Page 3 of Queen (Shattered Pieces #2)

emiliano

The Call

T he burner phone vibrates on my desk—once, then again. Blocked number. But I know exactly who it is.

I let the first ring echo through the marble chamber, sharp as a gunshot in the stillness.

The second follows, each chime cutting deeper into the quiet.

The fireplace crackles behind me, flames snapping like they know the secret I’m about to claim.

Shadows stretch across the walls—my walls—like sentinels keeping watch.

The bourbon sits untouched at my elbow, condensation gathering, amber light catching on the rim. Beside it: a folder of surveillance photos. Her face in every frame. Head high. Eyes on fire. A queen even in exile.

The third ring. I press “accept” and lift the phone slowly, deliberately, to my ear. I don’t speak. I don’t have to. Silence is its own kind of blade.

Her breath filters through the line. Not steady. Controlled, but with tremors she’d rather bleed out than show. I picture her lips parted slightly, the hand around the phone trembling just enough that she’d clench her jaw to still it. She always cloaks her fear in fire.

And then she says it.

“I’ll do it.”

Not a question. Not a plea. Not even a bargain. A vow.

Surrender.

My eyes shut. I tilt my head toward the fire, breathing in the smoke and oak, the scent of leather that clings to this room like a second skin. The taste of victory settles heavy on my tongue.

She said it. She’s mine.

The edge of a smile threatens, but I don’t let it rise. Not yet. Power isn’t taken with grins—it’s held in restraint. I let the weight of her words stretch between us until the silence is unbearable. Then I break it, low, clipped.

“You’re sure?”

Her voice doesn’t shake. “Yes.”

God. That sound. I’ve memorized it for twenty years. I’ve heard it curse me. Heard it scream his name, not mine. Heard it break like glass.

Now? It bends.

And nothing is more beautiful.

“I’ll send the driver at noon. Same place.”

That’s all. No promises. No comfort. No lie of love. And then I end the call.

The silence that follows isn’t peace—it’s hunger. I reach for the bourbon, take a slow sip. The heat burns my throat, coils in my chest like a flare.

This is what I’ve been waiting for. Years of watching her walk beside him, her fire dampened. Years of swallowing the need to rip her out of his hands. Years of blood, silence, and strategy.

She always belonged to me. Giovanni just borrowed her.

I plant a hand flat on the mahogany, grounding myself before I lose control. I don’t trust this victory yet. Too clean. Too simple. But the difference now—

She called me.

Not for love. Not for safety. For survival. The most honest kind of surrender.

I flip the folder open. The photo on top: Sicily. She’s laughing, hair in the wind, his ring on her finger. A perfect lie.

My jaw clenches. My eyes burn. Fucking waste.

I trace the edge of her face with a fingertip.

You’ll wear mine soon. And this time, there will be no walking away.

Reading the Letters – Her Hidden Heart

The drawer clicks open with a sound too sharp for a room this quiet. Reverent, almost ritual.

Inside—bundled in twine, edges yellowed, fragile as dried petals—are her words.

Words she never meant me to see. But I saw them anyway. And I kept them.

The first letter is worn soft where my thumb has rubbed it over the years, stained in places from sweat. I unfold it carefully, like a priest handling relics. The paper exhales with a sigh, like it remembers.

“Sometimes I think I made the wrong choice.” “Sometimes… when you look at me, I forget who I’m supposed to love.” “You scare me. Not because you’d hurt me. But because I know I’d let you.”

I read them aloud. Each word low, deliberate. A prayer said into flames.

She never signed these. Never addressed them. She wrote in the margins of sketchbooks, on hotel stationery, the backs of receipts when Giovanni wasn’t watching. She thought they were safe. Hidden.

But nothing escapes me.

She thought she loved him. But love doesn’t sound like this. This is doubt. This is ache. This is obsession, pressed into scraps of paper and hidden like contraband.

I set it aside and pick up the next.

“You don’t look at me like he does.” “You don’t see a wife. You see a weapon.” “Part of me wants that.”

The paper creases as my grip tightens.

She wanted me. Even then. Even when she wore his ring, bore his son, carried his name like shackles. She wanted me.

And Giovanni knew it. That’s why he kept her locked down. That’s why he kept her under his thumb. Because the only man who ever saw her clearly—was standing in the dark.

Me.

I smooth the pages, press them flat, as though I can erase the years she wasted. As though I can undo time.

I’ll give her what he never could. My name. My empire. My bed.

And she’ll take it. Because she already has.

My voice drops to a whisper, my eyes on the looping curve of her handwriting.

“You belong to me,” I murmur. “Even your secrets.”

The fire flickers higher, like it understands.

I gather the bundle, press it once to my chest, then tuck it back into the drawer. Locked away. Waiting.

One day she’ll read them again. One day she’ll remember.

And by then? It’ll be too fucking late.

Terms of Ownership: The Marriage Deal

The fire has burned down to dying embers—just a red whisper of heat, no flame left to distract me. It suits me. I don’t need light. I don’t need warmth. Only the slow, steady reminder that something once burned, and now only I control whether it dies or flares alive again.

I pull open the drawer once more. Her letter lies inside—creased, taped, worn from my hands. I’ve smoothed those edges more times than I can count. Touched them until the paper felt like skin. Reverent. Obsessive. A relic in a world that doesn’t believe in saints anymore.

I slide it out, press it flat on the desk beside my laptop, let my fingertips linger on the ink. Zina. The name itself is a blade, carved into me.

This is how you start a war and call it love.

I open the encrypted channel. No greetings. No flowers of language. Just the truth, clean and brutal. The only kind that matters.

Marriage. Full surrender. No secrets. No escape.

The words glow against the screen, cold and merciless. I let them sit, taste the power in them, then press send.

My jaw flexes. I reach for the bourbon again, the ice melted down to a shard. I tip it back. Let the burn cut a line straight through my chest.

She won’t argue. Not this time.

Zina’s too smart. She knows the fucking stakes. Without me, she’s a dead woman dressed in silk, bleeding slow while Giovanni’s sons sharpen their knives. They’ll carve her crown off her head and dance in the mess.

With me… she gets to rule. Not clean. Not free. But royally.

And she knows it.

I lean into the desk, elbows braced, fingers steepled like I’m already at the altar.

I don’t see the dying fire anymore. I see her.

The mouth that can spit venom or beg with the same lips.

Those eyes that cut through marble but hide the trembling underneath.

The walk, all elegance, but built on rage and survival.

I remember the first time—Palermo. She was seventeen. Giovanni’s shadow, too silent, too polished. I couldn’t look away. She felt me staring, every fucking time, and still she played the good little wife-to-be. Pretended not to notice how my gaze stripped her down to truth.

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.