Page 35 of Queen (Shattered Pieces #2)

emiliano

Opening Ritual: Power on Display

T he dining hall hasn’t seen light in years. Not since Giovanni. Not since the last time we gathered to bless blood and bury a traitor. Tonight, I drag the famiglia back into its bones.

Velvet drapes hang heavy as coffins. Iron chandeliers drip with wax like the walls themselves are bleeding.

Crimson candles burn low, smoke crawling toward vaulted ceilings that remember too much.

The table stretches the length of a battlefield, polished wood reflecting fire like it’s soaked in wine—or blood.

They come because I summoned them. Not asked. Summoned.

The Rivas sons. My lieutenants. Old men with broken backs but sharper eyes than knives.

New blood eager to carve their names into legend.

Every capo worth a bullet is here. They sit stiff, hushed, like they’re waiting for a verdict instead of a meal.

Forks untouched. Wine untouched. Every glance tilts toward the head of the table. Toward me.

And toward her.

Zina sits at my side, black silk cut sharp against her body. At her throat, a blood-red stone flashes like a wound turned into armor. She doesn’t bow. Doesn’t flinch. The men notice. Good. Let them choke on it. She’s not here as ornament. She’s here as Queen.

I rise. The scrape of my chair on stone echoes like thunder. The silence deepens, suffocating.

My hand closes around the ceremonial dagger resting on velvet. Forged before I was born, its hilt carved with the Rivas crest, its blade scarred by generations of vows. I raise it high, steel catching firelight.

“Every empire has its altar,” I say, my voice cutting across the table like a bullet. “Every throne is held by blood.”

Some men shift. Some nod. A few glance toward Santino—waiting to see if the son of the dead king will rise, spit, or bow. I ignore them. My gaze stays on her.

I drag the blade across my palm, slow and deliberate. Blood wells red and thick, dripping onto the table, soaking into wood like it belongs there.

“I loved her in shadows,” I declare, voice rough, unflinching. “Now I vow to bleed with her in the light.”

Gasps ripple. Someone mutters a curse. Another crosses himself. I don’t stop.

“This isn’t theater. Tonight, we bind what Giovanni built to what I will build. We make fire out of ashes.”

Zina doesn’t hesitate. She extends her hand, steady, palm open, waiting for the blade. No fear. No trembling. She looks at me like I’m not just king—but the executioner she chose.

I slice her skin, and our blood mingles across the table’s grain, dark and holy. The room holds its breath.

Then I speak the vow every man here knows, twisted into something new:

“With this blood, I bind not only myself—but every man at this table—to her.”

The silence is absolute. The candles snap. The air tastes of iron.

Zina’s blood runs with mine. The Queen has been crowned.

Public Defiance: Santino’s Rebellion

The knife gleams under chandelier light, its edge catching the flicker of a hundred candles. The silence in the hall is thick enough to choke on. Every soldier, every consigliere, every one of Giovanni’s sons—every set of eyes is on me as I lift the blade and offer my palm to Zina.

She doesn’t flinch. Of course she doesn’t. My Queen was carved from fire.

And then—like a gunshot in a cathedral—Santino moves. His chair scrapes back with a violent screech across marble, the sound slicing the hush in two. He stands, squared shoulders, chest heaving like a man seconds from drawing steel.

“I won’t fucking watch this.” His voice is venom, low but sharp enough to cut. “This—” his arm lashes toward me, toward her, toward the blade poised to carve legacy into flesh—“this is a mockery of our father’s empire.”

The room stiffens, air turning brittle. Men glance between us, half ready to stand, half ready to kneel. Even the candle flames seem to wait.

I keep my gaze locked on him, steady as stone. “Sit the fuck down.”

“No.” His voice cracks but doesn’t waver.

His jaw clenches, his eyes burning with the fury of betrayal.

“You’ve twisted his death, Emiliano. Twisted her.

” His finger jabs at Zina like she’s the sin written across our table.

“You’re using her as a fucking pawn. Giovanni’s corpse isn’t even cold in the ground—”

My laugh is sharp, humorless. “Giovanni’s been dead long enough to rot. And I don’t need his corpse’s permission to lead.”

I lower the blade, slow and deliberate, to my palm. Without breaking eye contact, I slice deep. Blood beads, rich and red. The room gasps.

Zina extends her hand. Steady. Regal. I take it. Together we press down. The blade bites, our blood mingling, dripping onto the tablecloth like wine spilled at sacrament.

Gasps echo louder, awe and fear tangling.

I raise our joined hands, our blood binding us in fire. “You think this breaks your father’s legacy?” I roar, voice booming across the chamber. “No. This—” I thrust our blood forward for every coward to see—“this is how we carve something stronger from the ashes.”

Zina tilts her chin, crimson running between our fingers like molten flame. She doesn’t need to speak. The room feels her crown settle on every man’s shoulders like a weight they can’t ignore.

Santino’s face twists—rage, grief, something more fragile than either. His throat bobs. He looks at me like he’s staring into a mirror that shows him his own future—a monster made of legacy.

Then he spits on the marble. A filthy rejection.

“You’re not building something stronger,” he growls. “You’re burning what’s left.”

He turns, boots striking like war drums as he storms out. The doors slam, rattling the chandeliers.

I don’t blink. I don’t falter. I squeeze Zina’s blood-slick hand, raise my chin, and let my voice roll across the table like judgment.

“Let him walk. But remember this night. Remember who bled. Because when the storm comes—and it will —there will be no mercy for those who stand against us.”

The silence afterward is absolute. Only the drip of blood on the wood marks the vow.

The Pact: A Marriage Beyond Flesh

The silence after Santino’s storming exit tastes like iron. Heavy. Metallic. The kind that hangs after a gunshot, when smoke still coils through the air but the body hasn’t hit the floor yet. Every head in this hall swivels back to me, waiting to see if I’ll falter.

I don’t.

My hand is still cut, palm slick with blood, warm and real. I lift it higher, gripping Zina’s tighter, holding it where every soldier, every cousin, every crooked priest can see. Our blood mingles, a dark red ribbon dripping down both our wrists, splattering against the velvet tablecloth.

“You came here to measure a man,” I say, my voice carrying to the furthest shadows of the hall. “But you’ll leave knowing a kingdom has already been claimed. Not just by me.”

I turn to her. Zina stands tall, black silk sheathing her like a blade, chin tilted high like she’s daring anyone to challenge her right to breathe. My Queen. My ruin. My salvation.

“This woman is not an ornament. Not a trophy. Not the echo of Giovanni’s shadow,” I snarl. “She is the hand that steadied my blade. The voice that cut through betrayal. The mother who carried fire through blood and bone.”

Murmurs ripple, sharp and uneasy. Some men bristle, shifting in their seats. Others lower their eyes, unwilling to meet her gaze. They’ve seen her. They’ve watched her claim ground not with speeches but with scars.

Then Romeo rises. For once, he doesn’t hesitate, doesn’t linger in his brother’s shadow. He steps to the head of the table, boots striking like a drumbeat. His gaze flicks to Zina, sharp, reluctant—and then, in a move that freezes every breath in the room, he bows. Deep.

“To the Queen,” he says. His voice doesn’t falter. It echoes.

Gasps ripple. A capo crosses himself. One of the older lieutenants mutters a prayer under his breath.

Zina doesn’t move, but I see it—the flicker in her eyes, pride twisted with something heavier. Because for every bow, she knows there are knives waiting.

I raise our joined hands higher, crimson dripping onto Giovanni’s old oak floors. “She carries not just the name,” I growl, “but the fire that forged it. If you kneel to me, you kneel to her. If you betray her, you betray me.”

The weight of it presses into every man. Chairs scrape. Some stand. Some bow their heads. Others stay seated, rigid, defiance tightening their jaws. The room bends, not all of it, but enough to shift the current.

Zina turns her head, her gaze meeting mine across the blood binding us. For all her fire, her eyes shine with something dangerously close to vulnerability. I squeeze her hand harder, blood running into hers, binding us in front of every witness.

Then I speak the words that cannot be unsaid: “This pact is beyond flesh. Beyond marriage. Beyond crowns. This is legacy.”

The vow hangs like smoke, choking the hall. Some kneel. Some curse. And deep down, I know—this vow crowned us both, but it also split the empire clean in two.

Private Fallout: Fractured Brotherhood

The doors slam shut behind us, and the mask I wore in that hall cracks down the middle. My veins are still singing with fire, but here, in the silence of my private quarters, it feels less like triumph and more like chains. The ritual chamber was for spectacle. This room is for rage.

I rip the crystal decanter from the sideboard and hurl it before I even think.

It explodes against the far wall, shards raining down like shrapnel, amber liquor streaking the wallpaper in jagged lines that look too much like blood.

The sound is sharp, violent, satisfying—for half a second.

Then it leaves only the echo of my fury.

“Fucking Santino.” My voice is a snarl, guttural, almost inhuman. “Walking out like a goddamn child while the family watched. As if he had the right to turn his back on me—on us.”