Page 15 of Queen (Shattered Pieces #2)

emiliano

Arrival at the Grave

T he door of the armored car swings open, and the cold hits me first—thin, damp, the kind that slides under your coat and settles in your bones. I step out slow, deliberate, the way I always do when I want the world to know I own the ground I’m walking on.

The cemetery spreads out in front of me, remote and fog-draped.

The gates are iron, black and heavy, and beyond them the stones rise from the earth like teeth.

The early morning chill clings to the air, muting every sound except the crunch of gravel under boots.

Even the birds know better than to sing here.

She steps out a moment later. Zina.

Black velvet wraps her like shadow, the dress I picked clinging in all the places I wanted it to.

The red lining flashes at the hem with every movement, a whisper of warning.

Her throat is bare except for the diamond collar, a reminder I never let her shed.

She doesn’t look at me. Doesn’t say a fucking word.

But the silence between us? It’s alive. Electric. I could cut it open and watch it bleed.

Her hand is tight around something—her clutch, but I know better.

The mystery note from last night. She’s still hiding it from me, holding it like it’s more valuable than her next breath.

That detail stings more than I’ll ever admit out loud.

She’s mine, but that piece of paper is a wall she’s decided I can’t climb—yet.

I let my eyes linger on her a moment longer before I turn to the men. “Stay back.”

They don’t argue. They know the tone in my voice means I’m not asking.

I fall into step beside her as we move toward the gates.

The fog swirls low around our feet, thick enough that it seems to catch on the hem of her dress, dragging after her like she’s pulling the dead along with us.

The only sound between us is the crunch of gravel. It’s enough. Words would cheapen this.

I match her pace without looking like I’m matching her pace. Power isn’t just about leading—it’s about letting someone think they’re walking beside you when they’re still following.

The path winds, gravel giving way to worn grass. The fog softens the edges of everything—the headstones, the trees, the sky—but nothing can soften her. She cuts through it all, a straight line of defiance wrapped in velvet.

I glance down at her again. Her chin is high, shoulders squared, every inch of her screaming that she doesn’t need me. But her fingers around that note? They’re white-knuckled, betraying her.

I could ask her about it now. Could demand it. But part of me wants to wait, to see how far she’s willing to push me before I take it from her. Some battles are better when they’ve been allowed to fester.

The gates groan as they close behind us. The sound echoes through the fog, final and heavy, like the start of something neither of us can take back.

I keep walking. She keeps pace. And between the silence, the fog, and the weight of the dead watching, it feels less like we’re here to visit a grave— and more like we’re walking into one.

A Funeral Without a Priest

The fog thins just enough to reveal the shape of the headstone ahead, tall and cold, cut from dark granite. Giovanni’s name catches the pale morning light—sharp lettering meant to outlast every man who ever spoke it.

Zina slows first. She doesn’t look at me. Doesn’t ask permission. She just kneels, her dress pooling like spilled ink around her on the damp ground. Her hands touch the earth the way a woman touches a memory she doesn’t want to remember.

I stay standing.

From inside my coat, I pull the single red rose. Fresh. Its scent faint under the weight of rain in the air. I roll the stem once between my fingers before setting it against the base of the stone.

“He hated flowers,” I say, my voice low but steady. “But I always left him one. Even when we were enemies.”

Her head turns slightly, just enough that I catch the edge of her profile. Her voice is soft, but it carries. “You were never just enemies.”

No. We weren’t.

I let my gaze rest on the stone a moment longer before I speak.

“We met in Naples. Two boys with nothing but ambition, each convinced the other was the only one worth measuring himself against.” I shift my weight, the gravel under my shoes crunching in the quiet.

“He was a crown in the making. I was a shadow he couldn’t shake. ”

The fire flickers in my chest, not from anger, but memory. “We stole together. We bled together. We built something neither of us could have built alone. And we destroyed it the same way—together.”

I glance down at her. She’s still staring at the stone, but I can see the way her jaw tightens, the way her shoulders draw a fraction closer, as if bracing against the truth she doesn’t want to hear.

“I called him my brother,” I continue. “Some days I meant it. Some days I wanted him dead more than I wanted to breathe.”

Her fingers curl into the damp grass, and for the first time since we arrived, she looks straight at me. “And now?”

“Now,” I say, “I remember him as both. My greatest mistake… and the only man I ever thought I could trust.” I let the pause linger, heavy, dragging through the fog like a blade. “Until you.”

Her breath catches—quiet, but I hear it. I always hear it.

The fog drifts between us, curling around her like smoke. I don’t move closer. Not yet. Because here, in front of Giovanni’s grave, I’m not interested in pretending we’re just two people visiting the dead. This is war. A war fought in silences, in glances, in words that cut sharper than any blade.

And in this moment, I can’t tell if she’s praying for him… or for the strength to outlast me.

Confession and Chaos

Her fingers dig into the damp grass, knuckles white, shoulders rigid. For a long moment she doesn’t look at me—until she does. And when she does, it’s not the silence that cuts. It’s the question.

“If you loved him,” she says, her voice shaking but sharp enough to draw blood, “why did you kill him?”

I don’t flinch.

“Because love doesn’t make a man weak,” I say, each word deliberate. “But loyalty to a man who’s already gone? That does.”

She stares at me like I’ve just stripped the last illusion from her. I let her sit with it, let it burn. Then I lower myself to one knee beside her, my coat brushing the edge of her dress, the damp seeping through the fabric.

“I gave Giovanni my youth. My secrets.” My voice drops until it’s barely above the wind. “And he gave me exile. Do you understand that? I bled for him. I fought for him. And when it suited him, he cast me out like I was nothing.”

Her breathing quickens. I can hear it over the faint hum of wind moving through the stones, the distant creak of a tree branch.

“You were always mine, Zina,” I say, leaning in, close enough to see the tremor in her lashes. “Even when he claimed you. Especially then.”

Her hand moves before I see it coming. The slap lands hard, the sharp crack echoing against stone. My head turns with the force, but I don’t retaliate.

Her tears follow fast, spilling down her cheeks, glinting in the morning light.

I catch her face in my hands before she can pull back, my thumbs pressing just enough to hold her there. Her skin is damp, hot with grief. “Your grief,” I murmur, my eyes locked on hers, “tastes like devotion.”

Her lips part in a soundless breath, confusion and fury mixing in her gaze. She wants to scream at me, claw me apart, but there’s something else beneath it—something dangerously close to surrender.

I tilt her head just enough to bare the curve of her neck and press my mouth there—not with tenderness, but with claim.

My lips are warm against her skin, my breath slow, measured.

This isn’t seduction. It’s ownership. It’s the reminder that no matter how hard she fights me, I will not release my hold.

She shivers, and I feel it travel through her like the first crack in a frozen river. A sound escapes her throat, muffled, half a sob, half a gasp.

When I pull back, my hands stay on her face, holding her still, forcing her to meet my eyes.

“You think this is about him,” I say. “It’s not. It’s about you. About the fact that you still kneel here for a man who would have left you to rot if it kept him on his throne.”

Her chest rises and falls too fast, her hands clenched in the folds of her dress. But she doesn’t deny it.

The wind shifts, carrying the faint scent of roses from the grave behind her, mixing with the smoke of damp leaves.

And in that moment, I know she understands something she’s not ready to say out loud— that her grief doesn’t belong to Giovanni alone anymore.

The Unburied Past

Her hands are trembling. Not wildly—just enough to betray the effort she’s putting into holding herself together. The tremor makes me want to grab them, still them, force them into steadiness under my control.

I strip my coat from my shoulders and place it around her—not to warm her, but to enclose her.

To bind her movements. The heavy wool swallows her frame, the scent of my cologne threading into the fabric.

It’s not kindness. It’s containment. A reminder that even her body isn’t entirely her own anymore.

“You asked to mourn,” I tell her, my voice low but unyielding. “Mourn. But don’t pretend he was perfect.”

Her chin lifts, that instinctive flash of pride in her eyes. Her lips press together, defiant.

“You forget,” I go on, each word sharper than the last, “I saw what he did to you. To your son.”

She stiffens instantly. “Don’t talk about Guido.”

The edge in her voice is pure steel, but I’ve learned something about steel—it bends before it breaks.

“You think I don’t remember the night you almost left him?” I step forward, close enough that her perfume mixes with the damp scent of earth and stone. My shadow folds over hers. “I was the one who kept you from vanishing with your child. You just never knew it.”