Page 49 of Queen

The door shuts softly, but the sound reverberates in my chest. I don’t move. I let the silence stretch, savoring it, because silence after battle is never peace—it’s only the space before the next strike.

And when she comes back—and shewill—it won’t be because I pulled her. It’ll be because she’s realized the truth that’s already written into her blood. She can’t stay away.

The Second Betrayal

The corridor outside my office is too quiet. That’s how I know something’s wrong before I even see Rocco’s face. My consigliere doesn’t knock. He never does when it’s bad.

He’s waiting, coat still on, a slim leather dossier in one gloved hand. His mouth is a grim line, the kind that only forms when the news isn’t just bad—it’s personal.

“We have a problem,” he says simply.

I take the file without a word, its weight deceptively light in my palm. Back at my desk, the leather creaks under my shoulders as I flick the clasp open. The photos slide out, black-and-white, high-contrast, every shadow stretched long by the cemetery’s iron gates.

The first one hits like a blow.

Zina. Standing beneath the cypress, her head bowed, hair loose around her shoulders. Her hands—those hands that clawed at me hours ago—are steady now, passing something into another man’s.

The next photo sharpens the angle. Tall frame, dark coat. The scar over the brow catches just enough light to drag recognition out of me like a blade pulled from old flesh. My voice drops, low enough to vibrate against the wood.

“Who is he?”

Rocco doesn’t flinch. “One of Giovanni’s old guards. Loyal to him. Still.”

Still.

That word is the spike between my ribs. It isn’t loyalty to the dead that cuts—it’s what loyalty to a ghost can make a man do for the living.

I fan the photos across the desk. My pulse is steady, but my jaw aches from how hard it locks. She went to the cemetery. She met him. And she gave him something.

“What was it?” I ask, though I already know the answer.

“We don’t know yet,” Rocco admits. His voice is careful, each syllable like a step on thin ice.

I close the dossier slowly, the way you sheath a blade you know you’ll draw again soon. My gaze stays fixed on the grain of the desk as I speak. “Find out what she gave him.”

Rocco waits, because there’s always more. There’s always a line I make him cross.

I lift my eyes, my tone iron-clad. “And if she lies to me…” I let the silence finish the thought, cold and sharp. “…remind her what it means to wear my ring.”

He nods once, the flicker in his eyes betraying what his face won’t—he knows exactly how far that command can reach. The door closes behind him.

Alone again, I rest my hand on the photos. The paper is cool, but the heat building in my chest makes it feel like tinder. Giovanni’s guard. Zina’s betrayal. The cemetery. It all smells of ghosts clawing their way back into the present.

Betrayal has a taste—metallic, bitter, unforgettable. I’ve swallowed enough of it to know it never goes down easy. It burns. It scars. And it changes everything.

She thinks she can play both sides. She thinks the dead give her cover.

She’s wrong.

11

zina

The Unveiling

The room smells like roses. Fresh sheets. Fresh flowers. Fresh lies.

I should feel safe here, wrapped in the silk Emiliano insists belongs to me, but there’s no such thing as safety in this house. Not when the walls are laced with hidden eyes and every corner feels like it’s listening.