Page 136 of Fire and Silk

I turn slightly, scanning further back. In the shadows of the marble pillars—Maksim stands stiff, his right eye milky and useless, a scar dragging from his cheekbone to the side of his jaw. Mina is beside him, elegant in emerald, her jaw locked so tight the tension shows in her temple. They don’t clap. Of course they don’t.

They still hate me.

They’ve tried everything. Poisoned contracts, hidden bombs, whispered lies to the Vatican’s banking council. They sent men. Then spies. Then gifts. Always wrapped in poison.

They failed.

The snake that bit Maksim had been real. One of the older routes through the Papuan line. He’d gone against Dantès orders to secure it for himself. A venom spit to the eye and everything changed. I hadn’t even needed to lift a finger.

Now he answers to me.

They both do.

And I look at them like they’re dust. Discarded things. Still trying to scrape back into relevance.

I return to my seat beside Severo, and I feel his hand take mine under the table.

The ring gleams beneath the chandelier light.

And still—still—his thumb moves across my knuckles like he can’t believe I’m real.

Across the hall, the dons continue watching.

Some of them still plot against me. I see it in their eyes.

But they bow when I pass.

They whisper when I speak.

And when I smile, they never know whether to feel safe or afraid.

I like it that way.

Everyone in this room worships me in their own way.

Some from awe.

Most from fear.

And I love it. Every drop of it.

Two years ago, I was clawing for space—scraping to matter in a world that forgot women unless they came with blood on their hands or power at their back. Now? Now, I am the one they whisper about. The one they prepare for. The one they obey even when they hate it.

I picked up the violin again last spring. Nicola gave me a new one—amber-stained wood, polished like a promise. She had found it in Vienna, sent it to me with a note:Don’t forget you were more than danger .

She meant well. She always does.

But music bends for power too.

I don’t play because I crave the sound or the calm. I play because it reminds them all that I can move them to tears and still burn down everything they love. I play to haunt them.

The final note fades into the gold-draped room.

Silence.

Then thunder.

Chairs scrape, bodies rise. They clap. Some have tears on their cheeks. Some hide clenched jaws with forced smiles. All of them stand. Every single one.