Page 31 of The Sinner and the Priest: Part Two

“Why does it feel different?” I ask, thumb rubbing over the surface. I can’t explain it, but it feels alive.

“It is from the vault,” Bianchi explains. “You read it, you destroy it. If you die, you die with it.”

He tries to push us out of the tunnel.

“Wait.” I dig my heels in, refusing to move. “They threatened my family. The Sisterhood.”

“Later,” he says, hurrying me.

“They said they’d laicize me,” I add. “Threatened my family and released my uncle from prison.”

Bianchi winces. “I cannot help with that.”

“We’re supposed just to trust you?” Mercy’s voice goes deadly soft.

“Please, Francesco. You must go.” Bianchi checks his watch. “The alarm will buy you only a few minutes. Five, maybe less. The tomb is clear for you to search for your missing sword piece.”

“How did you⁠—?”

He cuts me off. “Same way you will know why the Pope trusts a man who chooses the Sinner over the Sanctum when the Sanctum is a lie.” He points down the alley toward the deep shadows near St. Peter’s resting place. “The third sarcophagus on the left has a false back. It leads to the secret passage near the Trastevere gate. Leave Rome before the sun realizes what you’ve done.”

I look at the book, then at the man who once gave me a collar to keep me from the noose. Even though Valerio trained me as a weapon, Bianchi was the first man to show me there was hope.

“Va’ con Dio, Francesco,” he murmurs, his hand ghosting a swift sign of the cross. “Go, before the hunger wins.”

He vanishes into the dark.

Twelve

Mercy

Ihead straight for St. Peter’s Tomb with a single-minded tenacity as if I can outrun the realization that over the course of my life, having my hopes crushed is a given.

When Cisco accepted the phone and book from Bianchi, effectively renewing his contract as a priest, I felt a crushing blow inside my chest.

Still can’t breathe.

My vision tunnels to the memory of a large, fatherly hand refusing to hold mine.

God, I must have been only ten, but the rejection stings as fresh as it did then. I wasn’t a needy child, I don’t think. And thinking about the orphans’ need for security, I’d not blink twice if they wanted the comfort only a parental figure can give. I slept outside their room just to let them know they were safe. I’d hold their hand in public.

So I should feel vindicated in my pain over this rejection. Validated. But all I feel is an echo of that crushed hope when my father began to pull his affection away from me. Would I still touch the orphans with the same sort of affection if they were boys?

Yes . . . yes, I think I would.

Cisco’s a man. He let Lucia hug him when she was afraid. I can’t see him ever turning away a child in need, no matter what the neighbors might think.

It wasn’t as if I begged for my father’s attention all the time.

It doesn’t look right.

Logically, I know my father was mentally unwell. I know that the love we shared was completely innocent. It was the purest, cleanest love I’ve ever experienced. So when my mother added to our neighbors’ whispers, she made it worse. She made him worse. I understand this.

But I still wish his love for me were stronger than the shame. I wish he had fought for me.

That’s all I want. A love strong enough and clear enough that it trumps all else.

I just don’t know how long I’m supposed to fight for it, too.