THE PRIEST’S DAUGHTER

Aria’s POV

The world outside the cathedral walls had color.

Aria saw it only in glimpses—between iron bars, beneath the sweeping stone arches, and through the warped glass of stained windows. Out there, life moved. It laughed, wept, and whispered. Here, inside Father Matteo’s dominion, there was only ritual and silence.

And silence was sacred.

Silence was survival.

She knelt nexttothe altar in the morning stillness, her fingers curved in submissive prayer. The scent of wax and ancient myrrh stuck to her linen sleeves, absorbed into her plaited hair, suffocated her like a shroud. A candle light danced across marble saints and the crucified Christ above. He gazed down with empty eyes. As always.

Her lips moved, but no sound escaped. Not because she was shy. But because she was watching.

Always watched.

From the front pew, Father Matteo’s rosary beads clicked like a metronome. One. Two. Three. The rhythm of control. He didn’t need to speak to correct her—his presence was command enough.

Aria bowed her head lower.

She had been raised in these walls. Baptized in cold stone, cradled in choir hymns, buried in catechisms. Her father’s sermons stretched longer than hunger, longer than grief. And always—always—she was told the same thing:

You are chosen. You are pure. You belong to God, not to the world.

But some part of her—a wild, whispering par, no longer believed him.

Not since last spring.

Not since the first time she found blood smeared on the confessional door. Not since the first time she dreamed of her mother’s voice in the firelight.

And certainly not since last night, when she woke to a sound no silence should carry:

Footsteps.

Not Matteo’s. Not the Sisters’.

Someone else. Moving through the nave at midnight.

She hadn’t slept since.

Now, as morning spilled faint light over the pews, she dared glance sideways. A sliver of color caught her eye beyond the barred garden gate. Not the pale habits of the nuns. Not the brown robes of the Franciscan novices.

A coat.

Black. Expensive. Dripping with rain.

And beneath it… a man.

He stood still as stone under the old elm tree, his hands buried in his pockets, his face tilted toward the cathedral. His dark hair was wet. His expression is unreadable. But even from this distance, something about him pulsed like danger. Like defiance.

Like freedom.

Her breath caught.

He didn’t belong here.

Father Matteo shifted in his pew. Aria dropped her eyes again and pretended to recite Psalm 31.

But her mind wasn’t in the scriptures. It was in the garden. With him.

That evening, after vespers, she slipped into the side chapel. Her favorite place. Hidden behind a crumbling mural of St. Agnes, it held no statues, no pews—just a cracked stone bench and a single high window that spilled moonlight like milk.

It was here she allowed herself to be someone else. Someone not silent. Not obedient. Not the priest’s daughter.

She pulled her mother’s old necklace from beneath her habit. A simple thing. A charm shaped like a rose, worn smooth by time. Matteo said it was foolish sentimentality. Said the rose was a symbol of vanity.

But her mother had worn it. So Aria kept it close.

She was about to tuck it away when she noticed something strange.

The cushion on the confessional bench had shifted. Not by much. But enough. And beneath it… a folded slip of parchment. Her heart skipped.

She looked toward the chapel door. No one. The nuns would be in their dormitories. Matteo in his chambers. The rain drummed softly against the ancient glass. She lifted the note with trembling fingers.

“Not all saints wear halos. Some carry knives. —M.”

That was it.

No signature. No address. Just that.

Her stomach twisted. Her fingers curled tight around the paper, crumpling its corners. She looked again toward the window. The same window she’d stared through a thousand times. Was it from him? The man in the garden?

Impossible.

She pressed the note to her lips, then folded it into her journal. Her mother’s journal. The one hidden beneath a loose floor tile behind the altar.

She will read it again tonight. She would trace her mother’s handwriting. And maybe this time… the shadows would whisper something new.

That night, thunder cracked the silence.

Aria stood in the west wing hallway, clutching her shawl around her shoulders. She should be in bed. Should be asleep like the others. But the sound had woken her again.

Footsteps, voices of Male.

Rough. Low. Urgent.

She tiptoed toward the stairwell. The voices echoed below. Through the keyhole of the library, flickering candlelight glowed. The door was slightly ajar.

She peeked.

And what she saw stopped her breath.

Father Matteo wasn’t alone.

He stood before three men. Dressed in black. Heavy coats. One wore gloves despite the heat. Another bore a jagged scar along his cheek. They weren’t clergy. They weren’t city officials. They were mafia.

Aria had only heard the term in whispers—“men of violence,” the Sisters warned. Matteo called them wolves. Taint. Poison.

And yet, here he was, speaking to them like old friends.

Her father reached into his robes and pulled something out.

A photograph.

He handed it to the tallest man.

“I want him dead,” Matteo said.

The man looked down. “De Rossi?”

Aria’s heart slammed against her ribs.

De Rossi. That name. That man.

The man in the garden?

“No mistakes this time,” Matteo continued coldly. “If he gets near her again, I’ll bury you all in holy ground myself.”

The third man chuckled. “A priest with fire. I like it.”

Father Matteo’s jaw tightened. “She is my daughter. I will not lose her to her mother’s fate.”

Her mother.

Her mother.

Suddenly the whispers in her dreams weren’t just memories. They were warnings.

Aria backed away, barely breathing, the floor groaning under her step. She turned—too quickly—and knocked over a candlestick.

Clang.

The voices stopped.

“Who’s there?” one barked.

Aria ran.

Down the hall. Up the servants’ stairwell. Into the attic crawlspace. She didn’t stop until she reached her window—her hiding place—the tiny corner of the world where she could see the city lights flicker in the distance.

She pressed her face to the glass.

And there he was.

Standing at the same garden gate.

Looking up.

Looking straight at her.

Rain poured down around him, soaking his coat, but he didn’t move.

His eyes locked on hers.

Luca De Rossi.

And this time, she didn’t look away.

As Aria stares down at Luca from the window, her father’s words echo: “If he gets near her again, I’ll bury you all.” But Luca lifts his hand slowly… and points directly at her window. He knows.