Page 27 of Queen

The temptation to rip it off coils through me like a spring. To hurl it across the room. To hear it crack against stone. But I don’t. Not yet.

The house is silent. Too silent. The kind of quiet that feels staged, as if the whole estate is holding its breath.

Then I hear it.

Footsteps. Slow. Deliberate. Right outside my door.

Every muscle goes taut. My pulse hammers. That’s not a guard on patrol. I know the rhythm of his stride.

It’s him.

The steps stop.

A murmur follows—Emiliano’s voice, pitched low, speaking to the night guard stationed outside. I can’t make out the words, but I don’t need to. The tone is enough. Commanding. Certain. Like whatever he’s saying is a reminder that this door isn’t just a door. It’s a gate. And he’s the only one with the key.

I stay perfectly still, listening.

After a long moment, the voices fade, footsteps retreating. My heart doesn’t slow. If anything, it beats harder.

I slide out of bed, bare feet whispering against the rug, and cross to my vanity. The mirror throws back my reflection under the lamplight—pale skin, hard eyes, the ruby glinting like a drop of blood.

I study myself. Not afraid. Not soft. Not broken. Just cold calculation staring back.

I curl my fingers into a fist until my knuckles ache white. The ruby flashes once in the glass.

“You want a queen?” My voice is low, steady, lethal.

I lean forward until my breath fogs the mirror.

“You’ll get a fucking viper.”

6

emiliano

The Control Game Begins

The house is quiet, but I know she’s awake. I can feel it in the walls, in the air between us. Some men call it instinct. I call it ownership.

She’s in her room now, probably sitting on that bed with her back against the headboard, fingers turning that ring like she’s deciding whether to keep it or throw it in the fire. She won’t take it off. Not tonight. Not tomorrow. Not until I decide she can.

I pass her door anyway, slow enough to let my footsteps carry. Let her hear me. Let her remember the way I almost kissed her in the garden, the way her pulse stuttered when I slid Giovanni’s ring onto her finger.

The guard straightens as I approach, but I don’t look at him. My eyes stay on the door, my voice pitched low enough that onlyhe and—if she’s listening—she can hear. “She doesn’t leave this room without me.”

A nod from the guard, but I already know he understands. I handpicked him. Loyal. Silent. The kind who’d kill for me without needing to be told twice.

I move on, but I don’t go far. I stand in the dark at the end of the hall, watching the light under her door like it’s a signal fire. I can picture her reflection in that vanity mirror, the ruby catching the lamplight, her eyes hard enough to cut.

She thinks she’s a viper. Good. I like snakes. Especially the ones that bite.

By morning, the hall outside her door is as still as the grave. She emerges eventually, spine straight, chin up, moving like she owns the marble beneath her feet. I follow her from the balcony of my office, hands braced on the railing, watching her make her slow, deliberate circuit of the grounds.

She doesn’t look up, but I know she feels me watching. Her movements have that extra stiffness—shoulders squared a little too perfectly, jaw set tight. She wears her rage like perfume. I’m addicted to it.

She’s still adjusting to the cage. The gold bars make it easy to forget it’s a prison. My job is to remind her.

I step back inside, pick up the phone on my desk, and press the button that connects to her suite. “Come to my study.”