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Her name is Aurelia Saint-Just. She discards this name when she is eight years old. Her hair may once have been golden but it has darkened with age and while once her soul may have been golden and innocent now it is darkened with hate.
Her father was killed, her mother was murdered - Santino had been very clear about the distinction, she remembers.
“Your father was killed for a contract,” he had told her. “But your mother’s death…”
Her mother’s death had been unnecessary and that, Santino impressed upon her, was murder in this world she now inhabited.
“Come with me,” he had offered her. His hand gently touched her cheek, his fingertips sticky with blood. “I will help you kill those who killed your parents.”
She had thought him the most handsome person she’d ever seen, then. Now, she does not. She can see how his eyes bulge, how his hair is tousled effortfully, the wormy way he smiles, his touch of arrogance which can grate. She thinks, now, that it was just the adrenaline of that night, the fact he was the first person she’d seen in hours who would not see her dead.
She had tilted her head, watched him as he’d risen from his crouch.
“What is your name?” he’d asked. “How old are you?”
Aurelia Saint-Just - but that was the wrong answer.
[Ares,] she had signed, spelling out the letters. [Ares Saint-Just. I’m eight.]
He’d smiled. “I am Santino D’Antonio. I’m eighteen. And if you swear yourself as my vassal, I will find those who did this so you may kill them.” She hadn’t known the word vassal then, but Santino had continued. “Pledge obedience to me, and I will give you vengeance.”
He’d held out his hand, his rings glinting on his fingers. In the ruin of the house around them his men had milled - then, they’d been his father’s men.
[You promise?]
He’d smiled wider. “You are named for a god and a saint. I would lie to neither. I promise.”
She’d leaned forwards, and pressed a kiss to his rings. When she’d leaned her forehead on his hand, his palm - still sticky with blood - cupped her cheek.
She knows the truth now: he would lie to a god, to a saint, to the devil himself if it would get him what he wanted. But he would never lie to her.
When she was fifteen he’d brought her the files.
“These are the men who killed your parents,” he’d said, and set them on the coffee table in her small set of rooms. “These are the houses where they live. These are their weapons. Their routines. Their security.” He’d sat opposite her, sleeves rolled up, tie undone and collar unbuttoned in the heat of the day. The smile curling his lips was midway between pride and pleasure. “Now. How are you going to kill them?”
“Training your pet, brother?”
Gianna hadn’t meant it meanly, that she knows. They were all pets to the D’Antonio’s, those they took in and trained. Their contract, their mercy, their oaths and debts maintained and kept. She followed Santino like a hound, obeyed his orders like a dog. He’d kept his promise, given her her vengeance and the means to take it.
They were training so she could complete it.
Santino had laughed, head thrown back. Sometimes she’d wished she could laugh like that. Make a sound that wasn’t a wordless snarl or scream or sob - she’d cried too much in her few years, too many times to count. But she’d never laughed, not even with Santino.
“Sister,” he’d said. “What else do we do?”
Gianna had smiled, bowed her head, looked to where Ares had stood, chest heaving, knives dangling from her fingers and smiled wider.
“Saint-Just,” she’d said. “Fortune be with you tonight.”
She’d stumbled to the car with her fingers pressed to a cut high on her ribcage. She’d planned this so she wouldn’t get hit but-
“All plans have flaws,” Santino had warned her. “If you come back alive and with them dead I will be proud. That is all I ask. Do not give into temptation. Do not die.” His hand had cupped her cheek. “I do not know what I would do without you, my loyal Saint-Just.”
Of all the pets the D’Antonio’s had kept - even of all those sworn to him - she had been his favourite. She wonders if this was because he’d taken her in so young, trained her so young. If it was because of her loyalty, her trust, her absolute need for vengeance and her disgust at absolution.
[I know my sins,] she’d signed. [Wrath. Envy. Pride. Lust. I don’t ask absolution for my nature. I will not fail.]
He’d reached out, cupped her cheek. It was never the same, when his fingers were not sticky with blood. “My Ares Saint-Just.” She tilted her head into his hand, watched him, unblinking. She could feel how her hair brushed over her cheek with each soft breath. “What do you think my sins are?”
She can list them off on her fingers now. Envy. Pride. Gluttony and Greed. Neither of us tended towards Sloth.
She’d pulled the car door open, fallen into the seat. “Oh God,” Santino had sworn. Italian, she thinks, but the memory is fuzzy at the edges with bloodloss and pain, so it could have been English or Spanish, or the Latin they’d been practicing the week before. His hand had pressed to her cheek, fingertips to her pulse before his hands had gone to the wheel. “Are they dead?”
She’d nodded, pulled herself upright in the seat, and Santino had relaxed.
“My Ares,” he’d said. “Let us get you safe.”
No one understood it. Gianna would watch them, Santino striding about, Ares as his shadow.
“He has given you vengeance. You have given him loyalty and served him many years now. You will not ask to be free?”
She wonders why Gianna had asked. She’d been with the D’Antonio’s for ten years. Seven in training, three in work. After her trial by fire, her vengeance, after she’d tattooed JUST onto the bones of her fingers, she was made Santino’s chief security enforcer. His bodyguards were vetted by her, tested by her, anyone who came near him was checked by her.
“My loyal lion,” Santino would say. “Never letting anyone harm me.”
[Sir,] she’d sign back.
He’d kept his promise to her. Santino - liar to his father and mother, to his sister, to anyone he planned to cross and then some… he had not lied to her.
“You are loyal to me,” he’d said. “They each will climb and fight and bicker, but you… you don’t aim any higher than you’ve reached. You don’t want it.”
[No,] she had signed. [All I want is what I have. This. You.]
“My loyal Saint-Just.” He’d smiled, laying back on the couch, head resting on interlinked fingers. “This is why I like you, why I trust you, why I won’t lie to you. Why they don’t understand.” She’d stayed silent. “Sleep well, Ares,” he’d said. “We have a long day tomorrow.”
Every day had been long, but she didn’t mind. It was good to fight, good to hurt, good to help Santino with his tasks.
Sometimes, if there was time, Santino would spar with her, as he had when they had been children.
[You’re getting slow,] she’d signed once, as he was gulping from a bottle. [Getting too slow.]
“You’ll still protect me though, won’t you?”
She’d smiled. Watched him. Bowed her head. [Sir.]
“Loyal Ares.”
Then, John Wick had come.
She’d brought Santino grappa after he returned from the Continental. The drink they shared when there was talking to be done.
[What did he want?]
“To get out.”
[And you could give him that?]
Santino had turned a Marker in his hand. “I can take the burden of the blame others hold him to. I can claim the right of it. They will not come for me, and they will not go after him. But if he returns to this life, then he will owe me.”
[And will he?]
Santino had set down his glass, refilled it. Offered the bottle towards her and refilled her glass.
“He is John Wick,” he’d said. “The Boogeyman. The Ghost. Eventually, something will happen, and I will have a weapon in my arsenal that no one can match.”
She has never hated Santino being right about anything as much as she hates him being right about John Wick.
(She could not protect him from John Wick.)
(She knows now: no one could.)
Something had shaken in her bones as Santino took the grenade launcher out of the car. She’d oiled it that day, cleaned it, made sure everything was perfect. Tested it, tested the grenades.
It wouldn’t hurt him. He’d fire it, and John Wick would see sense and everything would be fine.
That was what Santino had said.
For the first time, Santino had lied to her.
When Wick comes to the gallery she’s there. She’s waiting. Something is still itching in her bones, something is wrong. Wick is dangerous , dangerous as none have been to her since before she killed the men who killed her father, murdered her mother.
Even when she checks him it makes her uneasy to see him sat beside Santino.
“How would you kill me?” she hears him ask Wick. “That woman’s scarf, that girl’s pen-”
“My hands.”
She thinks that no matter her attempt to unnerve him, it is not going to work. The only way Santino will be safe is when John Wick is dead.
She almost has a chance in the catacombs. She brought many men, and recruited many more. Trusted ones - if only trusted to be a straight shot - and those she can afford to lose but trust to do a good job. She will not waste the best if she can help it - they need to protect Santino.
John Wick should not have been prepared for so many of them. She does not know how he could be.
He’s the Boogeyman, she thinks. The Ghost.
[I fucked up,] she tells Santino. She does not need to say sorry. Santino can see it in her very posture, in the fact she has failed at all.
“My loyal lion,” he says later, hand on her cheek. There is a drop of blood there, she does not know where from. It’s sticky, it makes his touch soothing. “We have the world to kill him now. I’m safe.”
[You will be safe when he is dead.]
He does not dispute her.
They have peace, for a while. Barely a day.
“I have Gianna’s seat now,” he says. “If he touches me-”
[If he touches you you will die.]
She’s never interrupted him before. She looks apologetic, continues.
[You are still mortal. If he touches you, you will die.]
“Maybe,” he whispers. “But you will not let that happen.”
She closes her eyes, bows her head. Signs, [Sir.]
John Wick kills Santino.
All the guards they have - ones she’s vetted, ones from the High Table - die, blood on all their silk shirts. There’s only herself left.
[Go,] she tells Santino, pushing him towards the lift. [I will finish this.]
Santino looks at her. She wonders if he thinks, You are going to die. She's thought it, three times over. But it’s worth it, for Santino. He kept his promise to her. It’s her turn to do the same.
The lift doors close. When she’s certain he’s safe, she calls the elevator again.
The most she has is surprise - not size, or strength, or speed. Even injured Wick is a beast, a monster.
The Boogeyman.
John Wick punctures her lung and leaves.
When she wakes, it’s in the hospital, and on her phone is a text from the Manager of the Continental.
He killed Santino. My condolences.
What the Manager doesn’t say until the next day, when he calls her is: “He killed him in the Continental. John Wick is excommunicado. ”
Her mind catches on the last two syllables. Cado. Latin: To fall.
Perhaps, she thinks, in falling out of the underworld, falling out with the underworld, John Wick may finally die. May fall to his death. No one kills at the Continental and lives. That is the first rule.
The guard holding the phone says, softly, “She’s not signing anything.”
She can hear, down the phone, Winston swallowing. “Will you go after him?”
She wants to. When she can breathe easily again, maybe, but with Santino dead she may never breathe easily again.
[I failed.] she signs, and the guard relays her words.
“Wick asked,” Winston says, “That I inform those who intend to go after him that he will kill them.”
She snorts, gives a choked sound that might almost be a laugh. [Tell Wick to remember what I told him. I’ll be seeing him.]
Winston is quiet for a long while.
“Santino’s funeral will be in two weeks,” he says eventually. “Under the protection of the Continental. He wanted you as one of his pallbearers. Will you be there?”
It’s not even a question as, for the first time in years, her eyes fill with tears.
Before the funeral, before she carries Santino’s body out to lay in the cold ground, she looks at him one last time. He’s peaceful in death.
Before they close the lid and hide him forever from the world, she lifts his hand, kisses his ring.
She’s his vassal, in death just as much in life.