Page 11 of Queen (Shattered Pieces #2)

emiliano

The Control Game Begins

T he 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 only he 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.”

No explanation. No please. Just the order.

Minutes later, she appears in my doorway. She doesn’t sit until I gesture. Regal in her disdain, she folds herself into the chair opposite me, crossing her legs with slow precision.

“You’ve had a night to think,” I say.

Her mouth curves, but it’s not a smile. “About what? Which of your games you’ll play next?”

I lean forward, resting my elbows on the desk. “This isn’t a game, cara. You have two paths. Stay here as my wife—and obey me in all things. Or pack your things, take your son, and go back to the streets.”

Her eyes flare, but she holds her ground. “That’s not a choice.”

“It’s the only one you get.”

Silence stretches between us, sharp as a drawn blade. I can see the refusal rising in her, taste it like smoke in the air. It makes my pulse steady, my patience thin.

We’re just getting started.

Loyalty Questioned, Line Drawn

She doesn’t flinch under my stare. Not once. Not even when I let the silence drag until the air between us feels like a vise.

“Tell me something, Zina,” I say, keeping my voice even. “When it comes down to it—when there’s blood on the floor—who do you serve? Giovanni’s sons… or your husband?”

Her eyes sharpen, the faintest twitch in her jaw giving her away. “Giovanni’s sons?” she repeats, like the words taste rotten. “They’d slit my throat without blinking.”

“Then it should be an easy answer.”

But she doesn’t give it. She leans back in the chair like she’s settling in for a duel, crossing one leg over the other so slow it’s obscene. “And what would you do, Emiliano?”

That’s all it takes. The tight leash I keep on myself snaps.

I’m up from my desk in three strides, closing the space between us. Her chair tips slightly as I grab her by the wrist and haul her to her feet. She doesn’t stumble—of course she doesn’t. She’s too proud for that. But her breath catches, quick and sharp, and I feel it all the way through me.

I walk her backward until her spine meets the bookshelves with a soft thud. The smell of her—rose and smoke—hits me like a punch. My hands plant on either side of her head, caging her in.

“I’d keep you alive,” I tell her, low and deliberate. “I’d protect you from every enemy outside these walls.”

“And inside?” she throws back, her chin lifting.

“That depends on whether you remember who you belong to.”

Her mouth curves—mocking, taunting. “Never.”

The word slides between us like a blade.

I lean in until my breath brushes her cheek, my voice a dark promise. “Say it again.”

She doesn’t. And that defiance—the way she holds my gaze without blinking—makes my blood run hotter than any kiss could.

My hand finds her jaw, tilting her head up just enough so she has to look at me. I’m close enough to feel the heat rolling off her, to hear the subtle hitch in her breathing that tells me she’s not as untouched by this as she wants me to believe.

“You think I won’t break you,” I murmur. “You’re wrong.”

Her lips part, but the words that come out aren’t surrender. “Try.”

Molten. That’s what it feels like between us—heat and danger, threatening to spill over. I could take her mouth right now, crush her against the shelves until she forgets every name but mine. But that would be too easy. And I never take the easy way.

I step back instead, slow, deliberate, letting the loss of my body heat be its own punishment.

“Go back to your room, cara, ” I say, already turning away. “Before I decide your answer for you.”

She doesn’t move right away. But when she does, her heels click across the floor with a precision meant to tell me she’s in control. It’s a lie we’re both willing to let her keep—for now.

Emotional Erosion

It’s late when I go to her. Later than I should, but that’s deliberate. I want her tired, off-balance.

The guards know better than to ask questions when I tell them to clear the east wing. No one needs to see this part. No one except her.

When I open the door to what was once her suite, it’s already done—my men efficient as always. Every piece of clothing, every personal item, every reminder of the illusion of independence she’s been clinging to… gone. The room is bare, stripped down to furniture and walls.

She walks in moments later, stopping dead in the doorway. Her eyes sweep over the emptiness, and I can almost hear the crack in her composure.

“What the fuck is this?”

“Relocation,” I say, leaning against the doorframe like I’ve been waiting hours just to watch her reaction.

Her gaze snaps to me, sharp as a blade. “Where?”

I let the corner of my mouth curl. “My room.”

The glass in her hand shatters against the far wall before I even finish the words. The sound echoes, sharp and satisfying.

“You think you can move me around like a piece of furniture?” she hisses.

I take a step inside, slow and measured, my shirt undone halfway down my chest. “No, cara. Furniture doesn’t fight back.”

She’s breathing fast now, fists clenched at her sides, the pulse in her neck fluttering like a trapped bird.

“The only thing that’s going to break you now,” I tell her, closing the distance, “is the truth.”

Her chin lifts, defiant. “And what truth is that?”

I stop just in front of her, close enough that the heat from her body blends with mine. “That you already belong to me.”

Her laugh is bitter, sharp. “In your dreams.”

I cup the back of her neck and pull her forward before she can retreat, my mouth hovering a breath away from hers. “Every time you tell me no, every time you try to hate me, you prove it more.”

Her reply is cut off when I take her mouth in a kiss that’s all teeth and heat. She doesn’t yield—she pushes back, matching me bite for bite, anger and desire tangled so tightly I can’t tell them apart.

We stagger back against the wall, her fingers curling into my open shirt, nails scraping over skin. My hand fists in her hair, tilting her head for better access, my tongue claiming her like I’ve been doing it all my life.

She breaks the kiss first, breathing hard, eyes burning into mine. And then her hand snaps across my face in a slap that stings.

I laugh, low and dark, the sound vibrating between us. “We’re getting close.”

She shoves past me, heading toward the door, but she doesn’t make it more than two steps before she stops, shoulders rigid. I know she’s feeling the same thing I am—that line we keep toeing is getting thinner, sharper, more dangerous by the hour.

And I plan to cut her with it.

A Deal of Blood and Secrets

The moment Zina’s gone, I sit in the quiet, the taste of her still in my head, the lie I told her burning like whiskey in my chest.

The click of the far door breaks the stillness.

Vittore slips in, his movements neat, deliberate. Even after fifteen years as my consigliere, he still waits for my nod before shutting the door. That’s why I keep him—he knows when silence is worth more than breath.

We don’t speak in Italian. Not in these walls. Not when I don’t know who’s listening. We speak in Sicilian—low, sharp, each syllable cutting between us like a blade passed hand to hand.

“ U lupu si movi. ” The wolf moves.

I lean back, fingers steepled, watching him over the tops of my knuckles. “ Chi l’ha vistu? ” Who saw him?

“ U me amicu di Palermo. Says the man’s been in Messina… asking about the night Giovanni died.”

The night Giovanni died is a lockbox no one’s supposed to have the key to. A night sealed in blood and shadow.

“ Nomu? ” My voice doesn’t lift, but the air feels heavier for it.

Vittore’s mouth tightens. “Isadora.”

The name lands like a drop of oil in water—dark, spreading, impossible to contain. I haven’t heard it in over twenty years, not without venom or warning following it. And yet here it is, alive in the room again.

From behind Vittore, I catch it—a whisper of movement.

I don’t turn. Don’t need to. She’s there. Zina.

She must’ve come back for something—maybe an argument she’s been polishing like a knife. Instead, she’s walked straight into something sharper.

I shift my gaze to the glass balcony doors. In the reflection, she’s a shadow framed by the hall light—back straight, head tilted just enough to tell me she’s listening. That stillness is dangerous.

She knows the name.

Her eyes find mine through the reflection, a silent demand burning there. No questions—yet. But they’re building in her, heavy as a storm pressing down on the air.

Vittore keeps talking—details about Messina, movements, whispers in back rooms—but my focus is on her. On the way her fingers curl against the doorframe, as if holding herself there takes effort.

I stand slowly, and that tiny motion makes her retreat. She slips away without a sound, leaving only the faint scent of her perfume and the echo of the name between us.

Isadora. It doesn’t belong in this house. But now it’s here. And it’s not leaving.