Page 9 of Queen

She pretended for years. But I? I cataloged her. Every lie. Every ache. Every stolen glance.

She thinks this is politics. Strategy. Mutual need.

But this? This is possession.

I open the second drawer. Inside, velvet cradles the ring. Black diamond, set in platinum, heavy enough to bruise.Custom-made years ago, back when even Giovanni’s hand on her waist couldn’t blind me to what was mine.

Giovanni was her distraction. I am her ending.

“I’ll make her love me,” I whisper, low and rough. “Even if I have to break her first.”

I set the ring beside the letter. The two together look like scripture—text and symbol, promise and weapon.

She gave him loyalty. She’ll give me her name.

And after that? She’ll give me everything else.

The Dress Fitting: Preparing Her Cage

The atelier reeks of fabric glue and silence. Bolts of cloth line the walls, pale ghosts draped in waiting. The seamstress’s gloved hands tremble as she rifles through the dossier I slid across the table. Photos. Zina in profile, unaware of the telephoto lens that captured her mid-reach for a coffee cup. Red ink notations track the slopes of her body: clavicle, waist, thigh. Measurements like coordinates.

“How long will it take?” I ask.

Her lips part. Thin breath. “For a dress of this detail… maybe ten days—”

“You have three.”

Her eyes widen. “Mr. Maritz, I—”

“Three,” I cut in, my voice a razor.

She swallows hard, nods, and turns pages too quickly. Fabrics shuffle, beads glitter faintly. All trash. All noise. I pluck a bolt of silk from the pile—pure, white, weighty as water. I lay it across the table like a shroud.

“This one. No beads. No lace. Clean. Let her body tell the story.”

“Yes, sir.”

She doesn’t ask for the bride’s name. They never do.

I leave her with the folder and step out into the alley. The black car idles. My driver opens the door. Inside, silence folds around me again. Just me and the plan.

The dress isn’t a garment. It’s a cage. A collar wrapped in elegance. She’ll walk into it because she must. And no cage, however silk-lined, makes her less mine.

—

The chapel looms when I arrive. Stone arches, pews blanketed in dust. Empty, unforgiving, carved like a tomb. Perfect.

I pace down the aisle slowly, the echo of my steps bouncing off the stone. The silence isn’t peace—it’s judgment. It breathes down my neck, heavy as chains.

I stop at the altar. Cold stone under my palms. My mouth twists into something close to a smile as I let myself picture her there. Chin raised. Shoulders squared. Eyes lit with fire she thinks can burn me. Wrapped in silk I chose. Bound by vows I’ll drag out of her lips.

She’ll hate every second. But she’ll come.

Because I am the last man standing. And she knows it.

“You’ll look like a queen,” I tell the empty chapel, my voice scattering into shadow. “Because you are. Whether you want to be or not.”

A queen forged in blood and bound in fire. Mine.