where his hands stop before they ever touch you. We know what his mouth wants—and where his conscience bleeds all over it.”
I hurl myself against the restraints. Plastic saws my skin until heat tells me I’m open somewhere.
“Don’t you touch him,” I growl. “Don’t you fucking—”
He doesn’t hear me.
He opens the knife.
The sound is intimate.Obscene.