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the-darklings · 4 years

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—𝒊 𝒘𝒊𝒍𝒍 𝒓𝒊𝒔𝒆 𝒖𝒑;

—PART XVI. | I WILL RISE UP

pairing: john wick x f!reader x santino d’antonio

word count: 23.4k+ (yes, the clownery truly never ceases)

summary: “Don’t disappear.”

warnings: PTSD, discussion of child abduction, panic attack, death all around, ANGSTTTT, swearing, strong violence.

notes: You all know this one was very hard and a long time coming. I sincerely hope you enjoy. :’) Welcome to the concluding part of Chicago.

children of ares series: 01 | …. | 14 | 15 | . . | 17 |

gif credit (x)

There is blood under your nails.

Water falls over your hands but it won’t wash away.

These hands capable of so much damage.

You wonder if John would be proud of you. If he would feel some semblance of satisfaction that you have become someone so dangerous. Or maybe he would hate you. He left you, didn’t he? Lied to you, tricked you—

But his eyes had seemed so sad during the wedding. Almost like his own heart was breaking and he didn’t even realise it but…

You rub your hands again.

The skin of your palms feels raw and tender from the scrubbing but you ignore it. Hot water slides down your neck and hair and you find that you…can’t…move.

You’re not sure how long you’ve been in this shower. How long since you rushed into it, so desperate to get all the blood off you, only to practically collapse once the stream of water fell over you.

So weak, Kishi hums beside you, patting your cheek and you jerk away from the touch, did you see what you did to him? That was you. You and your hate.

It wasn’t the blade that did the killing.

With your vision blurry and muscles frail the blade had sunk into Rafael’s collar more so than his neck. Too far away from anything vital. He would have lived. Even when he pulled out the blade, throwing you off him, even as blood stained his shirt as he came at you with the same knife you had used on him.

Murderous expression, an unfaltering grip on a blade stained with his blood—

Then, a flicker of pure agony. A soundless scream of pain as his expression came apart. Raw anguish had locked his knees, knocking him clean off his feet.

Your poison had raged through him like wildfire, destroying everything that Rafael was from inside out.

The poison you had so painstakingly created over these last several months—your crowning, awful jewel made just for Tarasov—had eroded Rafael Conte in a matter of minutes.

First, his smooth, healthy skin had turned purple, and the tiny veins in his eyes ruptured as they turned blood red. But the worst had been the sounds he made. Agonised, pathetic noises of a man whose lungs were collapsing and filling up with blood.

Rafael Conte died choking on his own blood, no doubt experiencing the same agony you went through in Tokyo.

The Drowning

Just like Kishi had done with you. You had returned the favour.

Then, silence. Just awful silence and the rushing of water in your ears as the sink continued overflowing.

Through the haze there had only been Santino with his arms around you, practically ripping you off the ground and pulling you out of the bathroom.

With your dress sopping wet and clinging to your legs, you had stumbled after him. He had paused only long enough to drape his suit jacket around your shoulders, his phone already pressed to his ear as he spoke in clipped, harsh Italian into it.

You can’t recall a single word he had said.

The only sound in your head had been the rushing of water and the cracking of the mirror.

Over and over.

His arm around you, he had pressed you tightly to him but his steps had been measured, deliberate. He didn’t want to appear panicked though you felt the tension stiffening his muscles.

Santino had paused just before you entered the main hall, busying himself with undoing his shirt even more, his eyes moving subtly over the hallway walls. Checking for cameras.

He had turned towards you then, his expression inscrutable as he sank his fingers carefully into your hair, tugging the strands aside gently. After, he used the very same pocket square you gave him to dab under your eyes quickly, wiping away the mascara smears and the tears. Not one word was exchanged between you as he continued cleaning you up and making himself messier.

Ruffling his hair forcefully, he had pulled you to him when footsteps drew nearer, touching one side of your face and leaning close. Moments later an older couple had appeared around the corner, pausing at the sight of you both. Nothing more than a man touching a woman with a lover’s familiarity. You no doubt looked like you’ve either just kissed or were about to.

Always so good at playing the part.

Santino had given them a facile, cool smile and tugged you after him, his stride confident, relaxed. His fingers were flying over the phone screen though, and the slant of his eyebrows betrayed his unease, irritation.

You haven’t felt this adrift since Tokyo, clinging to him because there was no way your legs would have carried you out of the hotel where a car was already waiting for you.

It was only when you got inside, and the door slammed behind you that you had turned to him, your lips trembling.

“The b—”

“Already handled.”

And that had been it.

He spent the ride to the hotel with his phone pressed to his ear while you sat beside him, shivering and clenching his jacket closer to you.

There was still blood on your hands.

You had used the back entrance of the hotel and had encountered no one on your way to your room.

Such easy control. Such power.

You couldn’t help but wonder why he had needed you at all.

Santino had left you inside the room after leading you to the bed and checking your head. He kept talking but nothing had stuck inside your mind, every word fleeing the moment it registered.

He lingered at the door, his phone already against his ear but the look in his eyes had been reluctant.

He didn’t want to leave but you doubt he had much choice after that mess.

By the time the door clicked shut, you wanted to crawl out of your skin and disappear entirely.

The noises Rafael made, all that blood bubbling past his lips—

You’re so good at making people choke on their own blood, Kishi had whispered against your ear, wrapping his arms around you, awful, vicious viper. How could anyone ever love you?

You had barely made it to the toilet before throwing up, curled over it and dry sobbing for a number of minutes.

You were so desperate to get the dirt and the grime and the blood off you that the shower had seemed like the obvious choice.

Something beautiful torn apart and stained needed to be cleaned.

But the shower had only frozen you in place, dragging you towards the ground and locking you there.

That sensation of water sliding down your skin has unmade you, and suddenly it’s like no time has passed at all. Still in Tokyo. Still drowning. Still dead to the world.

Opposite to you, hiding in the steam, Kishi grins at you, his crooked teeth on display.

Your eyes drag back towards the hands in your lap. They lay there, two useless lumps of flesh and you try to move, try to gather strength but fail.

That tiny ember in your chest is doused and you claw for it desperately, willing it to come back.

Please, I don’t want to be this.

Footsteps.

The bathroom door gets thrown open and a figure appears through the mist.

Still dressed in a white shirt and those mirror shoes gleaming.

“There you are, amore, I had thought—”

Santino’s voice breaks off, his lips pressing shut at the sight of you.

You’re still wearing the dress from earlier. You loved it so much. It made you feel so beautiful—like yourself—no matter how briefly only hours prior.

It’s ruined now though.

The beat of water echoes through the silence between you and you rock in place slightly, still slumped on the floor.

“I—I thought I would get the blood off my hands but…” you breathe shakily, not looking at him. “It never comes off, does it?”

Santino steps closer, ignoring the shower as he squats down before you, his eyes dark.

“Are you hurt?”

Honesty works your tongue.

“Yes.”

His expression pinches and he raises his hand as if to pull you from under the stream but hesitates, watching your expression.

“Where?”

You can only bring yourself to choke out a strangled, “The water.”

His eyebrows furrow into an even heavier line. He doesn’t get it. He knows nothing about it so how could he? But his head slants lower and he tries to catch your eyes.

“Tell me about it.”

You blink the water from your eyes, trembling, and watch as he rises to his feet but instead of walking away, he moves to your right. He sits down with deliberate slowness. A part of you wants to tell him to stop but he ignores the water sinking rapidly into his trousers, spreading his legs out in front of him.

He only glances at you once before looking out towards the rest of the bathroom.

The faded light washes over his drawn features as he waits and it hits you then that it’s not a demand like it usually is with him. It’s a request, an offering, and something tells you that even if you don’t tell him, he might still stay.

He might stay.

Even when you’re...this.

The self-obsessed man who is not worthy of loyalty or trust might just stay.

He won’t stay, Kishi insists from in front of you and you flinch, he will leave just like your John did. They will all leave you. You will die alone.

Slumping, you stare at your hands again, ignoring the cut of water against the back of your neck.

“In Tokyo—I—” you begin and every word is agony. You haven’t talked with anyone about what happened to you in that pit—not even John. You hated the idea of him seeing you as broken, tarnished, weak. “He drowned me. Over and over.”

Santino’s sharp exhale is loud enough to hear even over the water.

“You do not have to—”

“And the room...the room with no air,” you choke out, ignoring his words and Kishi glares at you, his face full of hate. This is your dirty little secret after all, and he despises you for sharing it. “I—I prefer the beatings. That pain...it was easy. Electricity was...worse. But water. The water.”

A pained sound bubbles from the back of your throat and your chest hurts.

It hurts.

And there is never any relief for this pain. Like a wound that won’t stop bleeding.

You wait for Santino to get up and walk away. Wait for him to say that he always knew you were pathetic but he’s silent.

Your head feels heavy but you turn it towards him anyway to get your answer.

Be it disgust or pity or indifference.

You find none of those things.

No—Santino D’Antonio glares at some distant point on the wall with enough furious intensity to crumble concrete.

His clenched fist rests in his lap too, his knuckles popping, and his heir ring seems to glow in the light and the water.

He draws his legs to him, and there is something slow and harsh about the motion, as he rests his arms over his bent knees.

Like he’s trying to contain whatever it is that’s ravaging through him.

“So all those times you avoided water…”

His voice is hoarse as it trails off but he still won’t look at you. He sounds like he’s talking through clenched teeth and your head dips in a slight nod.

All those times when you were staying with Camorra and avoided water. Pools, the sea—anything involving a body of water. How you always avoid it even now. Now, at least, his old curiosity has an answer.

You can still recall how much it had surprised you that he noticed your avoidance in the first place. You didn’t think he could see beyond himself long enough to notice a damn thing about anyone else.

“It just makes me feel like—”

“Like you’re still there. Still trapped. Drowning.”

That gives you a pause.

Blinking owlishly, you look towards him, considering his tone, his body language. The heaviness, the strain on his face that he tries to rope back. You can tell because it’s familiar to you—this conflict of not wanting to show weakness.

He turns towards you briefly, his eyes narrowed, his mouth twisted into a disconcerted line as he gazes at you. An inner conflict rages behind his eyes but you don’t have enough energy to ask. If he wants to—

“The first time I was taken I was five.”

Something settles inside the pit of your stomach. A weight that distracts you entirely and pins your attention on the Camorra heir.

Santino’s lips pull back in a smile but it is not a kind thing—it’s like all the warmth such a gesture could bring has been ripped away. “Hm, yes. I don’t recall much of that first time. But my father’s methods of ruling meant that Camorra had plenty of enemies,” he explains, his voice empty like he’s reciting a manual and not facts of his own life. “I was his only male heir. An assurance that D’Antonio name will continue governing Camorra after he’s gone. By the time my father’s Four tracked me down…”

His words are soft, hateful, and your stomach churns as you observe the way his body curves. He swallows—a forced, heavy thing—his lips parting as he stares towards the wall and speaks his next words with stark bitterness.

“I was naked, strapped to a table,” he continues, his words empty, and your heart stutters in your chest. Despite the heat of the water, you suddenly feel cold to the bone. “They, ah, had no intention of killing me, you understand? They just planned to...remove certain parts. A male heir who can’t produce heirs. A mockery to my father’s legacy. The D’Antonio name would die with me. Fine irony to that, no?”

He glances towards you then. You’re not quite sure what he finds on your face when your eyes meet but his lips twitch again.

You—

You have never seen him like this.

You’re not sure you ever want to again, either.

“It was a rival family,” he continues after a beat, but the roar of the water is so loud that you have to lean closer towards him to hear. “My father had his heirs killed in front of the man. One by one. Three sons and a daughter, too. Then he let the head and his men burn alive in their pretty little house.”

For several minutes there is just more water.

You’re shivering but it’s for a different reason this time, even if hearing this doesn’t surprise you. There is a very good reason why Giovanni is so feared, respected. Why Camorra bloomed under his years of ruthless forging.

You’ve seen his methods firsthand.

“There were other such incidents over the years,” Santino carries on and his head inclines in your direction again. Every word digs into you painfully. “Few with Gianna as well. Each as bad as the last. It is simply a price to pay for what we are. That’s what my father always told me. Hm, power demands a price, cara mia. Always. I know what it is to be a trapped thing. Dependent on the goodwill of others. Never again, I told myself. They would learn to fear me. I care not for how hated that will make me.”

His words rattle through you with enough intensity to wipe away all else. You never thought that Santino of all the people would ever make you speechless.

This vain, awful man.

A monster born in a family of monsters.

They would learn to fear me.

So very similar to your own mantra.

I want him to fear me and he will.

Every time you have to grit your teeth and face Tarasov—the man who robbed you of your family and took your freedom—you tell yourself those words. One day, one day, one day, he will die afraid and alone.

A choice to be hated to keep yourself safe.

You don’t sympathize because you understand.

But not in a million years—not ever—would you have expected for Santino D’Antonio to understand what it’s like to be trapped and hurt. Held captive and damaged.

But it makes so much sense.

You’ve heard of territory wars, perhaps none more bloody than those waged by the Italians.

“I did not choose this life but I have made it my own,” he tells you after several minutes of silence and you blink. He exhales quietly and licks his bottom lips, pensive. “Oh, bella, you wonder why I abhor the rules so but the truth is simple. Rules have robbed me of more than you know. I’ve been trapped by my title as much as I’ve been set free by it. I do not mind it anymore—the trap that is my expected existence. I will claim all the power one day and that will be my freedom. I will be the one to set the rules.”

Steam blinds you as you squint at him.

His head is tilted backwards, resting against the tiles of the shower. His white shirt is getting wetter by the second from the spray of water raining between you. His styled hair sits in a heavy mess atop of his head from dampness and heat, and you watch him swallow, his adam’s apple bobbing. His forearms rest on his bent knees and you want to comment on how his Rolex will get soaked at this rate but can’t bring yourself to do so.

In this light, he appears—

“But you should,” you whisper slowly, your words a rasp. “You should mind it.”

A smile twitches his mouth to one side as he continues staring up towards the ceiling.

It makes you uncomfortable.

It makes you uneasy.

It makes you—

Santino D’Antonio tips his head in your direction, his eyes empty of all bravado you’re so used to seeing, and you can’t help but think that he looks—

“Ah, cara mia, I do,” he breathes, still smiling that awful, hollow smile. “I just pretend that I don’t.”

—sad.

You look at each other for several moments before he blinks, his expression clearing. He’s retreating and you realise that this moment—this miniature fragment of himself he has unexpectedly shared with you—he has likely never shared with anyone else before.

You can tell.

Because the lingering discomfort is so known to you.

“Tell me,” he begins wilfully, his eyes focusing on your face. “Tell me how to stop this.”

That lingering rage. The bitterness.

Your mouth twists. A flicker of anger suddenly nipping at your senses. “You can’t fix me,” you spit out, your breaths strained, and your fingers twitch. “There is no fixing this.”

His reply is immediate, tart. “I have no intention of fixing you,” he says simply, almost irked. “It’s not my job to do so, carrisima. But there has to be a way to help…somehow.”

Oh.

Just like that, you suddenly know what this is about.

Seeing you like this must be like seeing himself.

How desperately must he have wished for someone to be there for him? He was just a boy expected to brush off every terrible thing that has happened to him because he had to be strong. Did he seek out some way to alleviate whatever scars those childhood incidents left?

His thirst for power and control, that selfishness and greed that’s so inherent to him. Suddenly, a lot more makes sense about Santino.

It’s like you’re seeing him through a completely different lens.

Perhaps he can understand that certain scars never heal.

Tokyo will be a part of you till the day you die.

But speaking about it—whatever little you did divulge—did wipe Kishi from your sight.

Not for the first time, his ghost has been chased away.

Maybe that’s what you need. A distraction. A way to forget he haunts you.

A way for both of you to forget your demons. Just for a little while.

“Tell me,” you plead, your voice soft. “Tell me a story with a happy ending.”

Santino’s parted lips press shut lightly as he peers at you for a beat. His head lowers for a moment, and then he shakes his head slightly. He stares at the drain where the water disappears continuously and a sound escapes him; a mix of amusement and some woeful emotion.

“I can’t,” he replies, equally as soft. “People like us don’t get happy endings.”

Swallowing weakly, you mutter a quiet, “Try anyway.”

The Italian beside you remains quiet though. He peers at you and you can’t quite tell what he’s thinking. For once, he’s not easy to read. His damp curls stick to his forehead and you watch him rise to his feet, lacking his usual grace. He steps towards you and lowers himself before you for a second time, his gaze drifting over your features.

He hesitates before providing you with a simple, guarded, “Imagine you and me—and everything we’ve ever wanted.”

As simple as that.

And with those hard, emerald eyes boring into you, a part of you does.

You imagine you both find a way to get out of this situation dry.

You imagine John coming back and telling you that he loves you more. That he simply loves you. That he wants you as much as you want him.

You imagine Tarasov dead at your feet and your freedom in sight.

Freedom.

To be whoever you want to be.

Santino would become head of Camorra—his lifelong goal, his shield of power—and then…

Life.

Sunshine.

Happiness.

A dream that you will likely never achieve.

Even if you want to, so badly.

People like us don’t get happy endings.

Isn’t that right?

“Tell me this wasn’t for nothing,” you utter, almost breathless from a dream you wish you could cling to as it slips from between your fingers. “Tell me why we’re really here. Make—give me a reason to trust you.”

Santino’s mouth tightens, his previous open expression hardening under your prompting.

A different kind of conflict rages behind his reticent stare now.

No one has come for you yet, and you wonder if Santino has found a way to bury the very dead Rafael Conte without being found out. But being hopeful is not something you’re very good at—not anymore.

“Get on your feet, amore,” he says after a long moment of charged silence between you. “Change out of that dress and meet me outside. Then I will tell you.”

He stands and walks out without a backwards look, leaving you alone in the shower.

He didn’t have to say it out loud for you to know what this is really about.

A show of strength.

Get on your feet.

You don’t want to.

You can’t.

Imagine you and me—and everything we’ve ever wanted.

Blinking the burn of water out of your eyes, you raise your head towards the shut bathroom door.

Imagine.

You can’t do that slumped on the floor.

Sliding onto your knees after a few laboured breaths, you stay there for a bit. The water continues roaring in your ears and you tell yourself to stand though a voice at the back of your mind hisses for you to stay put. What does Santino know of your struggle—

I know what it is to be a trapped thing dependant on the goodwill of others.

He does know.

At least to some degree.

It takes over thirty minutes to stand up and get the soaking dress off your body. Long minutes of trying to locate the bathrobe and wrap it around your shivering frame before turning off the shower. You had to take breaks often, gasping for breath and trying to fight back your panic.

But you did it.

You did.

Leaning your shoulder against the wall, you hug your arms around you and tug the door open.

You find Santino sitting in the same seat he found you in last night before he dragged you into an unexpected dance. It had been the first moment of normalcy you had tasted in months. The memory of it fills your veins with warmth and works your legs.

Santino has changed from his wet clothes as well. He’s donning a combo of clean pressed pants and a looser, faded blue sweater, a fluffy towel sitting wrapped around his shoulders. His curly, wet hair is a messy mop and you can tell he’s been running the towel through the unruly strands.

His head tilts in your direction when he hears your indistinct footsteps approach. He doesn’t smile like usual—no smirk, not even a glimmer of one. For once, he’s completely earnest.

It’s exceedingly difficult to look at him now that you know what you do about him. You don’t feel pity. You’ve heard far worse and more harrowing tales from the underworld. But it’s still unpleasant, still painful.

You try to imagine him as a little boy of five. All ruddy cheeks and wild, curly hair with bright, mischievous eyes.

You wonder if he cried as you did—

“Does anyone know?”

Santino doesn’t respond right away but his eyes track you as you move closer with sluggish, awkward steps. Lowering yourself in the seat he sat in yesterday, you meet his stare evenly. He doesn’t make a comment on your presence.

He expected you to stand up.

He expected you to make it—to overcome yourself.

Outside, the Chicago skyline and Lake Michigan are both swallowed up by a blizzard raging outside. Despite it being the middle of the night, it gives the room a sickly, greyish sort of tint that forces you to focus on him and nothing else.

“No,” he says after a lengthy pause, still staring at you. He’s thinking hard about something, you can tell—here, now, his guard is completely and utterly up. “I had two of my men remove and dispose of the body before anyone found it. No time to clean the scene up, so, hm. As you can already guess the news has spread. The High Table associates are looking into it already.”

Your breaths slow at that and you lift your legs, curling in the plush seat. “The Adjudicator?”

Santino shakes his head once. “No, bella, not yet. But if Conte is not found—which he won’t be—then eventually, yes.”

Your eyes lower and you lock your fingers together, trying to keep your hands steady. “Can your men be trusted?”

This time, the man does smile and the treacherous edge of it chills you. “Ah, no one can be fully trusted, cara mia, especially not men for hire. Remember that,” he warns but his voice lacks the demeaning edge that usually accompanies his words. “But no, they could not be. Which is exactly why I put a bullet in each of their heads before I returned here.”

Silence.

You stare at each other without a word and that says everything.

You did what you had to do to save him.

And he did what he had to do to try and save you both.

“They are Camorra men,” he adds eventually, his smooth voice flat, matter of fact. “No one will look for them.”

“Cameras?”

“No cameras in the bathroom. But otherwise destroyed.”

“Fingerprints? Witnesses?”

Santino’s brows furrow but a slight smile lingers across the seams of his lips. If you didn’t know any better, you would say that he’s proud.

“I did not touch anything aside from the door,” he reveals and drags the towel down his neck, leaning forward so he’s closer. The damp material rests in his lap and his elbows dig into his thighs. His feet are bare and it’s an odd thing to notice now of all the times. “You don’t exist, cara mia.”

You’re dead to the world.

You bite on your inner cheek and lower your head in a nod, picking at your nails.

“So we just need to use the panic to find Andre Boutin—”

“No.”

Your head lifts and your fidgeting fingers still in your lap as well at the look on Santino’s face.

The heir of Camorra looks out towards the blizzard, his eyebrows pinched and shoulders curved downwards. His fingers are interlocked too, and you examine his frustration silently.

“The mission failed,” he remarks bitingly, his words quiet. “If Boutin is not out of Chicago already, he soon will be. Our advantage is gone. We will be flying back to New York tomorrow.”

His rises to his feet then, throwing the dampened towel aside. A hiss of breath—of pure, simmering rage—bubbles past his parted lips and he marches ahead only to be caught by his elbow.

His attention snaps to you, his breaths ragged. His stare is a storm but he keeps it contained and your grip on him constricts.

“What did he do?” you whisper in the space between you, weary but determined. “Tell me.”

Santino grins, cold and venomous, his eyebrows quirking as he turns his body towards you, leaning close. “Oh? Is this how this works, bella?” he wonders but doesn’t shake your touch off. “You demand answers and expect me to bend to your will? Was I not weak enough for you earlier, hm?”

You regard each other wordlessly. Him brimming with agitation and you so tired you want to collapse. But this is important. It nags at you constantly—this need to understand what’s really going on.

“I don’t think you’re weak,” you tell him calmly, and it surprises you when you realise that you mean it. Whatever earlier was, weak is not the word you would use to describe it. “I just want to understand. Why are you risking everything to kill this one man? Tell me that saving you and killing Rafael on the neutral grounds was not done in vain, Santino. That this has some meaning.”

The soft material of his sweater lingers against your fingertips when you release your grip on him. But Santino doesn’t step away, he reaches out, brushing a strand of your wet hair away gingerly. This time you are the one to jerk back. Sucking in a deep breath, you see his mouth twist and he moves away, giving you space to breathe.

It isn’t that the touch was unpleasant. Or even unwanted.

It’s the fact that your heart had fluttered but it whispered John’s name.

Your John.

But he isn’t, is he? He’s married and happy. He left. Why shouldn’t you allow yourself this? He wants you. At least he does.

And that might be true. Physically, at least, you imagine moving on from John would be easy, simple even. You imagine that if you initiated, Santino would not deny you. In fact, after your little moment during the poker game earlier, you think he won’t need much convincing at all.

He had looked so torn at the edges from just a few touches and wanders of your tongue and lips.

But what would be left of you? What point would you prove by sleeping with Santino?

That you can move on as John did? Maybe. But John is out and married. He won’t care.

No, this would only be selfishness and impulse. It would only ruin everything further.

Down the road, you would only be more miserable for it.

Even if you are so very, very lonely.

Even if you miss that tingle of desire, of being desired back.

Maybe that’s why you allow these brief moments with Santino to continue. Because you are selfish and just want to cling on to that fire of his because it almost reminds you what it is to be normal. Adored. Alive.

His footsteps halt next to the large bay windows, and the storm outside still rampages in a hale of ice and wind.

His hand braces against the glass, his head bowed and you watch his rigid frame.

“He killed my mother.”

Your breath hitches at his vicious, faint declaration.

His—

Santino chuckles; a low, lilting sound but you catch the resentment and the hurt there before he smothers it.

“Have you heard of the Bloodbath of Camorra?”

Who hasn’t? Even if people like to pretend like they haven’t out of fear they might attract the attention of the family itself.

Who hasn’t heard about the humid, peaceful night in Naples over twenty years ago when Giovanni D’Antonio ordered the execution of two families that made up the Camorra ranks. Alario and Cipriano families were wiped out in a single night. No one was spared; children, the elderly, even the servants. It was the single deadliest and bloodiest event in Camorra history. It was the event that put Giovanni on the map as someone who was not only to be respected but also feared. More than feared. Dreaded.

No one knows to this day what exactly the reason for the bloodbath was, though there is no shortage of theories. Most seem to believe it was a consequence of a failed coup. Others say it was revenge.

You do know one thing: Giovanni slaughtered two families, several generations of people who likely had nothing to do with whatever crimes he thinks they were responsible for, and the High Table only gave him a slap on the wrist for it.

“Yes,” you choke out, your voice thin as you take few unsteady strides towards him. He’s still not looking at you. “Why?”

There is no reply, only his forcefully slow breaths. Has he ever been this with anyone else? Has he ever struggled to tell them what’s on this mind?

“Do you recall what I told you earlier?” he wonders but doesn’t wait for your reply but you see how his back muscles coil under his sweater. Hear the discomfort in his voice, too. “A day after my eighth birthday someone attacked our home.”

You risk another few steps closer, your arms wrapping around your chest. You try to fight back the sinking feeling in your heart but you already know how this story ends; it’s now simply a question of how bad it will get before you arrive at the conclusion of it.

“It was just my mother and me at home, several servants, and guards,” Santino goes on and you hear the torrent of emotions he tries to contain as he continues speaking. “Father was away on Camorra business. Gianna at her private violin lessons. They, ah, attacked in broad daylight.”

Your eyes squeeze shut but you let him talk, ignoring the way your heart is thudding harder and harder in your chest.

“Their numbers were...vast,” he exhales and pauses for a long time. His fingers scrape against the glass before he pulls back abruptly. He doesn’t turn around but you see his fingers clench into fists. “They studied the house layout. Knew when it will be the most vulnerable, you understand? Our guards didn’t stand a chance. My mother tried to hide me but...”

He turns towards you at last, and in the dim light, you can’t see the green of his eyes, just shadows and darkness and rage.

“She told me to hide,” he breathes, low and strained. “Nascondi, piccolo sole.”

Little sun.

His face screws like he can hear the words even now and you swallow thickly your own expression wavering.

Santino opens his eyes after a moment, exhaling a huff of air before he continues, “Hm, but I heard her scream. So I ran after her. I...couldn’t let them hurt her, bella. I was a foolish boy who was scared and wanted his mother. But that’s exactly what they wanted. Both of us. We were drugged and taken. We were to be their bargaining tools.”

His eyes lower towards the ground and his profile reveals how he keeps clenching and unclenching his jaw. He lifts his hand, staring at the golden ring for a breath before rubbing the skin there, his fingers constricting like he’s trying to feel something.

“It was a collaboration between Alarios and Ciprianos...and Andre Boutin.”

Your expression creases and you close the remaining distance between you, coming to a stop before him. He’s still holding his hand but he looks up at you as you come to a stop before him.

“Why?”

Why risk going up against a powerhouse like Camorra? A family rooted in the old ways, and who is known for always returning any blood of theirs spilt tenfold.

“Power,” is his straightforward, sickening reply. “It is rather simple, really, they wanted to rule Camorra. To become the new ruling family by merging. And Andre Boutin always hated my father because he had the one thing that man always wanted.”

Noting your confused frown, Santino cocks his head and grins, “My mother, bella. It always comes down to love of a woman.”

Your lips part, understanding filling you. You’ve never heard of this side of the story. Never knew there was such a tangled web of connections involved in all of this.

His hollow grin fades and he gazes at you wordlessly.

You’re not quite sure what he finds on your face this time, either, but something in your chest aches for him.

Just how much more can he surprise you in a span of a single day?

You’ve been so convinced that he has never seen hardship or pain. That he’s grown up on a mountain of blood money and a silver spoon in his mouth, content in the idea that the rest of the world is less than him.

Perhaps you’re not wrong to think that though. Perhaps there is simply more to him than just that though.

This is hard for him, you can see that, so you lift your chin, press your lips together in a strict line and say, “What happened after they took you?”

His eyes latch onto your own.

Because you need—want—to know.

But also because you would like to think that the man before you needs to tell it. Even if he may never admit to it. Or even realise it himself.

“Drugged, for most of it,” he reveals quietly, his voice frayed. “Some rough handling. But Boutin...he would come to see my mother.”

Your teeth clench together, a boiling feeling suddenly erupting in your stomach. “Did he...?”

He exhales loudly but shakes his head. “No, amore, he was obsessed with her but he wanted her willing. My mother hated him though. She just tried to keep me safe. By whatever means necessary.”

His fingers fidget and you reach on instinct, wrapping your own trembling digits around his.

His attention jumps to your face again, cautious. He doesn’t push you away but he doesn’t pull you closer, either.

This moment is simply compassion.

Simply your personal desire to have someone hold your own hand manifesting here and now.

“My mother...ah, she was the strongest person I have ever known,” he pushes on, and despite the fact that he looks ready to burst at the seams, his voice barely wavers this time. “And she was smart. She used his desperation against him. She got loose. Took two of his fingers off for touching both her and me. Kicked him a few times, too, telling him that she would never love someone like him. That she had a family she loved already.”

This time the quirk of his lips is more genuine, proud, and you feel your own features relax for a bit.

But then his brief smile crumbles away, and your fingers tighten around his in response. The metal of his ring presses into your skin and you know that what’s to come next will not be easy to hear.

“She tried to get me loose,” his voice creaks and your expression contorts, trying to blink away the burn you’re starting to feel behind your eyes. “He got a drop on her while she was soothing my crying...”

A tear rolls down your cheek and something fitters over his expression when he notices it.

He’s never seen tears from you but you don’t feel ashamed of them. Not this time.

“She fought back and I listened—I heard as he choked her to death. My screams did not matter to him.”

A weak wheeze escapes you and you bow your head. Your grip on his hand is so tight that you’re no longer sure if it’s entirely for his benefit.

“My father and his men found us shortly after but it no longer mattered. Boutin was long gone by then and my mother’s corpse was cold.”

“Why wasn’t he punished?” you snap, practically bristling with fury, and try to swallow the lump in your throat but it goes down like a wad of acid. “Why was it only the rival families and not him? Why?”

Santino lifts his free hand and swipes at your wet cheek with his thumb. This time, you don’t flinch away from his touch.

His mouth stretches but once again, it’s not even close to a smile. Those narrowed, heavy eyes focus on you but you don’t understand the look on his face.

You do feel something boiling in your chest though.

Rage.

On his behalf.

He was just a little boy and he had to listen as—

You’re not sure which you feel more acutely, then—blinding sort of fury or sadness. Both.

Swiping at your face, you turn your face away from him. The wet rattle of your laboured breaths fills the silence between you.

It’s like being transported back to that tiny, cramped Moscow flat years ago. The piercing scrape of metal spoon echoing against the pot of soup as Tarasov detailed how he killed your parents, how you are now his property. By choice, of course.

That or death.

“Boutin is the head of the Black Dragon which granted him the Table’s favour,” Santino voices and your attention swings back towards him. He runs his fingers through his curls roughly, his long digits tangling in the silky strands and he looks and sounds so hateful at that moment. Unmade, somehow. “He was smart, too, bella. There was nothing to pin him to the accident.”

“But you were a witness—”

“I was a little boy who was drugged for days,” he cuts you off, his words resentful, bitter. “It was my word against the man who has served the Table for years. Ah, cara mia, but we both know that the face of your tormentor never quite fades from memory, does it not?”

No—no, it doesn’t.

Your lashes still feel thick with tears but you force your vocal cords to work, “Then why leave you alive?”

The heir grits his teeth and you peer at him.

It’s still hard to think that he’s baring these family secrets—his secrets—to you right now. His pain is real and raw and it’s surreal to see him like this.

Where is the arrogant prince of a criminal empire you’re so used to seeing?

This, now, makes you feel like you never knew him at all.

You’ve never caught so much as a whisper of this—no indication at all—but you do understand the reason for it.

It’s so that no one ever sees him like this.

Vulnerable.

And vulnerability is not permitted for someone like him.

Giovanni would never allow it.

Santino himself would never allow it.

He’s too proud.

“Because he panicked. Because my father was on the way. Because he’s a fucking coward.”

You agree.

And finally understand why he wanted this man to suffer. Why he planned so meticulously for this for years.

Only for your instability to ruin those plans.

“I’m sorry,” you murmur, devastated. “I’m so sorry.”

He understands what you mean without clarification.

He glances towards the blizzard again, and his hands slip into his pockets, his shoulders hunched.

“Get some rest, bella. I will handle the rest.”

His accented words lack accusation, even his previous rage, and somehow that’s worse.

You almost miss that narcissistic man you’ve known for years.

But not really. Because despite how agonising this is, this is also the most real you’ve ever seen him.

Like an open nerve bared before you.

“I have waited for years, having to act like that man did not murder my mother right in front of me,” he notes, thoughtful, his words clipped, his expression removed, and he takes several steps past you. Your head rotates after him and he pauses. “I can wait a bit longer.”

No.

All those years…

Whole decades of waiting and biding his time. You know what it is to have to live with that.

The murderer of his mother will not get away with this.

Not like Tarasov gets away with the murder of your parents every single fucking day.

“I will help you.”

He stiffens.

Ignoring it, you go on, “Be it tomorrow, a week from now, or five years,” you tell him, hoarse and choked, pathetically weak in your flimsy bathrobe but more determined than you’ve been in months. “He will die, Santino. I promise you that.”

He straightens, a leisurely rotation of his limbs and muscles before he turns to look at you over his shoulder.

That fire rages despite his calm, composed expression.

His lips curl upwards and you share a long, frenzied look.

You have no idea what passes between you but something does.

“Oh, amore,” he intones icily. “Of course he will.”

You don’t sleep that night.

There is only a few, febrile nightmares that chase you back to wakefulness before you can fully rest.

Curled up in the extravagant covers, you try to listen for any signs that Santino is still awake in the other room but hear nothing.

The storm keeps lashing against your windows throughout the night, filling the eerily soundless space with howls of wind.

Better than the silence of your mind.

Better than Santino’s story tearing and shredding through your mind on repeat.

You nod off again sometime around dawn, your sleep as restless as before but it’s still better than nothing.

This time you dream of being stuck in the pit with Santino beside you, an inky profile of a figure sinking its fingers into your hair—

You snap awake covered in a thin layer of sweat, your throat dry and head pounding.

Getting out of bed takes another hour.

Fatigue lingers in your limbs and you feel listless and dazed, still haunted by events of last night.

The rush of water, the blade in your hand, Rafael Conte choking, gasping for breath as your poison destroys him—

There is no regret in your heart. Not after what he almost did to you, not after you found out what kind of man he served.

You make it to breakfast late, and find Santino absent, only Ares there for company.

She scrolls through her phone as she indulges in a cup of Earl Grey and you greet her with a brief, forced upturn of your lips. Her bright blue eyes take you in critically but she mercifully doesn’t comment on your terrible state.

You’ve just barely managed to brush your hair and teeth, pulling on a random pair of dark jeans and a thick cream sweater.

The hotel is comfortably warm but you still feel cold despite that.

“Santino?”

Ares sneaks a look at you and her response is simple, Handling the fallout. There is quite the uproar and he has to be seen.

To avoid suspicion.

To shield you.

To shield you both.

As much as you wish you could help, there is little you can do now. This is not your crowd. These people are at the very top of the power pyramid and you have no power of your own.

Guilt at your own failure festers in your chest despite the fact that you know that you made up for it by taking Rafael’s life.

Santino knows it, too.

A part of you wonders if this is why he’s trying so hard to bury this.

Despite the fact that you would likely lose your head, and he would be severely punished if anyone found out.

That does not, however, explain why he doesn’t simply throw you to the wolves and save himself. You’ve seen him do it plenty of times. Someone fails and they become expendable, useless. Failure once is failure always.

Maybe he does have some sort of moral fibre in him after all.

The breakfast proceeds mostly in silence. There is little energy in you for anything aside from chewing and swallowing of your food. Still, at least there is hunger in you, and you’re grateful for that if nothing else.

Ares doesn’t bother you, almost like she can sense the discomfort clinging to you. But she, too, appears preoccupied, her thoughts further away than usual.

Frankly, you can’t wait to go back to New York.

Maybe there is some other job Santino needs doing in the meantime. This job was a failure but you still need that money he offered.

Finishing your meal, you leave with a slight nod in Ares’ direction but don’t have the energy for anything more than that.

Time crawls by as you sit in your chair, staring out towards the now peaceful Lake Michigan. A deep layer of fluffy white snow has covered Chicago overnight, and with the sun occasionally peaking past the clouds the landscape seems to glow.

Somewhere between hour two and three, you end up on the floor, your eyes examining the ceiling with silent intensity.

This reminds you of the night John left. Back then, the ceiling of the Continental had been your only companion, too.

John, John, John.

One part of you hopes that he’s the happiest he’s ever been. While another part of you...

The door to your room opens and you recognise the owner of that silky, accented baritone anywhere.

Santino is speaking in French again but it muddles in your mind into a string of noise.

The conversation ends and his footsteps draw closer with increased speed.

“Cara mia?” he calls out and appears above you, his expression tight. “What happened?”

You sigh gently, blinking, “Nothing,” you mumble and blink again. There’s still that insistent pressure against your temple and everything is growing fuzzier. “Just...admiring the ceiling. It’s very good at giving one...perspective.”

The man above you regards you through narrowed eyes, deadly silent, which is unusual. Santino likes to run his mouth. He’s different from last night, too. His cast is back—every inch of him as immaculate and as groomed as always and it almost...disappoints you.

The man you saw last night—the one weighted down by personal pain and cracked around the edges was one you could relate to, maybe even like.

This man—the heir—is just a cold, distant remnant of him. An arrogant prick you have little patience for.

He considers you friends but you see how he watches you.

But perhaps it’s for the better.

That side of him from last night is far, far more dangerous. That side of him you could see yourself growing to care for, see yourself being able to share in moments of loneliness with.

“Dance with me.”

It’s a demand and he doesn’t even bother to try and mask it as anything other than that.

“Has anyone ever told you that you’re...an infuriating, domineering asshole?”

One of Santino’s eyebrows arches and he shrugs off his suit jacket, throwing it on the seat not too far from you. “Yes, cara mia, you have,” he points out mildly and extends his hand, loosening his patterned tie. “Dance with me.”

You don’t move.

He doesn’t drop his arm.

Exhaling loudly, you raise your head, sitting up with a muted glare. His expression is as aloof, as effortlessly arrogant as always, and you slap your hand into his, gripping firmly only for a slight smirk to flicker over his features when he hauls you to your feet.

He wastes no time, moving closer to you as his arm slips around you, his attention drilling into you.

Turning your head pointedly away from him, you sway in silence.

This close, you can see the subtle signs of exhaustion on him. The ashiness of his skin and the darker smudges under his eyes. It’s an effort to ignore the stab of guilt you feel at those observations.

“Don’t disappear.”

Blinking slowly, your head inclines in his direction. “I’m right here.”

His arm tightens around your waist and you ignore his heated touch.

“No, amore, you are slipping away again,” he remarks, his voice hushed and leans his face closer towards yours. “Stay here, in this moment, with me, yes?”

Your throat closes up, a shiver racing down your spine at his words, at the gleam in his green eyes.

You feel, then, terribly seen. Exposed.

You’re ashamed of what he might be seeing right now.

There’s more to you than this.

“I’m—“

His expression doesn’t waver. His grip on you like a chain around your being. But for once, it’s not a suffocating thing, not a burden. It’s an anchor.

His story rings in your ears like a broken record.

“Does anyone suspect?”

He knows what you’re asking and mercifully lets you divert the conversation. “Not yet, which perhaps makes the whole fiasco worse,” he points out but doesn’t seem concerned. “We will wait till afternoon to leave. Many have departed already.”

Avoiding the tension in the air, you allow your eyes to drag over his features. There is one thing that has been plaguing you since you heard his story last night.

“Why didn’t Giovanni go after Boutin? Why are you not telling him now?”

Santino’s eyes snap to you, searching.

This is both curiosity and an attempt to stay...present.

He seems to recognise it as such and after an uneasy moment, his lips part, “Because I spent years hounding but constantly came up empty, bella,” he divulges stiffly, his hold on your hand constricting. “Because it kept bringing my father shame in the eyes of the Table, and he has forbidden me from going down this path again. He warned me that if anything is to ever happen to Boutin, and he learns that I had anything to do with it, he would strip me of my title. Rules, yes?”

That’s why he needed you.

Why he didn’t want this attached to his name.

If Giovanni is to ever find out that he did anything to Boutin, he would lose the very thing he’s always desired above everything else.

The title as the next head of Camorra.

But more importantly, this festering hatred for rules finally has an explanation.

Rules have robbed me of more than you know.

His words from last night suddenly make a lot more sense. After the last 48 hours you shared, an awful lot more makes sense about him in general.

“Well,” you begin, meeting his gaze. “I meant what I said last night. I will help you.”

Santino hums and his face softens a touch. The corner of his mouth quirks upwards and you’re not sure what he finds so funny. “Such promise, no?” he wonders idly. “I might hold you to it, and that is not a position most people enjoy being in.”

You know that well.

Shuffling your feet clumsily, you let him turn your interlocked bodies, and can’t help but silently wonder why this is helping.

Why he is helping.

“I won’t have offered if I didn’t mean it.”

Something shifts through his eyes; a weight, an emotion you have never seen before but it’s gone with a blink.

His feet halt but he still holds you to him.

“Come away with me.”

“Where?”

His exhale is barely audible. “Anywhere, cara mia, anywhere you want,” he says urgently and then a sly light enters his eyes as something seemingly comes to mind. “You still owe me a trip to Paris.”

This again.

Trying not to roll your eyes, you answer with a dry, “I’ve been to Paris before, Santino.”

His hot palm folds around yours more snugly, his touch lingering. “Not my Paris,” he argues but it’s the most carefree you’ve seen him since Rome. Ever since your reunion in New York, he appears calmly furious every time you see him but not right now. Not in this light, not with this minimal distance between you. “You haven’t experienced the food and the art and the music. There is more to life than this, and it’s out there, waiting for you. I could show it to you,” he adds the last part in the faintest of murmurs, peering at you intently.

No pride, no demands, or ego.

There’s such lightness to his voice, to his eyes, that a part of you can almost imagine it, taste it, like you’re in Paris with him right now.

He almost looks hopeful; an emotion you’ve never associated with him before.

But—

John.

His dark eyes and his raspy voice haunt you.

Accuse you of betrayal.

“I can’t.”

The light gutters out.

He studies you for a grim moment, unblinking.

“I can’t,” you repeat again, and your words tumble out in a rushed, dejected mess. “Tarasov will—“

“Ah, bella, the Russian can be paid off. We both know that,” Santino interrupts, his voice slipping towards coldness. “What is this really about, hm?”

You gape at him for several moments, stumped.

“Is my company truly so revolting to you that you rather slip back into isolation?” he demands, attempting to control his slipping anger. But this anger is different from the one you witnessed last night. “Lock yourself away. Let that beautiful fire be doused again by memories of him. Snap out of it. He’s not coming back. You need to let him go before he destroys you.”

“Shut up.”

It’s a feeble mumble of words and you pull back. He lets you go but his words are like a torrent.

He’s been holding back for years.

He likely wanted to spill these words to you the moment he realised the amount of damage the wedding did.

He’s been trying to leash this for your sake but no longer.

“When will you realise that if he truly loved you, he never would have left you,” he snaps, seething, his vocal cords distorting with sharpness. The lines on his face deepen with his stubborn scowl as he continues, stalking closer. “When will you realise that you deserve so much better than this misery, hm? When will you just let him go and be happy? When will you realise that his care was nothing but a brief fancy to soothe loneliness? You were simply there. An easy choice. The moment another came along he left you behind like an unwanted pet. When he came to me for help, he didn’t even bother asking after you. He didn’t care, amore. He doesn’t love you and he never will.”

Silence.

You’re not sure if you’re still breathing.

There is just a vague sound of blood rushing in your ears and the sight of the man before you blurs.

A soft wisp of air slips past your trembling lips and you see Santino falter. His explosive temper drains away in a blink. His jaw sets as he, too, seems to conclude that he has gone too far.

You know he’s right.

You know that.

Every action John has committed before leaving only confirms it.

He did feel something—he’s not the type of man to fake something like that, he’s so kind and gentle deep down—but you’re not Helen.

You’re not a normal, happy life, either.

You’re none of those things.

Because your life has become an act of brutal transformation. Soft skin to hard skin; gentle voice to cruel voice; good heart to black heart. That’s what it is to be alive, to survive—an act of cannibalising oneself till there’s only bits and pieces left behind that appease others. Tarasov, Kishi, this life of blood and death. They have all ate alive a girl that could have been and spat back something awful and terrible out instead.

Your feet carry you past him wordlessly.

Santino turns after you, his fingers brushing over your elbow, “Amore, I—”

You jerk your arm away like his touch physically hurts you, disgusts you. Your mouth contorts in a snarl and your attention snaps towards him, a well of hostility and hurt exploding outwards.

“Yes, I do find you revolting,” you bite out loudly, every word as cruel and as abrasive as you can possibly make it. “Because you are nothing more than a selfish, spoiled, murderous little man who feels entitled to the world. You hide behind your pathetic bravado but I see right through you.”

Gasping for breath, you ignore his frozen expression, and practically hiss your next words at him, “Yeah, Santino D’Antonio is nothing more than a scared, miserable boy overshadowed by everyone in his life but so desperate to be heard, feared, respected. It’s pathetic, really, how hard you try because you will never succeed. No one will ever care or love a lying, cheating, backstabbing bastard like you.”

Your words hang between you, stripping the room of air.

The space crackles with aggression as you stare at each other but neither of you speaks.

His face is blank, his stare glassy.

You’ve thought that maybe he—

You’re such a goddamn idiot.

Pivoting on your heels, you march away, not caring if he will order your death for such disrespect. You’ve seen him order hits for less.

But there is just emptiness.

A gnawing pain in that hole John and Tokyo have punched right through you.

A hole that a weak, pathetic little ember in your chest has whispered could be soothed by the man you leave behind you with a slam of the door.

You stagger down the hotel hallway as tears blind you and Kishi falls in step beside you, grinning brightly.

You’re dead to the world.

Your tears only come harder.

The silence inside the car is chilly.

Neither of you speaks though you’re sitting beside each other, no more than an arms-length away.

Ares found you hours later at the hotel bar, nursing a lemonade in your hands and lost in thought.

She had tried to make a joke about it only for it to fall short when you remained unresponsive. Her own expression fell after that, and in that action, you knew Santino has told her what has transpired between you.

You had followed her back to the lobby silently. Everything was already packed and ready to go, she had informed you. The nightmare that’s been this trip has finally come to an end.

She had to go ahead and secure the jet, and with Santino’s dwindled guard numbers, Piero was the only one to greet you by the large, black SUV.

The stoic, muscular man had nodded at you once, a touch stiff, before pulling the car door open for you.

Santino, much to your displeasure, was already seated inside.

Dressed in a fresh khaki suit and white shirt and with his eyes guarded by tinted sunglasses, he hadn’t even turned in your direction.

And so the painfully awkward drive to the airport began.

Even now, fifteen minutes in, the only tell for his turbulent thoughts is the way he keeps winding the golden ring around his finger repeatedly.

There is a buried pang deep in your chest which warns you that you have taken your comments too far.

It’s not that you don’t think what you said doesn’t apply to him to a degree—both past and present—but...

But you’ve seen so much more of him during these last few weeks. Days.

A completely different side.

Your own pain—a heinous, thick, rotting thing—had been too desperate to burst out and cause similar torment.

You’ve been selfishly unwilling to be alone in your suffering.

He was right. Everything he said. But it hadn’t hurt any less to hear the truth you’ve already known since John walked out of that hotel room, leaving you alone.

There is a lump in your throat that refuses to leave as you survey the snowy Chicago streets while the car speeds down the streets.

“The money will be transferred to your account when we land in New York.”

The declaration rips through the otherwise quiet car with a loudness of a thunder crack.

Licking your lips, you turn your head in his direction, a frown pinching your features, “I don’t need your charity,” you inform him frankly. “The job fell through.”

Santino’s own head slants in your direction lazily, the gesture effortlessly disdainful and you almost bristle. He’s playing up the worst of his character traits on purpose.

“Charity, cara?” he echoes, unimpressed. “Hardly. You will be getting 500k for your work here and 1mil will be earned back whenever you work for me next.”

“Why are you doing this?”

“Because I have a preference for you breathing,” he says bluntly before glancing in your direction. Behind his sunglasses, you catch only a glimpse of those sharp eyes before he turns away again. For a brief second, the vision of him now and the man who sat beside you in the shower blur. “Which you will not be if you don’t pay the Russian, no? Consider it a future investment into our wonderful, revolting partnership.”

The golden ring keeps twisting around his finger.

Even now he would still—

You’re so focused on the heir next you that you don’t see it coming.

The impact practically throws you off your seat and your hands snap outwards on instinct.

The SUV goes sliding down the road before another car slams into it from a different direction. Your body slides towards Santino and you throw yourself at him, shielding his body as glass rains down over you both.

Tires screech against the icy asphalt while the car spins, and your face buries against Santino’s hair for a brief moment as the car drags itself into a standstill.

“Stay down.”

You don’t hesitate, pulling a pistol from under your sweater and heave yourself towards the front of the car where Piero is already pulling out his own gun. Blood trails down his split brow but he appears otherwise fine.

Count. How many?

Following John’s stern advice inside your head, your eyes sweep over the intersection. The highway is ahead, no more than half a mile out, and you flip the safety off your pistol, keeping low as you reach for Piero’s shoulder.

“Get do—”

The bullet hits the dark-haired man right in the temple, splattering his blood all over your face.

Your grip on him loosens and you fall back towards Santino who is staring at you with grim sort of understanding.

His sunglasses are gone and his green eyes meet your own.

Yes, you suppose he would find and ambush a quite routine turn of events.

You’ve been in this situation too many times to count as well.

Even if there is a distinct, prickling discomfort at the knowledge that you are now effectively alone facing against an unknown number of assailants.

Tangling your fingers in his expensive suit, you pull him closer and he goes rigid in the seat, your eyes still locked.

Stay on me.

Reaching past him, you wipe at your face, and lock your fingers around the door handle. Another five shots hit the SUV but you ignore it, pushing the door open.

Five shots, three-second delay, at least two shooters. Not aiming to kill, just to draw you out.

John’s voice recites the observations in your ear, and you push Santino through the door, your gun raised. His phone is in his hand already but it doesn’t matter what help he calls for.

Ares is at least another twenty minutes away. Your numbers are slim as they are already.

It’s up to you two to get out of this alive.

Your hands keep trembling. Far, far too much for a balanced aim and you grip the gun tighter between your clammy fingers, willing the stability to return.

Don’t let it consume you.

Clinging onto Winston’s steadying voice, you slide out after Santino, another series of shots hitting the car after you. The pinging of the metal pierces your ears painfully but you ignore it.

One two, three and then four.

One two, three and then—

Locking your muscles, you jump upwards and fire two shots in the direction of your attackers.

One of the figures falls to the ground from the impact and you throw yourself down as an explosion of lead follows in response.

Santino’s arm wraps around you as you both hunch into a compact ball of limbs on the floor. At any moment a stray bullet could hit you, but the car is your only cover. You’re helplessly exposed and out in the open.

“How many?” his laboured inquiry tickles your ear but you don’t answer him.

You’re not sure you can stomach the ugly truth yourself.

Just a glimpse and you saw at least three dozen darkly dressed figures, all armed and ready to—

Not kill you, John reassures from beside you and you look up at the Italian.

“Too many,” is your tepid conclusion, and you press him closer as more bullets hit. A too familiar smell of gasoline registers in your nose moments later and you bite back a frustrated yell. What’s next?

Cursing under your breath instead, you cut your attention back to him. “I can cause a distraction. Draw their attention—”

“Have you lost your mind—”

“Your life matters more than mine!”

His mouth snaps shut but the look on his face—

Bullets hit the car once again, cutting off any potential reply, and the gunfire draws closer in a regular hit of metal against metal.

Either this car will blow or they will corner you.

So you make the choice for him.

Raising your arm, you fire blindly—a deterrent—and lift your head briefly over the back bonnet to check—

You pull the trigger immediately and again, and again—

Two bodies drop against the car, now dead, and you shove Santino roughly to the side.

Shit.

They used the covering fire to mask their approach.

And their uniforms.

They’re the Black Dragon’s men which means—

The chamber clicks empty and you hurl the gun at the face closest to you.

Two blades greet the next two men and you throw yourself at them.

“Run!”

You don’t risk turning around to see if he obeys your order.

Flipping the polished metal between your fingers, you sink it into a struggling man, ignoring his flailing.

This isn’t about winning.

You’re far too exhausted and outnumbered for any illusions of that.

This is about buying Santino time to get away.

If Ares hurries—

You throw another blade, smashing your leg into another man’s knee with enough vicious intent that you hear bones crack.

Another dies with a snap of his neck.

Another with a blade right in the jugular.

Next one with a blade in his face.

Skin, muscle and tendons all rip and it’s still not enough.

Black, black, black everywhere you look.

This has dissolved into a fistfight. You’re not sure how many you have managed to take down using speed and agility but your strength is disintegrating by the second. Any and all gunfire has long since ceased as if to give you a fighting chance. Like whoever is behind this is testing how long you will last.

Just like—

The butt of a semi-automatic flies towards your face and—

You come back to life with a violent jolt of your entire body and a gasp of pain.

You’re somewhere poorly lit and damp. Cold.

Something about those few observations causes your entire being to go into high alert.

Scrambling, you shake your head to clear the fuzziness from your vision as well as the tang of blood that lingers on your tongue.

“Shh, bella. Don’t move.”

Your eyes fly open, your head spinning as you squint at the too-familiar figure in front of you.

“What—” your voice splinters and you force down the raspiness away. “I told you to run.”

To know that you’ve been taken is bad enough but to know that you failed, again, simply because—

“They would have killed you.”

That’s the only explanation Santino D’Antonio offers you before he extends his hand in your direction.

His suit jacket is missing, leaving him in nothing but a white shirt that’s smeared with dirt and dried blood. This is easily the most dishevelled you’ve ever seen him. He hates getting his own hands dirty.

He looks relatively unharmed though the way his dark curls clumps with blood on the left side of his head tell you exactly how he ended up here with you.

“Where are we?” you force out as he helps you to sit up, his fingers still holding your own. “How…how many?”

Your speech slurs and you groan, shaking your head again, trying to bottle and throw away the pain. Your hands are still shaking and Santino’s hold constricts briefly. It’s almost comforting. Almost.

Right now, you don’t have the time to be upset or angry with him.

Right now, you’re perfectly aware that the only chance you have to get out of this alive is to work together.

“I’m not too sure. I woke up only minutes ago,” he reveals, his voice hushed and spotting your bewildered frown, he subtly indicates towards the ceiling where you notice a blinking red light. Cameras. “We were alone when I came around.”

It’s then, with your vision finally settling, that you are able to fully take in the space around you.

The blood in your veins promptly turns to ice.

No.

No, no, no.

From the bottom of your stomach, you feel a swell of raw, numbing sort of panic spread, spiking your pulse.

“Cara mia?” Santino calls out, no doubt noting the way your face has slackened with terror. His fingers sink into your shoulder gently but even the heat of his palm does nothing to quell the uncrackable ice suddenly encasing you.

You’re underground.

A large, dark space.

A single, swinging lightbulb illuminates the dirt you sit on and a large metal door—

Just like Tokyo.

Just like that endless pit of blood and torment and pain.

You can’t breathe.

“No—please, no,” you gasp and yank yourself from Santino’s grip, scrambling to stand up. “No, no, no.”

The surprise that you’re not bound barely sinks in as you stumble towards the metal door frantically.

Santino’s confused voice sounds behind you but you don’t understand a single word he says.

No—

Please, please, no.

The quake in your hands is so bad that it takes you three tries to grasp onto the handle, your nails scratching against the rusted metal. The noise is jarring in its familiarity but you try to ignore it.

Despite your best efforts to battle down the spreading panic, your barely calm breaths slip into something more frantic, terrified.

You try to wrench the door open but it won’t budge—

“The door is locked, cara, I tried—”

Your fist slams against he metal cutting him off, and you gasp for breath before crashing all your strength against it again.

And again.

Again, again, again—

“Stop!” Santino shouts over the deafening bangs, trying to haul you away from the door by the waist. “Stop, you’re hurting yourself!”

Ignoring your bloodied knuckles, you try to kick your way out of his grip, disregarding his grunts of pain. He holds you to him tightly despite the way you scratch at his arms, and twist in his hold. “Don’t touch me!”

Your voice is not your own, your body is not your own, either.

The darkness presses in on all sides and you ignore Kishi’s laughter ringing from the inky shadows surrounding you.

“Let me out!” you scream from the top of your lungs and a sob breaks free from your chest; a wet, broken toll of pure terror. “Let me out, let me—”

“Breathe, cara, breathe—”

Santino’s voice reverberates like he’s underwater, and you let out a wail of pure pain.

Pressure builds against the back of your head and—

“Let me out, let—me—please—let me out!”

Your begging falls to deaf ears, and your shouts of fright echo back at you like a nauseating lullaby.

It’s like being squeezed through a tube, nothing but blackness filling your sight.

You can’t breathe—

then

nothing.

Humming.

Peaceful, soothing humming laps at your senses, filling the holes and the crevices.

This time, you don’t come around forcefully but with a melody in your ears and delicate fingers against your hair.

A thumb strokes lightly against your temple to the beat of the little song.

Your eyes ache when you blink them open, still stinging from tears. Softness cushions your head, and it takes a little while to grasp the fact that your head is nested in Santino’s lap as he holds you to him.

A whimper slips free and the humming cuts off, his touch retreating at once as he peers down at you.

Another deep line has formed between his crinkled brows. Even worse is his usually vivid gaze that now appears black.

“Count with me,” he urges in Italian, his words insistent but quiet, before you so much as open your mouth. He seems to be making a conscious effort to not touch you more than necessary. “Uno, due, tre.”

He repeats it. Next time he goes up to five. Then back down.

Each time with more urgency.

Your heart beats like a resoundingly drum inside your chest but you force yourself to obey, force yourself to mouth with his counting.

He holds your stare as you do.

Panic retreats gradually one mumbled number at the time.

You’re shivering, unmoving, curled up against him. Leeching off his warmth.

It’s deafeningly quiet here. You can’t bear to look around you, less you be reminded of where you are, so you focus only on him.

You feel so weak. Pathetic.

You recall Tarasov’s disgust at your weakened state in his office but there is no disgust now.

A tentative touch grazes against your hand and you jump, curling tighter into yourself as you drag your hand back.

Santino grimaces at your rough movement and it’s then that you catch the sight of his hands.

Red, inflamed lines mar his tanned skin. Some deep enough to draw blood.

A memory of you trying to tear out of his grip—

“Your hands...” you whisper, horrified, ashamed. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

The man huffs a breath.

“Stop apologising,” he deadpans. “It’s rather irritating, you know.”

His response is so frank and unexpected you only blink. Sniffling slightly, you let a faint snort escape you, your eyes fluttering shut with a fragile smile.

“There we go.”

He sounds pleased.

Your eyes open and in this shadowed space, his cast has once again cracked. “Why are you being so...”

“So?”

“Not you,” you breathe weakly.

Santino chuckles. It’s a pleasant, silky sound that doesn’t seem to belong in this horrid place. His head tilts back, hitting the wall with a muted thud. The cords of his neck move with his amusement and his palm settles briefly against your hair. It’s almost playful. Fond. “Ah, and has it ever, perhaps, crossed your mind that you don’t really know me, bella, hm?”

He glances down at you, awaiting your answer but you don’t offer him one for a long time.

You thought you knew him.

You do.

It has simply become abundantly clear that not all parts of him like you initially assumed.

For the second time in your life, you’re glad that you know him.

That he is here with you.

That you’re not alone.

Truly and wholly.

You never thought you’d live to see the day.

“I know you’re not a good man,” you murmur faintly. “I know that I shouldn’t trust you.”

Only a twitch of his lips. Indulgent. Dangerous.

“No, I am not,” he admits easily, unabashed. “And no you shouldn’t.”

A glint of something that’s gone too quickly for you to decipher in the darkness. “Even if I would like you to.”

You don’t feel like lying to him that you do trust him, so you say nothing.

The silhouette of him shifts—careful not to jostle you—and you know that he wants to say something but there’s some internal battle going on inside him.

“Cara mia, I—”

You’re not sure how you know what he’s trying to express but you do.

Maybe because you’re thinking the exact same thing.

Your fingers lace around his cautiously, avoiding the scratches cutting into his skin.

“I’m sorry, too.”

Before he can respond, there is a groan of metal behind you.

Your fingers clamp around his, your momentarily ease fracturing.

“Santino—”

He squeezes your fingers once.

“We’ll get out of this.”

You hate the promise, the resolute belief, in his accented voice.

Unlike him, you feel drained of hope.

“Get them up.”

Footsteps stomp against the ground as figures pour inside the darkened room. The order was given with leisurely authority, and the owner of the voice is familiar with weaving command like his native tongue.

Santino doesn’t wait till someone manhandles either of you though. He stands long before that and you’re surprised that his fingertips linger on you, helping you as well.

He straightens as figures dressed in black gather around you, cutting off any escape routes.

You force your shoulders to rearrange, ramrod straight, and tilt your chin up just like the Italian.

Through the group of Dragon’s men cuts a man.

He’s shorter than you both, well in his sixties, and sporting grey slicked-back hair. He wears an ordinary black suit and you can tell from one look that it’s likely half the price tag of Santino’s.

The man’s face is unremarkable, too. A slightly crooked nose, deep-set eyes that look darker due to the dim light of the room, and deep wrinkles lining his face. Two fingers are missing on his left hand just like Santino told you and your eyes narrow on him.

Across Andre Boutin’s thin lips lingers an impersonal smile.

It sets your teeth on edge.

He halts in front of you, his head lifting a touch to look up at the heir and he hums, inspecting him with a shrewd, cold look.

That gesture almost reminds you of Winston except it feels insulting to compare the manager to this scum of a man.

You try to envision him younger, try to imagine what he would have looked like the night he killed the Lady of Camorra right in front of her child.

That rage you felt last night when Santino told you his story licks at your senses again, chasing the exhaustion and the fear away. At least for the moment.

You almost entertains he idea of leaping at him right now but you doubt you’ll make it before the men surrounding you kill you.

“Here we are again,” Boutin speaks thoughtfully, his voice more nasally than you would have expected. “Santino D’Antonio...you have grown, boy.”

The Italian beside you is rigid.

God, you can’t even begin to imagine what he must be feeling right now, faced with the murder of his mother after all these years.

“And you have taken after your mother,” Boutin continues, seemingly unconcerned with the thick, suffocating enmity filling the air. “Those hateful eyes and foul temper...they remind me of Emilia.”

“Don’t you dare speak her name,” is a hiss of such unbridled fury that the man beside you practically shakes with it. “Do you have any idea what my family will do to you now? I will tear your little company to pieces.”

This Santino you do know.

Serrated, vicious edges and pure venom.

Boutin looks unmoved by the threat, however, just mildly aggravated.

“Arrogant just like your father,” he concludes dispassionately and you hear Santino exhale at that. “Do you think I did not plan ahead, boy? No security footage, no witnesses. I made sure no one would know where you are or who took you. Do you believe your title makes you invulnerable? I am the head of the Black Dragon. I’ve been serving the High Table before you were even born.”

Shit.

This is—

This is Tokyo all over again.

No one knows where you are. There will be no help here.

Even if Ares knows, even if she contacts Camorra—which you know Santino would have warned her not to do unless there’s no other option—it’s unclear how long it may take for them to track you.

Step could potentially do it but even then...

“I always knew that you would not let it rest,” the man carries on, folding his arms behind his back and something changes in his regard then. Hardens. Prickles your senses. Something about this man reminds you of— “Letting you live was the biggest oversight on my part. But then you had to go ahead and come here, didn’t you? So, if you would like to avoid being sent back to Giovanni in little pieces, I will ask you only this: where is my son?”

Ignoring the quake in your legs, you risk a peek towards the heir. His features are bathed in half-light and half-shadow but his expression is cold, sneering.

“Am I suppose to know who that is?”

Boutin’s thin lips flatten into something more cutting; a subtle promise of violence that you know how to recognise even if Santino may not.

Kishi and Tarasov have taught you well.

So cracking your lips, you speak for the first time before this can escalate, “You’re Rafael’s father.”

It’s in the eyes.

Always in the eyes.

Beside you, Santino goes very still.

He understands what this means.

Just like that, Boutin’s attention slides towards you, his eyes narrowing in consideration. He takes a step towards you and the Italian next to you slips closer, his arm brushing against yours. The Dragon’s men move into a tighter circle around you.

The silent warning is clear.

“That’s right,” Boutin confirms, expressionless. “It seems I have almost forgotten all about our guest of honour. The Vipress.”

Confusion and disbelief fill you.

You hadn’t expected that.

“You know who I am?”

Yes, your name has spread far and wide, especially after the Hunt. But you were under the belief that Boutin never involved himself in the dramas of your world, staying completely secluded unless forced otherwise by the High Table. His fear of Camorra, of retaliation, has driven him to a half-life.

The older man almost looks amused by your reaction.

“I reassure you,” he begins coolly, another aloof smile ghosting over his worn features, and there is something in his intonation and scrutiny that makes your skin crawl. “I know a great many things about you. You’ve been a subject of interest to us for some time now. How do you like it here? I had hoped you would find it...familiar.”

Your composed expression strains.

Familiar?

“We have no idea what happened with your bastard son.”

Santino’s words cleave through the air and Boutin’s keen appraisal comes to an end with them. His eyes drag towards the Camorra heir.

“Do you take me for a fool, boy?” the man questions calmly but there is a sharpness to his words that makes you wary. “I know you had something to do with my son’s disappearance. I will rip the truth out of you, but I’ll start with her. Let’s see how long your resolve holds when you are faced with a choice between her life and your own.”

A barrel of a gun digs into your skull, making the cut against the back of your head ache.

You calculate the trajectory and the distance between you and the figure behind you.

Disarming the man would be easy enough if you could get your muscles to obey and move fast enough.

The issue is another ten men in the room and Boutin himself.

Not to mention Santino.

An open target for them to exploit.

As if confirming that thought, a gun gets levelled on his head, too.

Another warning.

No, this is about biding your time—

“Oh, I will kill you for this,” Santino vows, low and icy, as he glares hole into the older man.

Boutin appears curious though. Pensive.

“I was under impression that you D’Antonios don’t have hearts,” he points out mildly. “Yet she elicits such a…response.”

His hand lifts casually and the pressure against your head lessens but doesn’t drop entirely.

“Fear not, boy,” Boutin starts, his tone wooden, and grasps your chin between his fingers. His skin is dry and leathery, his touch just as subtly unpleasant as the rest of him. “I have different plans for the viper,” he states calmly and you jerk out of his grip, glaring.

The man gives you a thin smile.

“Separate them,” he orders. “Let’s see which one breaks first.”

You knew your weapons were missing from the moment you first woke up.

When you train yourself to be so aware of everything about your own body and every advantage available, you begin to track the smallest of details.

Survival is decided in moments. Find them.

John’s voice whispers against your ear and you walk at a steady, orderly pace.

Which one breaks first.

Boutin’s words have burrowed under your skin and you know he meant them.

You have no intention of sticking around long enough to find out the answer to that.

They split you up before they removed you from the room, dragging you both in different directions. You count your steps, track every turn. The most important thing is not to let them lead you too far away that you can’t find your way back to Santino.

The Italian’s reaction to Boutin’s words has been the exact opposite of your apathy.

Santino has always been a raging volcano; volatile, dangerous, and quick to erupt. He has sworn vengeance. The bloodshed that Camorra will soak the Dragon in with pleasure.

His words held promise and power.

Perhaps that’s why Boutin’s complete lack of reaction struck you as so...odd.

Initially, you had chalked it up to arrogance—there is certainly an abundance of it found in just about every male you have ever encountered in this business—but this had been different.

Boutin knows what Camorra is capable of. He fears them, or at least fears Giovanni. Otherwise, he won’t have chosen seclusion the way he has for decades.

So why is he so sure that there will be no consequences for taking the heir of an Italian powerhouse? This goes so much further than just Camorra’s wrath, too. This is a family with a great many powerful allies on its side. Not to mention the startling amount of control and presence they have at the High Table.

Something about all of this doesn’t make sense.

The lack of fear, the preparation that has gone into this—they all point to more than just an attempt to torture answers out of you.

How will Boutin react if the truth about Rafael comes out?

They will torture and kill you both. Slowly.

Swallowing at that desultory, cool assessment inside your mind, you slow your gait.

“Move it,” a muffled voice grouses from behind you in an accent that makes you think Eastern Europe. “You know we will hurt you.”

Shocker.

Your hands have been bound but the guards are still alert.

It made you feel queasy to have the roughness of rope cut into your wrists once again.

But it had not been the time to act. Not yet.

“I feel...”

You drop to the side.

The guard reacts on instinct, grabbing you by the forearm to slow your descent to the ground.

Your elbow smashes directly against his temple, numbing it enough to make your arm droop. Other two guards react at once, pulling up their weapons but it’s too late. You drop against the guard that was leading you, yanking the gun from his hand and planting a bullet in his face and the two guards behind him.

Only one dies immediately due to your shaky aim, and it takes another bullet each to finish off the other two.

The spike of adrenaline drains too quickly and you slump to your knees, breathing one harsh breath after another.

Your muscles twitch under your skin but your ears strain.

Two bullets too many.

But the gunshots had sounded muffled when they fired, dampened by the dirt and the flesh. A small mercy but one you’re not quick to thank for. It’s still no guarantee that someone hasn’t heard or will come to check soon enough.

Move, John orders sternly, or they will kill you. Move.

You start with your hands.

After Tokyo, after it took weeks for the skin of your wrists to heal, you made sure to practice getting out of binds constantly. With enough time most binds can be broken out of.

Time, however, is one thing you don’t have a lot of right now.

Still, doing more damage than you wanted, you manage to rip your wrists free. The skin already looks abused and scratched from loosening the ropes but you ignore it, wrapping the length of it around your right hand instead.

A good weapon to use.

The pistol only has two bullets left in the magazine—it won’t take you very far.

The other guards only have a knife between them. Still, you grasp the unfamiliar, heavy weight in your hand. Balancing the metal between your fingers, you try to familiarise yourself with the shape and the feel of it.

Wiping the back of your hand over your forehead, you dig deeper and deeper into yourself to find the strength to go on. Your earlier panic still lingers in your veins but you ignore it, clutching onto that clinical set of instructions inside your head.

Either you get it together or you die.

Your eyes press shut and you stand, shaky, mumbling all the turns and twists you took to get here in this far away tunnel.

Now, more than ever, you wish you could find that stillness John sometimes mentioned.

The sensation of perfect clarity that allows you to slip into nothing but pure instinct. Where there is no pain, no exhaustion, no limits.

But you’re not John.

As everyone is always so quick to remind you.

Fingertips tracing the walls and relying on nothing but touch and memory and sound, you move through the tunnels.

For at least five minutes there is nothing but the beat of your heart.

Then—

Dull footsteps ahead and you pause, your eyes opening.

The rope in your hand loosens and you wrap the other edge around your left palm. The rope stretches and you relax your muscles, waiting, ready.

The soldier rounds the corner and you land a quick, brutal kick to his knee, making him double over. The rope wraps around his neck and you cross your arms, slamming against his body and pulling the rope taut around his neck.

The man splutters, groaning, trying to pull the rope away from his throat but you press closer, digging your elbows into his back. The man twists, attempting to throw you over his body but you wrap your legs around his waist from behind, clinging to him. The splutters grow weaker by the second and you breathe harshly against his ear as he falls over, your body weight keeping him pinned down.

Time seems to crawl as he stills. You wait for another twenty seconds though.

You’re not about to take any chances.

Loosening the rope, you slice the blade against his neck for good measure, too.

Pushing the heavy body to the side, you leave it in a shadowed edge of the tunnel.

Wherever here is, it’s an old but sturdy premise.

You encounter another three soldiers before you manage to track down Santino. Shadows and silence are your best weapons and you don’t waste your precious bullets.

Rope and a knife.

Not quick and not clean but still effective.

The metal door is shut but hovering your ear over the door, you can still make out the voices inside.

“You know, I’ve heard about you,” a man speaks and you crack the door open centimetre by centimetre after undoing the latch; no doubt a way to stop Santino from getting out in the event he manages to get loose. “D’Antonio. The Smiling Shark. I’ve been waiting for a chance to cut up your pretty-boy face.”

This holding room is a smaller version of the one you first woke up in. Though you can’t see his face, you spot Santino seated on a chair in the middle of the room, a bright light illuminating his lean frame.

“Oh? You think I’m pretty? I’m flattered.”

It’s an effort not to roll your eyes.

Crouching low, you stalk closer, your steps silent.

The guard grabs a knife from his hostler. An ugly, crude thing meant to scare and do damage.

“Forget waiting—”

You jump on him from behind, driving your own blade deep into the unguarded flesh of his neck.

“Guess you’ll have to wait a little longer,” you rasp into his ear and slash the knife horizontally, not wasting any time.

The man barely has time to gasp before fresh blood rains across the dark dirt and you push his body to the side. You slow the descent just enough to void any loud noises as you wipe the bloody blade on the guard’s clothes.

Your eyes lift towards the Camorra heir but Santino is already staring at you.

The look in his eyes is not one you have ever seen. He has bestowed you with plenty of intense, heated looks before but this is something else.

“You okay?”

“You’re incredible.”

That’s genuine and it almost makes you smile. Instead, you arch an eyebrow and approach him, readying the blade. Your arms feel like lead and he no doubt notices your shakiness as you hack at the binds holding his arms tied behind him.

There is a fresh smear of blood against the corner of his mouth but other than that he appears the same.

The binds loosen and you rip them off. Santino lifts his hands at once, rubbing his wrists with a scowl all while he peers at the dead guard.

“Come on,” you prompt when he stands to his feet. “We need to get out before someone notices we’re gone.”

You step past him, listening for any sounds outside. Your time is limited before someone finds the dead guards and calls for a search.

“Wait.”

Your head snaps in his direction in disbelief.

“Wait?” you repeat, bewildered. “Waiting is the last thing we should be doing right now.”

Santino’s eyes find your own and he cuts the distance between you but his expression—eager, wild—is one that spells danger.

“They talked with me, bella,” he begins, a note of urgency in his accented voice, and leans so close you’re practically face to face. “I goaded them into revealing some interesting things about this place. It is rigged to blow. A security measure.”

A beat of hushed silence.

“Tell me that you’re not that stupid and reckless.”

The disbelief in your voice makes him sigh and press his eyes shut briefly before he turns his attention back to you.

“We blow this rotting pit to hell and bury Boutin and his men inside.”

He says that like it’s so damn easy.

You pull back, your eyes searching over his features only to realise that yes—yes, he is indeed that reckless and stupid.

“I don’t know what kind of delusion you live under, Santino,” you hiss quietly, leaning closer as well. “But I reassure you, I am no superhuman. I’m barely standing and have a knife and some rope on me. You’re no fighter, either—a liability as far as combat is concerned. And you really expect to blindly go into this, knowing what I do about your thirst for revenge when it comes to this man, and no exit plan when you blow everything up while we’re still here?”

Santino’s exhale of frustration almost equals your own. He drags his palm over his face, wiping the blood staining his skin. His body stands straight and you see the stubborn set of his jaw.

“I lied. Inside the room. I knew that they were watching and listening, cara mia,” he clarifies hurriedly, and the insistence in his voice makes your eyes narrow. “I woke up when we were still in transit. I memorised the path, bella. I know how to get us out of here,” he says with a meaningful stare, and adds a pointed, “This is nothing new to me, remember?”

Is this a skill he had to learn over the years? Being able to track where he is being taken to?

“And you expect me to just believe that?”

His eyes flash.

He hesitates for a breath.

“Yes,” he whispers and reaches for your face. His fingers brush over the arch of your cheek and you find yourself frowning. “Trust me.”

You shouldn’t.

He’s out for revenge.

Your strength is failing.

You have no exit strategy other than his word that he knows the way out.

But—

His petulant stare as he ate the fruit crawls back. That burgundy suit he wore.

His unspoken belief that you are stronger than this—that you deserve better.

He could have dangled you like a prize in front of Rafael and while he did, he never allowed the other man to touch you. Santino tried to keep you safe even when it was potentially compromising his own self-interests.

He could have thrown you under the bus the moment you killed Rafael. He could have used you as a scapegoat. He has certainly done so plenty of times before.

But he didn’t. He’s been doing everything in his power to keep you both safe.

He didn’t leave you even when you told him to run, either. He’s here, right now, because he made that decision—to take that risk.

And maybe—

Maybe you know a thing or two about that smouldering, never-dying need for retribution.

For revenge.

It’s those realisations that open your mouth. “Fine. Just so they don’t follow us.”

You both know that you’re lying.

But he doesn’t point it out.

Wasting no time, you move towards the dead guard, ransacking his body for any other weapons.

Your fingers wrap around a well-loved Beretta 92 and you almost snort at the irony of it all. The magazine is full though and you grip it firmer. Your hands are trembling so hard, you almost bite your tongue to stop yourself from cursing.

Long, burning fingers wrap around your hands and you flinch.

Santino’s gaze is cautious.

“Let me.”

“Do you even know how—”

His fingers are gentle while he peels your fingers away from the handle.

“I’m the son of Camorra, cara mia,” he points out flatly, almost peeved. “I will endeavour not to be insulted by your implication.”

Under different circumstances that might have gotten a smile or even a laugh out of you but right now you only step closer to him.

Santino pauses in checking the pistol, his eyes roaming over your features, taken aback by the closeness.

“When we’re out there, I will need you to have my back,” you tell him, low and solemn, and he matches your sombre stare, unblinking. “Or we both die. Stay behind me. Shoot only when the situation is dire.”

“I have no intention of dying here,” he informs you flatly, his voice as supercilious as you’re used to hearing it. “Do you?”

You give him a stony look.

“Let’s bury that asshole.”

You march past him but still catch a glimpse of a smirk on his face as he turns to follow you.

Both knives you’ve stolen weigh heavily in your hands. One is larger than the other, too, which will be an issue. Fighting is always made harder when there is no equilibrium between the blades.

Ignoring that, you dig deeper and deeper—

Shouts ring in the distance and you freeze just as you both exit the holding room.

The tunnel is empty on both sides but a bolt of urgency shoots through you at the commotion in the distance.

“They know.”

Santino says nothing but this is probably the most serious you have ever seen him. He nods his head left and you move ahead of him, both knives gripped securely.

There is urgency in your steps as you occasionally turn towards him to check where to go next. The further you go the more sounds of unrest grow.

They’re searching for you.

At this rate, it’s a matter of time only until they find you. Unless you beat them to it by blowing these tunnels.

Your arm snaps out.

Santino bumps against it, halting at once. His green eyes meet yours and you shake your head, nodding for him to get behind you. For once, he listens wordlessly but sticks close. You can feel the faint heat of his body tickling the back of your bare neck as you lower yourself into a crouch. The man behind you hesitates but then follows your lead.

You’re in front of a fork in the tunnels but—

Count. How many?

A phantom of John crouches opposite to you, his expression merciless. Icy. A manifestation of that hunter instinct he worked so hard to instil into you.

Your eyes flutter closed and you strain your senses.

Five.

Barely audible tremors against the ground. The rhythm. The shuffling of boots that’s too substantial to mask fully.

You don’t know if you can take five of them—

You’re not strong enough.

Focus. Hesitation will kill you. Go for the veins. Don’t give them time to react.

He’s right. There is no room for fear or doubts now. Too much depends on the next two minutes.

Stay with me.

Your shadow, your beloved ghost, gives you a too kind, I will.

That’s how you know he’s not real.

But that hurt—a blistering, swelling thing—rips through your heart and washes away all else.

And then—

tip backwards,

nothingness,

and finally,

—stillness.

A step in the dirt just around the corner.

Your eyes open.

A crunch.

You go straight for the femoral vein, severing it in one stab before you slice upwards through the thigh, the man’s blood spilling immediately as you jump to your feet.

The second blade lands in his neck.

You yank mercilessly, and the figure right behind the first—now half-dead—soldier doesn’t react fast enough before you throw the blade right at his chest.

The blade sticks and the soldier grapples for it with desperation fuelled by agony.

You allow him the luxury of pulling the blade out for you before you drop the first soldier, and throw your spare blade at the third man further away.

It hits his shoulder like a bullet.

You leap at the second soldier at once and grabbing his arms, drive the bloodied blade back into his chest, harder this time. You slam the heel of your palm into the hilt twice, ramming the metal even deeper, and kick the soldier’s feet from under him just as bullets hit his body. The shield holds and the slight pause in the rapid-fire gives you an opening to rip the blade from the man’s chest. You sprint at the third soldier who just about got the second blade out.

Your legs wrap around his chest and a wicked slash is all it takes to finish him off.

Rolling over, you slip yourself under the dead soldier’s body as more bullets hit. Your fingers dig into the soil as you wait.

Click. Click. Click.

Pushing the body away at the sound of empty chambers, you throw dirt at the fourth soldier’s face, followed by a slippery blade. It lands in his thigh and the man yelps in pain.

The coppery stench of fresh blood finally coats the back of your throat but you ignore it, leaping to your feet.

The fifth soldier backs off, desperately hurrying to reload—

Watch your flank, a mix of John and Cassian warns and you tuck yourself to one side, distributing your weight evenly as the fourth soldier charges at you.

A punch flies towards your face.

Too slow.

Spinning on your heels, you duck, looping his arm in the noose of the rope you have fashioned, wrenching his arm backwards. Slamming your foot into the back of his leg, you let him fall to his knees, whirling around to hurl a blade at the filth soldier. The man you’re holding pulls on the rope, throwing your aim off, and the blade pierces the tunnel wall instead.

Shoving your knee against the fourth soldier’s spine, you crack his neck—

BANG

You still.

The body of the fifth soldier falls to the floor behind you with a groan. Your head turns and Santino lowers the gun slightly, meeting your stormy stare.

The haze lifts and you gasp a breath, loosening the rope till the fourth soldier drops to the ground as well.

You dip your head in a grateful nod.

Santino steps closer, his gaze searching. “Bella?”

“I’m fine.”

You’re trembling so badly, he doesn’t look convinced by your words. He extends his hand to touch you but you stumble past him, kneeling to stick the blade into the final soldier after removing it from the wall.

Santino got him in the chest but not in any vital spots. Still, you know you would be dead if he hadn’t fired that bullet.

“That must be the room,” he speaks from in front of you and you glance up to where he’s looking. “Come on, bella.”

Now the presence of these soldiers makes sense. They were guarding the control room. Gripping the gun in his hand—and it is admittedly a sight that unnerves you because you’re not used to seeing Santino handling weapons—he points it at the door, nodding at you.

Your attention lingers on him for a second before you retrieve your blades and stagger towards the door as well. It’s worn, cheap metal and you hear the creak of hinges as you push it open cautiously.

There is no one inside.

You check twice before entering with Santino behind you.

The camera feed focuses on the giant room where you first woke up with several screens showing different angles. The room itself is dark and smells musty and old with just enough cool dampness permeating through the air. Both of you ignore everything else as you busy yourselves with finding any form of a detonator.

Your movements are sluggish but you compel your body to move through gritted teeth.

“Cara mia,” Santino calls out after few moments of searching and your attention snaps to him. He’s standing in a darkened corner next to the control panel and you walk towards him. “I do believe I found it.”

Yes, besides the camera controls and light controls, sitting at the very edge of the platform and enclosed in glass is a button that only reads Emergency Exit.

“They say that this is what it was called,” he reveals before you can ask, and you share a brief look. He reaches for the glass encasement, using the back of the gun to smash the glass and hovers his hand over it. “After all these years…”

His voice fades off and you listen to his unsteady breaths for a few seconds.

“Boutin may not even be here,” you point out lightly.

You haven’t seen him since your separation after all. You have no proof he’s still here.

Santino exhales, his shoulders curving. “I know.”

His hand smashes against the button.

At first, there is nothing.

Then, a splitting screech of a siren rips through the air and the camera footage cuts off, every available screen switching to a countdown instead.

00:05:00

00:04:59

00:04:58

Wincing, you grasp Santino by the crook of his elbow. “Run,” you say and realise a second later that your voice is lost in the blare of the siren. You tug him to you, his eyes meeting your own. “Run!”

You both do.

Pushing out of the room, you react just fast enough to stick your blade in a soldier’s gut, throwing him off you unceremoniously. Santino fires two bullets over your shoulder, the sound swallowed by the earsplitting warning chime.

One hits in the neck and another in a shoulder but you finish off anyone alive with your blade.

Your knees knock together as you try to rise and Santino is suddenly there, his large hand around your forearm as he helps you stand.

He doesn’t try to speak over the deafening sound simply leading you in whatever direction you hope the exit lays.

Stumbling side by side, you hurry through the tunnels, taking turn after turn. With each new opening to another seemingly endless stretch of darkness, you start to feel your hope waining.

The Italian wears a muted glare on his face, his expression pinched, focused. His bright eyes tracking over every turn and you see him muttering under his breath.

You’re wasting too much time.

“Santino—”

You both round another corner and you feel it.

A shift in the musty, damp air.

Something colder and more biting stings through your throat with every inhale and you gasp, a puff of visible air exploding from your lips.

Santino looks triumphant and raises his eyebrow at you when your eyes meet—

You push him out of the way.

The bullet hits just where his head was moments ago and you fall on top of him, covering him as he drags you both backwards, firing two bullets at the target behind you.

A tunnel wall finally covers you as bullets hit the dirt overhead. Dust and soil rain down on you both. Risking a peek to the left, you catch a glimpse of a metal door in the far distance. The exit.

So close.

But you still have at least another minute and a half on the clock and the soldiers are drawing closer.

Grabbing the heir by the shoulder, you take the gun from his hand. “Go!” you shout from the top of your lungs and even then your voice sounds faint when compared to the gunfire and the warning sirens. “Get out of here. I’ll cover you.”

“No—”

You shrug off his grip. “Get your hands off me and get the hell out. Run!”

You shove him away but he lingers. His glare is dark, biting.

A bullet hits near your feet and you round the corner shooting the first black-clad figure right in the face. At this proximity, it’s impossible to miss, and you fire the remaining bullets at the swarm of soldiers before ducking back around as more lead pelts the tunnel walls.

The siren continues blaring.

Santino is gone.

The soldier lays dead at your feet and you reach for his semi-automatic but you’re too far away. Gritting your teeth, you wait for split-second pause that means someone is reloading or trying to rearm.

A second and you leap ahead, rolling across the floor, grabbing the semi-automatic as you go. Dirt sprays around you and your grip slips for a second—a few breaths of silence that cost you—before you unload the mostly full magazine onto the approaching soldiers.

It shreds through them ruthlessly and you duck for cover and fire.

Duck and fire.

The magazine is almost empty by now but you have John’s training on your side. Most shots are not even headshots. But it’s enough to slow them down. You spot one soldier turning around and running back into the tunnels as if realising that this is pointless and this entire place is about to blow anyway.

Which makes you so much more aware of your own time—

A boom in the distance almost makes you fall over.

You grip onto the wall and ignoring the few remaining soldiers, pump whatever little strength you still have left into your legs, dashing straight ahead. The soldiers don’t fire, no doubt realising that they don’t have time for that, either.

Soil rains down on your head and you sprint ahead as earth trembles beneath your feet.

More tremors and another explosion tears through the air.

You don’t need to look behind you to know that the tunnels are collapsing right behind you.

The door ahead is wide open though. The dark, frigid night beckons.

Which means that Santino got out.

You stumble as the ground cracks beneath your feet, throwing you.

Don’t stop.

It’s a roar all around you and in your head.

Dirt falls over your shoulders and fills your lungs—

Swallowing a shout of frustration, you sprint ahead and throw your body in a leap.

Hitting the ground roughly, you roll several times, throwing your arms over your face as destruction shatters the tranquil night air.

Dirt and soot fall onto you in heavy bursts.

You remain curled on the ground, trying not to choke.

Destruction, crumbling soil and metal and then…

Quiet.

Just as quickly as it began, it falls eerily quiet.

Your ears ring and you cough, shuddering in your spot as soil slides down your cheek and shoulder.

Twitching, you roll onto your back and gasp for breath, savouring the torment that’s the bitter Chicago air filling your lungs.

You’re not quite sure where you are. It appears to be some sort of middle-of-nowhere industrial estate, except there are no other buildings around.

You see no stars above, either. Thick, rolling clouds cling to the sky instead.

No matter how hard you try to move your body, you can’t. Whatever was left had been sapped away. You’ve given too much and your body has hit its limits. Once—before John and his wedding—you would have been able to walk away from this with your head held high.

Before he abandoned you. Before you allowed the spectre of him to cripple you further, clinging onto him like a hopeless, lovesick fool. Before you let him and the pain caused by him diminish your strength.

Enough.

The knot in your throat suddenly tastes like hatred.

No matter how hard you try, you can’t quite swallow it down.

You’re not sure how long you lay there, simply breathing and staring at the sky.

It’s so cold. You’re both cold and numb and…

Footsteps crunch against the gravel.

Oh, you’ve almost forgotten. Santino.

Your head slants slightly to the side, trying to spot him.

You can’t believe you feel an actual pinprick of relief—happiness even—at the thought of seeing—

The kick to your stomach is strong enough to jolt your entire body to the side.

A scream of pain doesn’t quite escape but you curl into yourself with a whimper.

A weight drops on top of you, bony fingers sinking into your hair and jerking your head till you’re on your back.

Boutin’s furious face appears above you. A deep cut runs across his left temple, spilling blood all over his weathered, dirt-smeared face.

“The Viper.”

His gnarly fingers wrap around your throat and you try to beat his hands back but your own barely obey.

“I will destroy you,” the man whispers. “If not me then the one after me.”

Your fingers release his, trying to reach for the gun under your clothes that you held onto as a failsafe. There are still two bullets—

His palm slams against your cheek and you choke out a pained cry.

His fingers rip at the hard lump under your dirty and bloodstained sweater. He grasps the gun in his hand, looking down at you as his other hand remains wrapped around your throat.

“No—”

Boutin smiles. “Do not worry, viper,” he says mildly, almost mocking. “This would be too quick. I’m old-fashioned. I prefer seeing life drain from someone’s eyes.”

He throws the gun away and you almost sob.

You try to find that clarity again, try to grasp onto any shred of strength still left in you but—

But there is nothing.

Your mind is barren.

No Cassian, no Winston, no John, either.

You’re alone.

Boutin’s fingers grip your throat and he squeezes as your eyes fill with tears.

Tighter, more painfully tight.

Darkness fills the edges of your vision.

I don’t want to be alone—

“Let her go.”

The pressure lifts.

Santino.

Boutin is frozen on top of you. The heir stands beside your bodies, his arm raised and your gun gripped in his hand as he presses the nozzle into Boutin’s temple.

“The Table will have your head for this,” the older man hisses, his eyes dark. “You have no idea how much power I have. Or my purpose. Do you, boy? There are things out there that are more frightening than even the Table. Don’t be foolish like your father.”

Santino’s expression is empty though.

“We killed your son,” Santino reveals, his voice cold, mocking. Boutin goes so still you’re not sure if he’s still breathing. “He died begging for mercy. I wanted you to know that.”

“Do you have any idea—”

Santino doesn’t let him finish. “You will never take anyone from me ever again.”

“Boy—”

BANG

Boutin falls to the side, his weight disappearing as he slumps dead.

It’s quiet again.

“Amore? Can you hear me?” Santino’s urgent, silky voice speaks from above you, and his hands cup your cheeks as he carefully turns your face towards him. His familiar, round features register in your mind and your expression crumbles. “I got you, hm? Look at me. You’re safe now. I will never let anyone harm you again.”

He wraps his arm around you, carefully pulling you into a sitting position. Your cheek rests against his shoulder for a second before you pull away.

Silent tears drip down your cheeks and you don’t try to wipe them away.

Your throat hurts.

Everything hurts.

All those years of pain and abuse.

Tarasov.

Kishi.

John.

Rafael.

Boutin.

Something deep down crumbles to nothing.

A flood of grief and pain so powerful follows that you tip your head towards the inky, vast sky above you and let out a scream.

You roar at the sky, letting loose every shred of repressed anger and pain you’ve been bottling up. Every scream you’ve ever held back rips right out of you.

Your throat feels raw and bloody by the time you choke on a sob, your body slanting till your forehead is practically pressing into your knees.

Santino is silent beside you as you cry; a few, muffled sniffles escaping you. He doesn’t touch you either and you’re grateful.

Tranquil night air keeps you company for a long time.

It’s so cold.

Eventually, your cries subside, growing fainter.

Another few minutes pass before your head lifts slowly.

You reach for the scratched hand beside you. “H-help me…stand.”

He does.

His arm wraps around you and he pulls you to him. Your legs feel numb.

Santino touches your cheek and your eyes find his own, your vision blurring as he grips you around the waist. Ashamed, you try to turn away from his probing stare but his grip tightens. His fingers flatten against your cheek and he scrutinises you intently, transfixed.

His expression feels like another kick.

Torn and bloodied, he holds you to him with security that almost makes you feel safe.

“The…body.”

He understands.

Those green depths finally slide towards the dead man—no regret there—and then towards the only car in your line of sight.

He knows what he has to do.

You’re too weak to help but you watch as Santino drags Boutin towards the car. He dumps the body inside, slamming the door shut behind him. He stares inside for a while and you wonder what’s going through his mind before he stalks to the side and opens the fuel cap.

He hesitates again, pensive, but begins his trek back towards you.

If this gets out—what you just did and the people you killed—you will both be killed for it.

The Black Dragon is an extension of the High Table and you just killed its leader and heir.

Santino might get out of it alive. His title, however, would be stripped from him which you know for him would be as good as death.

That means that you have to destroy the evidence.

He halts before you, peering at you silently as he offers you the gun.

You reach out and squeeze his fingers around it weakly.

“For Emilia.”

For a second—just one—his expression wavers before he controls himself with a forceful swallow and a tilt of his chin, all arrogance.

His wild curls flutter in the air as he comes to stand beside you and raises his arm, aiming.

One bullet left.

He doesn’t miss.

This time the explosion that follows and the open, hot flame that devours the car are things you welcome.

You and Santino stand side by side and watch as Andre Boutin turns to ash.

New York skyline is a sight that makes you chest ache.

With relief instead of dread.

You never thought you will see it again.

From Santino’s penthouse apartment terrace, you gaze out and towards your city with a thoughtful frown.

You’ve spent the night at Doc’s clinic. That’s how long it took for the man to patch you up. He’s the only one you could ever trust to do so and keep his mouth shut about it.

It’s been a little over a day since you’ve come back from Chicago.

It took an hour of trekking through dirt roads and snow before you and Santino managed to find your way back towards civilisation. Additional two before you were reunited with too pale Ares who had looked at you both and not asked a thing.

You were lucky that a homeless man at the gas station had enough change for a quick call on the payphone. By the time the black SUV rolled into the station with its tires screeching, you were practically comatose with only Santino’s arms keeping you upright. Your last memory before you lost consciousness had been of Santino paying back the homeless man with a check for 40k.

You don’t remember the flight back to New York, nor the emergency care you received.

The window in which you were both unaccounted for was far too substantial not to draw suspicion.

So it’s been your idea to suggest that if anyone comes sniffing to give them a simple answer.

You were fucking and dining and drinking.

Most already assume you warm Santino’s bed. Why not give them a confirmation, especially when it’s the easiest and most effective way to get rid of any unwanted attention?

It will come back to bite you.

But if it helps to dispel the suspicion that will fall onto you at some point—

“Ciao, bella. How are you feeling?”

You turn around, glancing behind you with a blink.

Santino strolls towards you with a fresh, crisp three-piece and black overcoat while his hands stay in his pockets. Sunglasses on and his hair neatly combed, he looks exactly like he always does. A man of wealth and status. Not a curl or seam out of place. But when he stops beside you, the sun reveals the faint traces of bruises dotting his skin, only masked by an expert layer of makeup.

Everything to deter suspicion.

You haven’t seen him since you landed.

Both due to him needing to do some recon and you needing urgent care.

You wonder how he feels now that Boutin is dead. If he feels relieved and happy that it was by his hand. One day, you will do the same with Tarasov.

“Like I never thought I will see this city again.”

His head slants towards you with a thoughtful hum and the breeze ruffles his clothes. His styled curls stay in place and you’re not sure why you feel a faint stab of disappointment at that.

“The news has reached the High Table,” he informs you calmly and you swallow, your skin crawling. “They know Boutin and his men are dead.”

“And?”

“And?” he repeats with a cutting grin before removing his dark shades and looking towards you. His eyes seem even more piercing in daylight. “I reassure you, cara mia, if they knew my father would have crucified us both by now,” he explains and you know he’s right. “The site was completely demolished. Hm, they were unable to find anything except Boutin’s burned skeleton,” he adds with a pointed look in your direction.

You stare at each other for a beat.

“So no one knows,” is your low, disbelieving assessment.

Santino only dips his head, his attention sliding towards the city.

“No—and it’s in our best interest to keep it that way, no?”

It’s a leading statement. A poke at a question that’s no doubt been on his mind just as much as it has been on yours.

Can you trust one another to keep this secret when betrayal could mean the destruction of the other?

Shifting on your feet, you ignore the twinge of discomfort you feel through your body, and grip the railing, levelling him with a solemn gaze.

“What we did, we did together,” you say, your words hushed, frank. “The blame is as much mine as it is yours. I will not betray you.”

Santino doesn’t react.

It takes another minute at least before he finally turns to face you.

His eyes rove over your features. Hard, searching.

He’s still the same as he was before but…there is something different now. You can taste it and feel it. A new layer of something sits snugly between you.

You relied upon and protected each other.

Saved each other from death.

That binds people for life. You just never expected it to be him.

“Just so we are clear, bella,” he begins and steps closer, adjusting his overcoat. “Your life does not matter less than mine, do you understand? Don’t ever say something like that to me again.”

That’s not exactly the response you expected.

“You’re the heir of Camorra.”

His life will always outweigh yours. It’s not that yours doesn’t matter but—

“And you are the woman who saved my life,” he states lowly and watches your from beneath furrowed brows, something simmering in his eyes. “That is not a debt I will be quick to forget.”

This time, you take a step towards him as well.

“You saved my life, too,” you remind him, squinting at him in the sunlight. “As far as I’m concerned, we’re even.”

A playful slant of his mouth greets those words.

“Oh? Well, that’s what friends are for, no?”

You make a small sound at the back of your throat—still tender from all you’ve been through in these last few days—and shake your head.

“Friends. I have seen how you treat your friends, Santino,” you point out knowingly, casting a thoughtful look his way. “Knife in the back the moment they stop being useful to you. I’m not here to play that kind of game.”

He leans close like his next words are for you alone; a secret just between you.

“Then perhaps you can be my exception, hm?” he wonders in a murmur but the look in his eyes is…unusual. Warm, almost. It makes you shift in discomfort. Just for a second, his eyes flicker towards your lips. “My first real friend. No games.”

Your throat feels dry, your next words a whisper, “And is that what you really want from me? Friendship?”

Friends don’t look at each other the way he looks at you.

A taunting twitch of his lips is your reply but it doesn’t have the same effect it used to. Before it was irritation at his nerve.

Now—

“For the sake of transparency in our newfound friendship,” he admits quietly and his hand comes to grip the railing. Sun dances over his tanned skin and your eyes latch onto those bruises again. His scratched skin. “I will admit that no, that is not what I truly desire.”

Shameless and blunt as always. But it’s better than lies. You almost find his directness refreshing.

Face-to-face, Santino D’Antonio regards you with obvious longing, not even bothering to hide the sultry note in his next hungry words. “What I desire, amore, is to take you back to my home back in Naples and make love to you in my bed till we both forget our own names,” he purrs gently, slanting his head as he watches you, and those words hit you like a brick. The simplicity of them, the ease with which he admits exactly what he wants. You. “I want to adore every inch of you till you forget the world exists. Till I see you smile and laugh. Till I know every sensitive spot in your body. Till you realise that you do not have to be alone anymore, hm?”

His eyes narrow, his expression almost devilish, before he continues. “Ah, what I really want is every last bit of you that you’re still unwilling to part with. But that’s fine, cara mia. For now, I will take your friendship.”

You consider him for a tense moment, reminding yourself to breathe. “And if I choose not to give it?”

He leans back a touch—just barely.

“Ah, as it so happens a very beautiful and incredibly smart woman once told me that I can be...irritatingly persistent.”

A small snort escapes you and you shake your head again, wishing he wasn’t so…him. So capable of getting under your skin—and so easily.

“She sounds like she knows what she’s talking about.”

His eyes gleam. “She does. She’s wonderful company, really.”

“Even when she calls you a pompous asshole?”

A grin that’s all teeth and genuine amusement. You wish he didn’t appear so delighted by your reluctant wordplay.

“Especially then.”

Your eyes lower.

You can’t do this to him, or yourself.

You can’t give him hope where there is none.

It would be too cruel to allow this to continue further.

“It wasn’t real,” you tell him, firm and prompt, and allow your eyes to jump back to him. “What happened between us during that poker game. I was just playing the part.”

His demeanour changes subtly. A tightening of his shoulders, an unhappy press of his lips, and complete drainage of that fondness you saw only moments ago.

But you continue despite it. “I love him. I still do,” you confess in a fragile, pained whisper. “I think that I hate him, too, but I also think that it will always be him despite it. I can’t give you what you want.”

It surprises you that you feel genuine remorse sting your heart at those words.

You reach out, running your fingers over his silken patterned tie, fixing the crooked lines for him.

“Thank you for all you did,” you utter softly, meeting his sombre, dark gaze. Your words are sincere despite it. “Thank you for proving me wrong. Thank you for showing me that you’re not as bad as everyone thinks that you are, you sly, conniving bastard,” you tease with a slight, frayed chuckle and press your palm briefly against his chest. “But how long before you start resenting me for that?”

He doesn’t answer you, his expression stony. He won’t betray whatever he does feel. He’s too proud for that.

That’s what you thought.

Giving him a faint but genuine smile, you pull back, turning to walk away.

You need to go back to the Continental. Transfer the money you made to Tarasov before he comes knocking.

Santino’s voice halts your feet though.

“You didn’t give me an answer, bella.”

Your lips part and you look back towards him.

He stands where you left him, still gripping the railing. His head tilts in your direction, and you’re surprised to find that the insistent, mischievous gleam is still present in his eyes.

He’s not going to give up.

It’s an odd realisation to come to. But you can see it on his face.

A friend, huh?

“I suppose we’ll have to see if you’re worth the bother, Santi.”

He actually laughs at that, his teeth gleaming even at this distance.

“Have dinner with me.”

It’s not a demand.

With everything that you two have been through, this much you can give him.

“Fine,” you grouse, and make a point of sounding like he’s being a bother but he sees through it, his grin widening. “Tomorrow night. I hope you don’t expect me to be cheap.”

His warm laugh follows you out of the terrace.

For the first time in a while, you feel happy.

The Continental feels like a welcoming embrace you desperately needed. Alongside a lot of sleep and food. Doc’s very strict and unamused instructions. You’ve lost weight and muscle mass. Amongst other things but you will regain those, too.

For the first time since the wedding, you feel strangely lucid. Filled with a purpose that you have no name for.

But you suppose that’s how it works. Things have to be completely torn down before they can be rebuilt.

And you will.

Enough letting others destroy you through their actions.

Enough letting others dictate how you should feel.

Enough clinging to the past, to John.

He’s happy and you will be too.

Your hotel room door appears in front of you and the sight of it almost makes you smile.

Home. Finally. Mercifully.

Both Charon and Winston were absent when you turned up at the reception—a rarity—but you were looking forward to catching up with the manager later.

Even if you could never tell him what happened in Chicago.

Winston is a man of rules and principle. He would condemn you for what you did. Or at least could not excuse something as foolish as what happened.

But Winston also doesn’t understand what you and Santino now share.

The heir needs time, but one day you will ask him about Boutin again.

Your hand touches the cool metal of your room handle and you freeze.

Your other hand snakes behind your back and you pull out a pistol, clicking the safety off.

You can always tell when someone has been in your room.

Scratches and marks and little traps you have set up.

Charon knows how to leave the place undisturbed.

He and Winston are the only ones who do because you’ve told them.

Not bothering with the key, you thrust the door open with a loud bang, raising your pistol to find one pointed back at you.

“Wait!”

Two men stand inside your room but neither of them is familiar.

Dark skinned and dark-eyed, they watch you with polite caution.

They don’t appear hostile though.

“Who the hell are you?” you snarl, tracking their every twitch.

The one with lighter, golden skin raises his hands in the air slowly, a placating gesture.

The one aiming the pistol at you doesn’t lower it though.

“We mean you no harm.”

His accent is lovely. A gentle roll of vowels and syllables that most certainly points to Middle East.

Your focus doesn’t slip though, and you take two deliberate steps into your room.

Your work is locked away as usual but the fact that they managed to get in—

“Then why are you in my room without permission? The Continental rules—”

The one with darker skin and a gun interjects, his words low and monotonous, “You have been summoned.”

You almost bristle at that. “By whom?”

“The Elder.”

You don’t make it to dinner with Santino.

In fact, you don’t see him for seven months.

. . .

an: wow, I don’t think I have ever been more nervous about a chapter and the reception for it lmao. I’m so sorry about the wait and thank you so much for supporting this story. Sorry if this wasn’t as good as usual ahhhh.

Also, a quick note: Santino’s backstory is not here to make people go “aww, poor baby” because nah. It’s there to highlight the very grim reality of this kind of world. Santino doesn’t pity himself. His story is more to show the “this happened to me but instead of doing nothing, I chose to be terrible back” angle. I always felt like there had to be a very deep reason for his hatred for tradition/rules so this is my take on it. I also hope this finally explains why Chicago so fundamentally changed them both. Thank you for reading <33

#john wick #santino d'antonio x reader #john wick x reader #santino d'antonio #john wick imagine #john wick fic #john wick x you #santino d'antonio imagine #riccardo scamarcio #keanu reeves #fanfic #fic: children of ares #this is so big that it lagged when i wrote the AN lol hooo boi

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