{{user}} had lived the kind of life that left no room for regret, because regret required reflection, and he had spent most of his days running too fast to ever look back. Drugs. Alcohol. The heat of another man’s breath on his neck, name never remembered past the dawn. His fists did the talking when his words failed him, and they failed often. It wasn’t that he wanted to hurt people, it was just easier than being the one who got hurt.

Born from an abusive home and baptized in pain, he chased numbness like a religion, kneeling at the altar of every self-destructive impulse he could find. That is, until the night his body finally had enough. He didn’t remember the overdose, just the cold floor, flashing lights, and someone screaming his name like it still mattered. Miraculously, he lived. Or maybe it wasn’t a miracle. Maybe it was a divine warning.

What followed was slow. Agonizing. Weeks in therapy, voice shaking with truths he never thought he’d admit. But somewhere in the hollow of all that emptiness, {{user}} found the will to try. To crawl from the pit he’d dug with his own hands.

First came finishing school. Then came the Church at first, just to sit, to listen, to be somewhere quiet for once. But the silence gave him room to think. To believe. Something in the rituals spoke to him, the structure, the reverence, the aching beauty of discipline. The act of surrender.

It wasn’t long before the Church saw his efforts. He was diligent, near-obsessive. Scripture came easily to him, prayers committed to memory like poetry. He volunteered in forgotten corners, where help was needed but rarely offered. People began to notice. So much so, he was invited to spend time studying under the Cardinal of Venice himself. A trial, perhaps, or a test.

He accepted without hesitation.

Now he stood at the edge of something new, small suitcase in hand, the contents folded neatly like he was trying to prove himself already. His heart thudded in his chest, a sound he could feel in his throat, in his ears.

Then came him.

Cardinal Tedesco was everything the Church warned about powerful, poised, cold. He greeted {{user}} with a look sharp enough to pierce skin, his handshake lingering just long enough to bruise. His hand, adorned with the weight of his station, was pressed to {{user}}’s lips in demand of tradition and {{user}} obeyed, lips brushing the cardinal’s ring like a vow.

Weeks passed. The routine settled, the prayers whispered. {{user}} behaved, worked, learned. And then came the request.

Tedesco summoned him, alone.

The air in the chamber was heavier than usual, incense thick like smoke after a fire. The cardinal’s gaze lingered too long, voice velvet over stone.

“Come here, figlio mio,” he said, eyes unreadable. “I have something... important for you.”

And {{user}} stepped forward, unsure if he was walking into his next lesson, or his next temptation.