Page 37 of Queen (Shattered Pieces #2)

zina

Threat Delivered: A Message in Blood

T he scream isn’t human. It’s the kind of sound a man makes when he’s already seen Hell open its jaw. I bolt upright, heart slamming against my ribs, and sprint before my brain catches up.

The marble cuts into my bare feet, sharp and cold, but I don’t feel it. My only thought is Guido. My baby. My blood.

The south wing is chaos. Radios crackle, voices shouting over each other, boots pounding like gunfire across the stone.

The stench of smoke clings thick in the air.

I round the corner and slam into Romeo, his shirt plastered to him with sweat, eyes wide.

His hand clamps down on my arm, grip bruising.

“Don’t—” His voice cracks. “Zina, don’t go in there.”

I wrench free, nails carving his skin. “Touch me again and I’ll gut you.”

I shove past him.

The world stops.

The air is poison—charred wiring, acrid smoke, the metallic tang of detonated charges that didn’t finish their job.

My eyes snap to the bed. Guido’s bed. Sheets torn back, hanging in limp folds, and beneath the frame—wired with brutal precision—is a bomb.

Clay bricks packed tight, shrapnel wedged like teeth.

The timer ticks dead, casing scorched black.

Someone disarmed it minutes ago. Maybe seconds.

If it had gone off, there wouldn’t have been enough left of my boy to bury.

Guido is curled in the corner, clutching the guard who threw himself on the device. His face is white, lips parted in soundless screams, eyes too wide, too wet. He tries to call for me, but terror has stolen his voice.

I stumble forward, my vision narrowing. And then I see the walls.

It isn’t ink. It isn’t paint. It’s blood.

Thick strokes smeared with bare hands, dripping in jagged lines down the plaster. The letters scrawl across every surface, manic, violent.

“THERE ARE NO QUEENS IN THE AFTERLIFE.”

The words bleed in rivulets. Some still glisten. Whoever did this wasn’t gone long.

One of the soldiers mutters, trembling. “Madonna, protect us—”

“Shut the fuck up.” My voice is a snarl, raw and feral. Holy words have no place here.

I drop to my knees, drag Guido into my arms. His tiny fists claw at my nightdress, tearing the silk, leaving damp streaks of spit and tears. He shakes so hard I can feel his ribs rattle. His breath stutters, shallow, frantic, a rabbit caught in a snare.

I press his face to my throat, rocking even as my own body quakes. “You’re safe. Mama’s here. I’ve got you.” My whisper fractures, glass-thin. “No one’s fucking touching you.”

But my eyes lock on the walls. On the dripping prophecy written in blood.

This isn’t revenge. This isn’t even war. It’s obliteration. A declaration that my crown painted the target. My pride sharpened the knife. They don’t just want my throne. They want my child erased.

A mother is supposed to fear death. But tonight, with Guido’s tears soaking my skin, I swear on my blood, on my bones—death will fear me first.

Council of War: Divide in the Ranks

The dining hall reeks of cigar smoke and sweat. The long oak table, once polished to a mirror shine, looks like an altar tonight—stained with shadows instead of wine.

The capos sprawl across its length, coats slung over chairs, pistols bulging beneath tailored suits. Some avoid my eyes. Others stare too long, like I’m already a ghost they’re rehearsing how to bury.

Emiliano stands at the head of the table, one hand braced on the wood, the other gripping a glass of untouched scotch.

His jaw ticks, but his voice is steady. “They went after my son.” His eyes flick toward me, and I see the correction burning there.

Our son. But he doesn’t say it aloud. Not here.

Not in front of men who would call it weakness.

“They planted the bomb under his bed,” Romeo growls. His fists clench, his body trembling like a coiled spring. “That’s not war. That’s extermination. We answer in kind. We burn the De Lucas to fucking ash.”

Half the table slams fists, muttering vengeance, their hunger for fire vibrating the air. The sound crawls under my skin. Guido’s tiny body trembling in my arms flashes in my mind—his fists clawing my dress, his breath catching like broken glass—and bile claws its way up my throat.

One of the older consiglieri leans forward, rings glinting beneath the chandelier. His voice slithers, oily and smug. “Or we turn it. Let word spread the boy survived—that he is untouchable, protected by fate itself. We use it as propaganda. The Queen’s heir, blessed by survival.”

The slap in my hand trembles before I stop it. Instead, my voice cuts sharper than steel. “You slimy bastard. My son is not your fucking banner. He’s a child. A child who almost died because of this crown you all pretend to worship.”

The room freezes. For once, they look at me not as ornament, not as pawn—but as something feral. Something that could cut them too.

Emiliano doesn’t speak. He watches me, letting me bleed my rage across the table.

“You talk about vengeance like it’s currency,” I hiss.

“Every one of you measures blood like you’re trading stocks.

But I’m the one paying. Me. In the sound of my boy’s voice stolen by terror.

In the weight of his ribs shaking against my chest because you bastards couldn’t keep wolves from crawling into our house. ”

The table shifts uneasily. Some look down. Others lean forward, testing me.

Santino’s chair sits empty. I feel his absence like a knife at my spine.

Romeo’s voice slices through, low, aimed at Emiliano. “Brother, if we don’t answer this, they’ll think we’re weak. Next time, no one will reach the bomb in time.”

Emiliano’s gaze flicks between him and me. I see it—the fire in his eyes, the war he’s craving. But I slam my palm down, the crack echoing like a shot.

“No.” The word whips the air. “You burn the wrong house, and you only prove the traitor already owns the board. We find the snake inside before we torch the neighbors.”

The silence after is suffocating. The capos breathe like men standing at a cliff’s edge.

Then Emiliano nods. Slow. Certain. “She’s right.”

A flicker of surprise cuts across Romeo’s face. Ripples of discontent travel down the line of soldiers. But Emiliano doesn’t waver.

And I—with Guido’s trembling body still burned into my arms—know this truth: I may have bought us one night. But the war is already inside the walls.

The Ultimatum: Exile or War

The message comes at midnight. Not a knock. Not a call. An encrypted ping on a device Emiliano keeps locked in a steel drawer in his study—a line only enemies would dare use.

The green glow washes his face as he decrypts it. His jaw hardens, his breath sharpening into a blade. He doesn’t speak. Just shoves the device toward me like it’s a weapon.

The words burn into me:

The boy lives because you still wear the crown. Step down, and he walks free. Stay, and his blood will baptize your throne.

My throat goes dry. My fingers clutch the edge of the desk until wood splinters under my nails. For one heartbeat, all I hear is Guido’s laugh—high, bright—before the echo dies, smothered by the threat repeating in my skull.

Emiliano’s voice shatters the silence. “The De Lucas. Coward motherfuckers.” His fist drives into the wall, plaster splitting. “They want to play god with my family? I’ll butcher every last one of them. Hang their sons in the streets. Ship their daughters home in coffins.”

He means it. Every word is soaked in blood.

But rage can’t be the answer. Not this time. Not when Guido’s life is the coin they’re gambling.

“No,” I whisper, my chest burning with the word. “That’s what they want. For you to storm into their trap. For Guido to be the collateral.”

He spins on me, eyes blazing. “And what the fuck do you suggest, Zina? That we sit and wait while they paint targets on his chest?”

Our boy. The words choke me. His boy. My boy. Ours.

I step closer, forcing my voice steady. “We give them what they want.”

The air freezes. His stare burns into me, incredulous. “What?”

“We fake it,” I say, each syllable carved from iron. “A separation. An exile. Let the world believe you cast me out. That the Queen ran with her bastard son and left your throne cold.” My chest heaves, but I don’t break. “It takes Guido off the board. It buys us time.”

Emiliano laughs once, dark and jagged. “You want me to gut you in public? To make you weak?”

I lift my chin. “Better the world thinks I’m weak than burying my son in pieces.”

His face twists—rage warring with something far uglier. Fear. The one thing Emiliano doesn’t know how to fight.

I press my hand to his chest, over the hammer of his heart. “Let them think you shattered me. That I fled. But keep him safe, Emiliano. That’s all that matters.”

For a long moment, he doesn’t breathe. His hand clamps the back of my neck, rough enough to bruise. His forehead presses to mine. His voice comes low, guttural. “You’re asking me to burn my empire for him.”

My whisper cuts back, sharp as glass. “No. I’m asking you to burn me.”

The screen still glows, the ultimatum bleeding red across it.

And I know—power never comes free. Tonight, the price is me.

Breaking the Kingdom

The morning air is sharp enough to cut flesh.

Clouds hang low over the estate, heavy and black, as though even the sky knows blood is about to be spilled.

Guards line the iron gates, rifles glinting in the gray light.

Servants pretend to work, but their eyes betray them—wide, waiting, drinking in the spectacle they know is coming.

Word spreads fast: Emiliano summoned the kingdom, and today, a Queen will fall.

I walk at his side, but Guido’s absence twists like a blade between my ribs.

He’s safe. Hidden. But to play this part, I must look like a mother stripped of her child, a woman cut from her throne.

Power is performance, Emiliano told me once.

Today, I let the world believe he ripped the crown from my head.