Chapter Text
The phone vibrated again on the side table.
Santino’s hands spasmed against the white linen of the sheets. He hissed as it reawakened the pain in his fingers. His left hand was totally useless, three of the fingers broken under his father’s shoes. It was his dominant hand, of course, he’d done that on purpose.
Blinking, he tried to focus on the ceiling, but only one of his eyes totally opened, and the room swam in front of his eyes, bringing a fresh wave of nausea. He shut his eyelids again with a shuddering breath, choking on the blooming agony coming from his side as he did so.
He heard high heels clicking on the sterile floor, the woman stopping by his bedside to take hold of the phone. The vibration stopped.
She sat on the edge of the bed, pushed back a curl from his forehead.
“How do you feel?” Gianna asked.
Trying to talk proved challenging: his throat was sore, but more than that, it felt like his whole face was a giant bruise. His jaw didn’t feel right, and there was a metallic aftertaste when he swallowed.
Still, he tried to push through, using his right hand to try and sit up. It didn’t work, alarm blaring in his body as wounds and bruises flared over his whole torso and right leg.
He stopped all efforts with a pitiful whine.
Gianna’s cool hand over his forehead felt like a blessing against his feverish skin.
The phone rang again.
They ignored it.
She helped him drink a few sips of water with a straw, using the bed’s control buttons to help him up just enough so he wouldn’t choke.
“Where…?” he tried to ask. She got it anyway.
“Still in New York, a private clinic. No one knows you’re here. Father wants you back in Naples as soon as you can move.”
Santino wanted to laugh but it came out as a sob. He blinked hard to stop the tears from falling, and it exhausted the little energy he had.
The smartphone buzzed once more.
Both siblings looked at it, at the name flashing on the screen until it stopped.
“He’s not gonna quit,” Santino told her. It hurt to move his lips, and his tongue felt heavy, but he knew he needed to deal with that soon.
Gianna sighed, pinched the bridge of her nose before nodding. She handed him the device, he took it with shaking fingers.
“You know what you have to do.”
He nodded, letting out a shuddery exhale.
This time, when the phone lit up in his hands, he accepted the call.
“Santino,” John breathed, relief coloring his tone.
“Hello love,” he replied softly in neapolitan, before letting the silence stretch.
“Where are you?”
Trust John to know something was wrong from two words. Or maybe it was the fact Santino had been gone for a day now, if he trusted the morning light coming from the window.
“I’m with Gianna,” the younger man replied. John wasn’t fooled.
“Where are you?” he insisted.
Behind him, Santino could hear the rumble of a car at high speed. John had been on a job for the Tarasovs in another state: a supplier that needed to take a step back and leave his second in command take the reins. When John was involved, taking a step back generally meant six feet underground.
His father must have known, Santino mused distantly, he would’ve waited for the right moment to corner his son alone. It also showed that despite his bravado, D’Antonio Senior was just like the others and feared John Wick.
“My father paid me a visit while you were gone,” Santino explained, feeling his throat close up. “He knows. About us.”
John stayed silent, taking the information.
“Where are you?” he repeated a third time, like the rest didn’t matter.
When he got like this, there was nothing to do, Santino knew that intimately. He’d experienced it numerous times, from John picking him up from his desk to carry him to bed like he weighed nothing, boxing Santino into corners when the young man got angry, waiting for the rage to pass and passively letting Santino snarl and bite him. When he looked at him as he undressed, the assassin’s complete focus on him, on each patch of revealed skin. Patiently waiting for the permission to come closer and—
“I’m already gone,” Santino replied, voice strained by heartbreak, “don’t come for me.”
He hung up, let the phone slide from his hand and clatter to the ground.
Gianna bent to pick it up, caressed his cheek gently, and left.
On the plane back to Naples, Santino faked sleep just so he didn’t have to watch Gianna’s pitiful looks. He knew she wasn’t happy about what happened, but the angry part of Santino also noted she hadn’t done anything to stand between her father and her “baby brother”. He supposed he wasn’t a baby anymore, at twenty three. Truth was, he hadn’t been a baby for long. In their world, in his position, he couldn’t afford it.
He reflected he should be happy it held that long, that he had a few blissful years of freedom in New York. He had Gianna to thank for that. Idly, he wondered if his teachers would note his absence, though he supposed it didn’t matter much: they would give him his diploma, if only because his father would pull some strings.
He had liked his student life. It was the most normal he’d felt in a long time. Except for his boyfriend-the-assassin. But then again, he was a mafia prince himself.
It rained when they got off, which he found fitting. After that, he closed his eyes, tried to think about nothing, and to find a position where everything didn’t hurt too much.
He must have fallen asleep for real because when he woke up next, the lights were low and it was nighttime. Gianna and her bodyguard, Cassian, were talking in soft tones. In the relative silence and despite the engines rumbling, Santino heard them clearly enough.
“He’s been rampaging through New York looking for him,” Cassian said, a resolute tone to his voice.
“It’s interesting to note we escaped Winston’s watch. I have no doubt he would’ve told John if he’d known. The old man is losing his touch.”
“Or he knew, and thought it was best that way.”
Gianna made a thoughtful noise.
“Maybe. On that, we would agree. It doesn’t matter now anyway, he won’t dare follow us back to Naples.”
Silence stretched between them, until Cassian spoke again.
“I wouldn’t be so sure.”
Santino felt a shiver run down his spine. He told himself it was fear, and not delight.
The next few days were tense. Santino was kept in the dark, literally: he was parked in his room back in their private hotel in Naples, the shutters closed over the windows. He also had a new companion, a girl named Ares, who was mute. Santino had to hand it to his father: when it came to torturing his son, he was attentive to details.
With nothing better to do, Santino got her to teach him sign language. She was reluctant at first, obviously trying her best to be the obedient soldier she was expected to be, but she wasn’t more immune to boredom than he was.
About a week into their shared captivity (since she was to stay with him at all times, took her meals with him and slept on the couch in his room), Ares asked about the bruises. He still couldn't breath fully without pain, but his face looked normal again, excluding the colorful fireworks over his skin as the bruises turned from angry red to faded blue, to sick green.
“My father,” Santino signed. He hadn’t spoken in over a week, and wondered if he still could.
She seemed taken aback, it made her boss laugh soundlessly.
“What about you?”
She opened her mouth, showing her cut tongue.
“My mother,” she replied with her hands.
This time, Santino laughed out loud.
“They’re scared,” Ares informed Santino when another week had passed. By this time, Santino considered them friends. He could move mostly without pain now, so the boredom was really starting to get on his nerves when before he’d slept a lot, exhausted by the stabs of agony every time he moved.
He still wasn’t allowed out of the room, and technically, neither was she. But it appeared she wasn’t just a good bodyguard, but could also move like a cat, silent and deadly in the night.
“Security had been upped. Your sister is worried. She tried to convince your father to cancel the party.”
Following his visit in New York, D’Antonio Senior had decided to hold a gathering where he would officially introduce Santino as his heir. The young man imagined his progenitor thought that doing this would force Santino into more decorum, like for example, not getting in bed with rival attack dogs.
It might even work. John had been an exception, the jury was still out on if it had been a mistake as well.
“Do you think he’ll come? It would be suicidal,” Ares went on when her boss didn’t reply.
Santino shrugged, unsure.
John wasn’t very expressive when it came to affection, and anyway, Santino wasn’t sure he would’ve known what to do with that. Their relationship had started out violent: attraction like two galaxies crashing into each other. Santino hadn’t imagined the legendary killer would come back for more past the first week or nearly constant sex.
Santino had discovered things about himself during that week he would've never imagined, and by the end, his body had been pleasantly sore everywhere, aching in the best way, floating on endorphins.
But John had come back, regularly, unannounced most of the time. Barging into Santino’s life with his dark emotionful eyes, silent but for the soft sounds he made when they kissed and fucked.
Those sounds haunted Santino.
Moans of protest each time his young lover pushed him away, whimpers of pleasure when Santino went down on him, or rode him, or took him, hoarse groans of ecstasy and pain when he came under his touch.
Addicting.
And lately, he’d been… Different. Present more often, bringing him food, staying the night.
There were blades and gun cleaning products in Santino’s apartment, a special detergent and an additional toothbrush in his bathroom, dark and practical suits thrown over the chair in his bedroom.
He couldn’t give Ares an answer, and her pretty blue eyes seemed to sadden, and then harden.
“I would’ve tried, in his shoes.”
The confession hung between them, uncomfortable for the warmth that bloomed in Santino’s chest.
“When I get out of here, we’re going to do great things together,” he vowed, the only inadequate thank you he could give her.
That night, Santino allowed himself to think about John. The last month in particular came barreling into him the moment he allowed the wall of denial to crumble.
A memory of John, coming out of the bedroom in the morning as Santino was getting ready. He’d been singing along the radio, maybe loud enough to wake his unlikely companion, maybe on purpose, maybe just because. Naked but for the low hanging sweatpants that really didn’t leave a lot to the imagination, John had leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed. And smiled. First it had been subtle but soon it had bloomed over his whole face, making his eyes crinkle, and his crooked teeth peek between his lips.
That moment, Santino’s heart had done something weird, and to hide his trouble, he’d come forward, singing louder, dancing a little. Right into John’s arms, extended to catch him, closing around him the second he was in range. The kiss had been… Tender. Sweet. Loving.
The sensation by Santino’s heart had only worsened. It had felt like it was breaking, but in a good way.
He’d been very late to class that day, and distracted the whole time.
Thinking of the way John had held him while he kissed him, touched him, brought him off. His dark eyes never leaving his face, and the little desperate whines that had come out of his throat in commiseration as he drank Santino’s bliss right from his lips.
In his bed, he shuddered, and bit his hand hard to stop himself from crying and alerting Ares.
When Santino walked into the room, escorted by Ares and two of his father’s men, the old man looked tense. His face was somber, his expression pinched like it always was when Santino happened to be in his presence, but the lines around his mouth spoke of a deeper annoyance.
He was seated in his favorite chair, a glass of scotch in his hand. The bottle was on the table, showing his son it probably wasn’t his first drink. On the couch next to the master of the house, was Gianna. She couldn’t totally hide her nervousness either, sitting cross-legged too rigidly, her foot swaying in the air. Santino bit the inside of his cheek to refrain from smiling: their anxiety was relaxing.
“Sit,” his father ordered, and the young man took his usual spot on his father’s right. His designated place ever since he was old enough to do so on his own.
“The party is tomorrow,” the old man started. Santino nodded amiably. “Our guests will be arriving at midday. The official announcement will happen after dinner. If you survive until then.”
Now, that was more chilling.
“Survive?” he asked carefully. Behind him, he could feel Ares vibrating out of rage. She would’ve to work on that to be at his service, this show of weakness wouldn't do.
Giacomo D’Antonio took a deep drink of his scotch.
“John Wick just landed in Rome. Apparently, he’s making his way here,” Gianna spoke, smoothing her dress over her legs.
Vindictive triumph exploded in Santino’s chest, only to be replaced by cold dark fear.
“I’ve sent our best men to stop him,” the patriarch declared, watching his son closely. He hadn’t missed the flash of pride on his face. “Should he end here anyway, you’ll be the one to stop him.”
Of course.
“My seat will be yours once you’ve accomplished that. Should you fail, I’ll kill you myself if he doesn’t do it.”
From the corner of his eyes, Santino saw Gianna take a slow breath, but she didn’t protest. And behind him, Ares was still as death.
“You will face him alone, make him kneel before you and shoot him in the head,” D’Antonio Senior detailed, “As a show of loyalty to your family.”
The atmosphere of the party was strained, to say the least. Cassian kept too close to Gianna for their guests not to become suspicious, but it was Giacomo’s foul mood that had everyone on edge. All the representatives from the Camorra clans were here, including Santino’s favorite cousin, Rafaella Guiliano. She was happy to see him again, and kept trying to get him to talk. He felt like Ares’ mutism was contagious, his heart was in his throat.
That was exactly what he’d wanted to avoid by telling John not to come for him: there was no happy ending down this path. Either John would die at the hand of Santino father’s men, or he would come here and the young prince himself would have to do it.
For all his faults, his father was intelligent and cunning. He knew only one person could hope to stop John. The other solution… Maybe it was better that way, go like his mother, a bullet in his mouth. It probably wouldn’t hurt. John might be sad for a while, but it would pass. He would have his entire life to get over him, and Santino doubted it would take that long.
He drank his glass of champagne with trembling fingers, trying to give a reassuring smile to Rafaella.
“We’re expecting one more guest,” he confessed.
She frowned, was about to ask who, when Santino caught sight of Ares, hovering by the door.
He knew she would try to do something stupid, and he needed to find a way to prevent that. Excusing himself from Rafaella in a rush, he made a beeline for his sister.
“Tell Cassian to take Ares away,” he whispered furiously the moment he had her attention. Around them, family members gave them curious glances, so Santino forced himself to relax and smile at his sister, faking a pleasant mood. She did the same.
“Already on it, look.”
And indeed, the older bodyguard was talking with his junior. Whatever he told her, she trusted him enough to follow him as he disappeared outside.
And right on time.
A few minutes later, gunshot sounds reached the assembly despite the soft music and conversations. Everyone gasped and rushed to the windows, Santino included, just in time to see a car skid across the courtyard, hitting one of their security guys and sending him flying against the wall.
The rest of the mobsters started shooting at the car, but the finish was bulletproof. The passenger door opened and John fluidly jumped out, using the car as cover to shoot the men one after the other. When he’d sufficiently cleared the ranks, he slid over the hood and fought them off hand to hand.
Santino had never seen him fight. Use a gun, yes, when he’d demanded to be shown one night, which had led to fantastic sex against the wall of the deserted shooting range. But it was the first time he watched him in action, and if Santino wasn’t so stressed about the outcome, he would be impressed.
As it was, he stopped watching to turn toward his father, standing on the other side of the room by the empty fireplace. He gave his son a hard gaze, before pouring himself another glass of the good red opened for the occasion.
Swallowing with difficulty, Santino looked at the floor and closed his eyes, his resolve solidifying.
When he opened them, Gianna was by his side.
“Don’t do anything stupid,” she pleaded. He gave her a vicious smile.
“I never do.”
“Santino,” she admonished, only to be cut by the sounds of the fight coming closer.
John was in the stairs, destroying whatever contingent of men his father had deployed. It really drove home how good John was at killing. Intellectually, Santino had known, but seeing it live wasn’t the same. The smell of gunpowder, the nervous sweat of the bodyguards around him, the tension as terror seized the assembly. It made him feel alive.
“Santino,” Gianna tried one last time, grabbing his wrist.
He freed himself harshly, pushing her away.
“It’s too late now,” he hissed at her, and her face fell into anguish, surprisingly. They weren’t that close anymore, he hadn’t thought she would be that sad to see him gone. That meant taking the seat, which he knew she thought she deserved more than him.
And maybe that was true.
Silence echoed in the room and outside. Everyone was plastered to the walls of the room behind an apprehensive line of guards, except for Santino, who stood in the middle of the room. He heard his father's footsteps come closer, and then the noise of a safety being clicked off. The barrel of a gun pressed at the back of his neck still came as a surprise.
He didn’t have time to wonder if his father really was serious before the door burst open, and there stood John, in all his glory.
A frisson ran down his spine at the sight.
Here he was, Santino’s own dark angel, in his black suit shining with blood, both hands around his gun. His knuckles and his face were peppered with rubies taken from the bodies of his enemies. The man himself seemed uninjured.
“Don’t come closer, and drop your weapons,” Santino’s father ordered, pressing the gun harder against his son’s skull. The young Camorra prince watched his lover take the situation in, calculating, measuring, trying to decide if he could risk the shot. His gaze crossed Santino’s, and he paused. A dog waiting for orders.
“Do it, John,” Santino whispered.
Slowly, and after a long shuddery exhale, John relaxed from his stance. He lowered his arms, straightened until his feet were parallele, if wider apart than usual. He stopped there, obviously unwilling to follow the order to the end.
Santino stepped closer to him, feeling the weight of the gun aimed at his back even if it wasn’t pressed against his skull anymore. John’s gaze flickered briefly to him before refocusing on the D’Antonio patriarch.
The heir of the family stopped only once his shiny shoes touched John’s, the proximity forcing the hitman to look down at him. His eyes flashed with anguish and regrets, like he knew he had already lost. Santino frowned, feeling a twinge in his heart at seeing his lover so sad. He cradled his jaw in both hands, soothing him with a stroke over his cheeks.
Gently, never breaking eye contact, Santino let a hand trail from John’s neck to his shoulders and down his arm, until he could take hold of the gun. The assassin resisted, fingers tightening over the weapon as he let out a wounded sound.
Santino tilted his head, and pushed on the tip of his feet to close the height gap between them, pressing a brief kiss at the corner of the hitman’s mouth. Closing his eyes, John turned to him instinctually, opening his lips to welcome him in, trying to deepen the kiss even as Santino drew back. He couldn’t push his luck more, but it was a nice way to end all this.
He stepped back, the gun now in his hand. It was John’s favorite, the Heckler & Koch P30 he’d demonstrated his prowess to Santino with.
“Kneel,” the Camorra prince breathed, reaffirming his grip on the sidearm.
Hands now hanging limply at his side, John kept his eyes closed as he obeyed. He did it gracelessly, like a puppet whose strings had been cut, hitting the floor hard, fingers brushing the ground.
Santino raised the weapon, lightly resting the barrel between his lover’s brows. John was frowning, expression stricken with grief. Finger on the trigger, Santino knew with absolute certainty he could never do that.
With it came clarity.
He moved, let his instinct take over as he twisted and pulled the trigger.
For a second, nothing happened, then his father’s eyes widened as the pain registered. Santino only saw the expression because he was looking at him directly. It froze into the shock of death as he crumbled to the ground.
Someone gasped, several people screamed, and a ripple ran over the bodyguards stationed around the room as they changed aim confusedly.
“Don’t shoot!” Gianna snapped, coming forward as her order was reluctantly obeyed.
A pool of blood was growing around Giacomo D’Antonio, coming from a neat wound in the middle of his chest. Santino swallowed the short distance between him and his father, and shot him in the head for good measure.
“Enough!” his sister cried out, tears of rage glittering in her eyes. Santino looked at her coldly, pointing the gun her way. She froze, raising her arms up slowly.
“Don’t,” John whispered behind the D’Antonio heir. “Stop. It’s over.”
Santino didn’t lower his arm right away, watching his sibling closely.
“Is this going to be a problem?” he asked her softly, watching the blood rabbit at her neck.
Gianna shook her head tersely.
“Fine,” he said, lowering his arm slightly. “You can deal with all that. I’m taking Ares with me then we’re leaving. We will talk later.”
She nodded, eyes glittering like diamonds.
He stepped back to John, gestured him up before pushing him toward the exit.
Back to the closed door, Santino smiled. A feeling of pure elation was rising inside of him. He was free.
He barked a laugh, which echoed in the silent staircase, and ran to John. The hitman’s arms were already opened, ready to catch him. Their lips crashed together, John made another of his heartbreaking sounds, raising trembling hands to Santino’s face. The way he gently cradled his young lover’s head made something painful bloom in the vicinity of his heart, and he pressed closer for a second, before wrenching himself back.
John’s arms tightened around him reflexively, a low growl of protest jumping out of his throat. Santino chuckled, stroking his dark hair behind his ears.
“C’mon, take me back home.”
With a relieved sigh, John let his forehead rest against Santino’s, closing his eyes for a moment. He nodded, sought the Camorra prince’s hand and intertwined their fingers, before pulling him downstairs.
Like conjured by Santino’s will, Ares was waiting by the entrance, her jaw set. John froze when he saw the gun in her hand, but Santino smoothly slid in front of him.
“We’re getting out of here,” he told Ares with his hands. Her eyes didn’t leave John’s face, but she seemed to read her boss’ signals anyway. Her stance relaxed inch by inch, until she holstered her weapon.
“He came,” she only said, but the way she moved her fingers sounded like smugness.
Agitation upstairs made them move, John pushing them both toward the car. In the rearview, Santino saw Gianna standing on top of the stairs, watching them leave.
He waved to her.