Page 26 of Queen (Shattered Pieces #2)

Without hesitation, I press the blade to his bare shoulder and carve slow, deliberate strokes into flesh. The letters form in silence but echo louder than any scream: GIOVANNI.

Matteo chokes on a hiss, jerking against the ropes, but the smirk dies on his lips. Blood trickles in thin lines down his arm, dripping onto stone.

From the shadows, Emiliano watches. He doesn’t move. Doesn’t speak. His silence is heavier than the cellar walls. It tells me everything—this is my stage.

I don’t ask why he betrayed us. I don’t need to. Greed. Weakness. Fear. It’s always the same. Instead, I lean in close, my voice silk and steel.

“How many?”

His breath stutters. “W-what?”

I slam the knife flat against the carved wound. He screams, the sound ricocheting off stone.

“How many touches did it take to lure my son into that van?” My voice slices sharper than the blade. “How many steps did you follow him? How many times did you smile at him, speak to him, make him believe you were safe?”

His body shakes. Defiance fractures. Tears cut channels through the blood on his face. His sobs tumble out in panicked fragments—numbers, apologies, pleas. His voice breaks until there’s nothing left but raw panic.

I step back, my own tears hot, spilling unchecked down my cheeks. The knife trembles in my hand, but my smile is steady. Cold.

“That’s how you save a child,” I whisper, lifting my eyes so he sees the truth in them. “Not with mercy. With fear.”

Matteo collapses forward, broken, words reduced to incoherent sobs.

The knife falls from my hand with a metallic clang that echoes through the cellar like a death knell.

That’s when Emiliano steps from the shadows. His face is unreadable, his eyes darker than the blood dripping to the floor. He stops beside me, his presence a wall at my back.

“You’re not just wearing the crown,” he says finally, voice low, reverent, dangerous. “You forged it.”

My chest heaves, tears streaking my face, the knight still clenched in my other hand. I turn toward him, trembling with grief, fury, and something far more dangerous than either.

“Then kneel,” I whisper.

The silence after is absolute.

The Exchange Site

The name Matteo gasped through bloodied lips lodges in my skull like a blade. A rundown orphanage on the edge of Emiliano’s territory—forgotten by everyone except the kind of men who prey on shadows.

We drive in silence. The black car hums low across cracked streets, headlights slicing through the dying night. The city feels like it’s holding its breath, as if even the air knows something is about to break.

I sit rigid, my hands clenched in my lap, the knight piece digging into my palm—a reminder of both vow and wound. Beside me, Emiliano is carved from stone, his profile all hard edges, unyielding.

Halfway there, his hand shifts. Just the faintest brush—his fingers sliding against mine in the dim space between us. Not a command. Not possession. Just… touch.

For a breath, my chest aches with the temptation to let it anchor me. But I pull away, my voice sharp enough to cut the silence. “You don’t get to comfort me. Not yet.”

He doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t argue. Just nods once, like my rejection is exactly what he expected. His hand returns to the wheel, steady, and the car keeps moving.

We arrive as dawn begins to bleed across the sky. The orphanage squats like a corpse—brick hollowed out, windows broken and black. Rusted gates creak when the guards force them open.

Inside, the air is thick with mildew and dust. Every step echoes too loudly. Cameras blink red from the corners, small eyes recording every move. Emiliano signals his men to spread out, weapons drawn, the weight of war pressing down on all of us.

Then I see him.

Guido.

He’s sitting on the floor of what used to be a common room, his small body dwarfed by peeling wallpaper and collapsed furniture. His clothes are clean. He’s been fed. His hair is combed. No bruises mar his skin.

But he doesn’t move.

He doesn’t run to me. Doesn’t cry. Doesn’t shout my name. He flinches when I take a step forward, like I’m just another shadow come to hurt him.

My knees almost give. My heart splinters into pieces so sharp I can barely breathe. “Guido…” My voice cracks, softer than a whisper.

His eyes flick toward me, wide and wet, but he doesn’t come. His little hands tremble against the edge of something on the floor. A chessboard. The pieces scattered, smeared with streaks of dried blood.

At the center, that fucking pawn again.

I drop to my knees, every instinct screaming to pull him into my arms, to shield him, to promise it’s over. But he recoils.

His voice is so faint I almost miss it. “They made me play…”

The words slice deeper than any blade.

I reach for him, tears burning, but my son—my bright, laughing boy—flinches away.

Behind me, Emiliano curses under his breath. His men shift uneasily, scanning the walls, the cameras, the silent message etched into my child’s fear.

I can’t breathe. Can’t think. All I see are Guido’s trembling lips, the way his small shoulders curl inward—as though he’s already learned the lesson Matteo never had to spell out: mercy is weakness.

And whoever orchestrated this knows it.

The Aftermath: Fire and Fury

Guido doesn’t move when the guards try to lift him. Doesn’t speak when Emiliano gestures for his men to step forward. He’s a statue carved from silence and terror, too fragile to be touched by anyone but me.

So I do it myself.

I crouch down, ignoring the sting in my knees against the dusty floor, and slip my arms beneath him. His body is light—too light, all angles and trembling bones. He doesn’t resist. Doesn’t cling. He just folds into me like something already broken. My chest aches at the weight—or the lack of it.

His head rests against my shoulder, but his eyes remain open, staring at nothing. He doesn’t look at me. Doesn’t look at anyone.

I carry him out into the gray dawn. The air tastes of rust and ruin, but I don’t stop moving until we reach the waiting cars.

Behind me, boots crunch and orders snap—sharp, efficient, a machine grinding forward—but I don’t hear them.

I hear only the silence in my son’s throat.

The silence where his laughter should be.

At the car door, I turn. Emiliano is watching, his gaze unreadable in the half-light. For a moment, it looks like he might speak. Instead, he waits.

“Burn it,” I say. My voice is low but sharp enough to split the morning in half.

His brow lifts. “The building?”

“The memory,” I answer, tightening my hold on Guido. “Let no child remember this place.”

There’s no hesitation. Emiliano lifts his hand, and his men move as one. Containers of accelerant are hauled inside, torches prepared. Flames roar to life, greedy and merciless, climbing the orphanage walls until the skeleton glows orange against the rising sky.

I watch until the roof collapses, until the screams of wood and stone echo like a funeral dirge. My son doesn’t turn his head. He doesn’t blink. He only stares at his hands in his lap. And when I finally see it, my chest caves.

He’s holding my ring.

The same ring Giovanni once forced onto my finger, heavy with his name. The same ring Emiliano kissed with blood still wet on his mouth. Now it rests between Guido’s trembling fingers, his knuckles white, as if he’s holding the last piece of me that hasn’t been stripped away.

I slide into the car beside him. Emiliano takes the front seat, silent, while the others pile in behind. As the flames shrink in the distance, I catch my reflection in the rearview mirror.

The woman staring back isn’t the mother who once read bedtime stories in this child’s nursery. She isn’t the girl who once dreamed of escape. Her eyes are darker now, harder, sharper.

I lean closer to the glass, my voice no louder than a whisper, but enough to carve itself into the marrow of my bones. “I am no longer just his mother,” I breathe, eyes locked on the stranger I’ve become. “I am his sword.”

The vow settles over me like armor.

The car drives on. The fire burns behind us. And the war I promised has only just begun.

The Next Move

The house is silent when we return—too silent. No guards barking orders. No footsteps echoing through marble halls. Just the heavy, oppressive hush of a place holding its breath.

I take Guido straight to the bath. His little body is stiff in my arms, but he doesn’t fight me when I undress him.

His clothes are stiff with dirt and smoke, and when the fabric peels away, the bruises stand out like stains.

None fresh enough to kill. None deep enough to cripple.

Whoever did this wanted him alive. Wanted him intact.

It makes me sick.

The tub fills with warm water, steam curling up like ghosts. I lower him in slowly, my hands supporting him until his knees bend, until he settles into the heat. His eyes stay wide, unblinking, but the water ripples around him, carrying flecks of ash and dried blood away.

I take a cloth and run it over his hair, over the sticky patches matted at his temple. My throat burns with every pass—every reminder that someone else’s hands touched him, even if they didn’t leave a mark.

Emiliano lingers in the doorway, a dark figure against the hall light. He doesn’t move. Doesn’t speak. Just watches.

I ignore him. All my focus is on Guido. My boy. My baby.

“Shhh,” I whisper, smoothing his hair back. “You’re safe now. Mama’s here.”

For a long time, there’s nothing. Just the sound of water dripping, my heartbeat pounding in my ears, and the suffocating silence that’s followed us since the orphanage.

Then, as I lean down and press a kiss to his forehead, I hear it.

One word. Small. Fragile. Barely there.

“Knight.”

My breath stops. My hands freeze.

“What did you say?” My voice cracks, sharper than I mean it to be.

Guido blinks, slow, and lifts his hand. His tiny finger points—not to me, not to Emiliano—but to the chess piece resting on the rim of the tub. A knight. The same one I carried from his nursery, now worn smooth in my palm.

The room tilts. My stomach drops.

They made him play. They fed him pieces of the game, even there, even in the shadows. And now he’s carrying it back with him, like a brand burned into his mind.

I clutch the knight, the wood digging deep into my skin, and force my breath steady.

This isn’t over.

This was never meant to end with Matteo. He was just a pawn. And if Guido whispers “knight,” then someone else is still moving the pieces. Someone clever. Patient. Someone who still believes in the board Giovanni built.

I rise slowly, turning toward Emiliano. He hasn’t moved, but his eyes burn with the same realization clawing through my chest.

“Find me every man,” I say, my voice steady, cold, carved from steel. “Every man who ever called Giovanni ‘King.’”

Emiliano straightens in the doorway, the shadow of a smile touching his mouth—not amusement, but something darker. Approval. Respect.

“The true enemy,” I whisper, gaze locked on the knight clenched in my fist, “isn’t dead yet.”

The silence stretches, heavy and unyielding. Guido leans against the porcelain, too small, too quiet, his word still echoing in the air like a curse.

Knight.

The board is set. The game has only just begun.