Page 17 of Queen (Shattered Pieces #2)

zina

Return to the Lion’s Den

T he car idles at the gates like it’s unsure whether to deliver me or devour me.

Slate clouds roll low over the sky, heavy with rain, the kind that seeps into your bones before you even know you’re cold.

Fat drops hit the windshield in uneven rhythm—tap, tap, tap—like a warning I should have listened to years ago.

The wrought iron gates groan open, slow and deliberate, as if the house itself is deciding whether I’m worth letting in. I stare past them, to the mansion crouched in the distance. It’s not just stone and glass—it’s breathing. Watching. Waiting.

Beside me, Emiliano doesn’t move. He’s all stillness, the kind that’s more dangerous than rage. His profile is carved from shadows, his jaw set like a loaded gun.

“You wanted to see your ghosts,” he says, voice flat, almost bored. But there’s a thread of cold steel under it. “I’ll give you time to haunt them back.”

He doesn’t get out. Doesn’t offer his hand. Just stays in the driver’s seat, like this is my battle and he’s content to watch from the sidelines. Maybe he is.

The doors open in unison—two guards stepping in, their hands loose near the pistols they don’t bother to hide. No one says my name. No one needs to.

I slide out of the car, the air slicing cold against the back of my neck. One guard takes the lead, the other falls in behind, a silent escort through the gates and up the long stretch of driveway. Each step is a countdown, the gravel crunching under my heels like a metronome of dread.

The front doors loom ahead, double-height and black as confession. They open before I reach them, and the familiar hit of scent slams into me—Giovanni’s cologne. Sharp, dark, expensive. It’s been months, but the air still wears him like a shroud.

The foyer hasn’t changed. Of course it hasn’t.

The marble floor still gleams, the crystal chandelier still drips light like melting ice.

And above it all, dominating the far wall, is his portrait.

Giovanni in one of his tailored three-piece suits, eyes sharp enough to cut, mouth locked in that permanent curve of disapproval.

I stop at the base of the stairs. His gaze follows me—at least, it feels like it does. Same as it always did when I lived here, when I passed through this space and felt judged down to the marrow.

I’m not welcome here. And everyone knows it.

The guard at my back shifts, impatient. “Upstairs?” he asks. It’s not a question—it’s an order wrapped in politeness so thin it’s almost mocking.

I let my gaze drift over the space one more time. The house is exactly as I left it, and yet every inch of it feels altered, like it’s holding its breath, waiting for me to fuck up. The walls remember everything—every argument, every kiss, every betrayal.

I square my shoulders and start forward, my heels clicking sharp against the marble. If this place wants me to feel small, it’s going to have to try harder.

Sons of the King

The air inside is thick enough to choke on. Every breath tastes like dust, old money, and the aftershave Giovanni wore when he wanted to seduce and intimidate in the same breath.

They’re waiting for me.

Santino stands front and center, like he’s the one holding court now. His cassock is blacker than sin, buttoned all the way to the throat, but the look in his eyes isn’t holy. It’s judgment sharpened to a blade.

Romeo’s propped against the wall, rolling a toothpick across his teeth and flicking his lighter open and shut in lazy defiance, the small snap of metal echoing in the marble hall.

Dante says nothing. Doesn’t have to. The way his gaze cuts over me is enough to pin me in place, a predator deciding if I’m worth the effort to kill.

Santino steps forward, slow and deliberate. “You bring your bastard into our father’s house again, and I swear to God—”

I hold his stare, letting the venom in his voice wash over me. “Say his name.”

His nostrils flare.

“My son. Say it.”

The silence stretches until the lighter clicks again—open, shut, open—like a clock ticking down to something ugly.

Santino finally breathes the word. “Guido.”

It drips from his tongue like a curse. And God help me, the sound of it twists in my chest. I don’t know what cuts deeper—his hatred or the way his jaw clenches just like Giovanni’s when he wanted to make me bleed without laying a hand on me.

“You don’t get to talk about him like that,” I say, my voice low but steady.

Romeo laughs under his breath. “Touchy.”

Dante shifts, just enough for me to see his hand resting on the banister—his father’s ring glinting under the chandelier. Another reminder that everything in this house, even the air, belongs to them. Not me. Never me.

“Don’t start something you can’t finish,” Santino warns, stepping in so close I can see the faint shadow of a cross pendant under his collar. “You don’t belong here. You never did.”

I lean in just enough for him to hear the bite in my voice. “Then maybe you should ask yourself why your father kept bringing me back.”

For a split second, his eyes flicker. Then it’s gone, shuttered behind the priest’s mask again.

Romeo’s lighter clicks shut. “Careful, brother. She bites.”

Dante still doesn’t speak, but his stare follows me as I turn away. I feel it burning between my shoulder blades, a silent promise that this is far from over.

And he’s right.

Because standing in front of Giovanni’s sons now, I realize something dangerous—coming back here wasn’t about ghosts. It was about war.

And the first shots have already been fired.

The Threat Behind the Blessing

The marble floor feels colder under my heels now, the chill rising like it wants to anchor me in place. My pulse is jagged from the exchange with Santino in the foyer, but I force my spine straighter. I won’t let him—or any of them—see me flinch.

“I didn’t come back here to fight with you,” I say, letting my voice carry just enough to reach all three of them. “Giovanni left everything to me—this house, this legacy—for a reason.”

Romeo pushes off the wall, rolling his toothpick from one corner of his mouth to the other. The lighter clicks open and shut again, sparks flashing in rhythm with his smirk. “He also left us with a dead body and no explanation.”

The words hit like a sucker punch—part accusation, part bait. I refuse to bite. My gaze shifts back to Santino.

He steps forward, cassock whispering around his ankles, closing the gap until I can smell the faint trace of incense clinging to him.

Not the kind they burn at weddings, sweet and harmless.

This is the heavy kind—the funeral kind, thick and suffocating, the kind that clings in confessionals and never washes out.

His voice drops low, meant for me alone. “You’ll never be one of us. You were never our mother. You were his whore.”

The word detonates between us. For a moment, the house itself seems to echo it back.

My hand moves before my brain catches up. The crack of my palm against his cheek snaps through the vaulted ceiling like a gunshot. My skin burns with the impact, the sting buzzing up my arm.

But Santino doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t even blink. His stillness makes it worse. The red blooming beneath my handprint is proof enough that I struck him, yet his expression stays carved from stone. His refusal to react turns my defiance into something hollow.

Romeo whistles low under his breath, teeth flashing as he rolls the toothpick again. “Well, shit. She’s got more bite left than I thought.”

Dante doesn’t move from the shadows near the banister. He doesn’t need to. His silence is a blade all its own, sharp and patient. His gaze stays locked on me, as though he’s calculating whether I’m prey or a threat worth bleeding for.

Santino leans in, the heat of his body brushing against me though he doesn’t lift a hand. His breath grazes my ear, deliberate, invasive. “He left me one thing,” he whispers. “A recording. It proves everything.”

My stomach turns cold. A recording. Two words that open up a thousand locked doors in my mind.

My lips part, my voice coming out smaller than I want. “What recording?”

His eyes flicker—not with doubt, but with satisfaction. He’s already won this moment, not by showing me the blade, but by letting me imagine how sharp it is.

Santino lets the question dangle like a noose. Then he turns, cassock sweeping with the weight of finality, as if he’s already pronounced judgment.

Romeo hasn’t stopped smirking, the lighter’s click-click-click a cruel metronome in the silence. Dante’s stare is worse—heavier, deliberate. His eyes track every shift in my posture like he’s cataloging the weaknesses in my armor.

I swallow, the taste of Giovanni’s cologne thick in the air, choking me. My palm still stings, but it’s nothing compared to the ache that blooms low in my chest.

A recording. Something Giovanni left buried, hidden, saved. Something Santino is dangling like a crown of thorns.

If it exists, it could cut me open.

If it doesn’t, he wants me to waste my life bleeding just to find out.

Either way, the game has changed. And Santino knows it.

The Hallway Ghost

I don’t walk away from Santino. I break from him, sharp and fast, before his words can sink their hooks any deeper.

The east wing stretches ahead, cloaked in a silence that isn’t peace—it’s warning. Giovanni always kept this part of the house sealed. He said it was for renovations, or privacy, or a dozen other excuses. But I always knew the truth. Closing doors was his favorite way of burying things.

The moment I cross the threshold, the air changes. Cooler, denser, as though the walls themselves are holding their breath. My heels strike the marble, the echoes too loud, bouncing back like the house is reminding me I don’t belong here anymore.

I keep moving.