Page 39 of Queen (Shattered Pieces #2)

emiliano

Watching Her Leave: The Silence of Power

F rom the top floor of the villa, I stand behind the glass, a ghost among velvet drapes.

The courtyard below is a stage, and she—my Queen, my ruin—walks across it with Guido’s small hand clutched in hers.

The boy clings to her, eyes wide, but she doesn’t falter.

Her spine is steel, her chin sharp, her shadow longer than mine.

She doesn’t look back. Not once.

The guards whisper, thinking it’s over. They think I broke her, that Zina leaves in disgrace—just another woman chewed up and spat out by the empire. Their murmurs scrape at my skull like knives. Idiots. They can’t see what I see.

She isn’t broken. She’s burning in silence. I see it in the tension of her shoulders, the exact control of her stride, the way her grip on Guido tightens every time his little feet stumble against the cobblestones. That isn’t defeat—it’s fury dressed in poise.

And still, every step away from me tears another strip from my chest.

Guido falters on a loose stone. Zina pulls him close, shields him, murmurs something I can’t hear. That maternal fire—fuck, it’s the very reason I let them walk out. His blood will not be the price of my war. Neither will hers.

But letting them go feels like sawing off my own arm and calling it strategy.

I lean my forehead against the cool glass, eyes locked on her silhouette until the gates swing open. She passes through, the headlights of the waiting car swallowing her into the night. The courtyard falls still. Too still.

Inside me, something shatters.

My reflection stares back—hollow eyes, jaw locked, hands clenched white at my sides. A king in black velvet and gold cufflinks, but the throne feels empty without her. What’s a crown worth without a Queen to sharpen it against?

“I let her go to save her,” I whisper, voice hoarse, cracked down the middle. My men would call it weakness. Maybe it is. But in this life, weakness and love are the same thing.

The rage coils up to fill the hollow space. God help the man who thinks she belongs to the world now. She belongs to me. Always has. Always will.

I watch until the last flicker of headlights disappears beyond the gates. Until silence presses into this house like a tomb. The walls feel stripped bare, the air thick as smoke.

They think tonight was her exile. They’re wrong. Tonight was a vow. If she returns, it won’t be because I chained her here. It’ll be because her fire matches mine, because she burns for me as much as I burn for her.

And if she doesn’t? Then the world itself will be ash.

I turn from the window, fists trembling, pulse hammering at my throat. For the first time in years, I wonder if the one thing I cannot conquer is the woman who carries my soul in her silence.

The Throne Without a Queen

The war room feels like a mausoleum tonight.

Heavy iron chandeliers drip wax over the long oak table, crimson candles bleeding slow as if the walls themselves are mourning.

Maps sprawl across the surface. Pistols and knives glint under firelight.

Men fill every seat—capos, lieutenants, soldiers with blood still drying on their boots.

Their voices grind together, a low chorus of vengeance, fire-for-blood.

Noise. Just noise. Empty. Hollow. Because she’s gone.

I sit at the head of the table, leather groaning under my weight. A king with his council, yes—but a king without his Queen is just a man haunted by ghosts. Every word they spit sounds like cowardice. None of them understands what’s already been lost. What I’ve already let walk out those gates.

Romeo leans forward, sharper than the rest, younger but not blind. His voice cuts clean. “She didn’t leave you,” he says flatly. “She left for him.”

The room freezes like he pulled a trigger.

My gaze snaps to him. “There’s no difference.” But the truth gnaws. He means Guido. We all know it. She didn’t walk away from me—she walked away for blood. For our boy. Still, her absence is a blade under my ribs, twisting every time I breathe.

“Boss,” one consigliere starts, oily and cautious, “if she’s gone, maybe we should—”

“Shut the fuck up.” My voice detonates. Flames jump in the candles. Half the men recoil like whipped dogs.

I rise, the scrape of the chair against stone loud as a shot. My fists clench so tight the scar on my palm splits open, bleeding fresh down my wrist.

“She’s not gone,” I growl. “She’s mine. Every breath she takes, every step she makes, belongs to me—even if she doesn’t fucking see it yet.”

The men shift uneasily. They fear me—but more than that, they fear what obsession does to a man like me.

I slam my hand down on the table, blood streaking across the map of territories. “Full surveillance on Zina. On the boy. I want eyes at the coast. No one goes near her—not rival, not ally, not family. Not even you, Romeo.”

Romeo stiffens. His mouth twitches like he wants to argue, but he swallows it. Not here. Not with every capo watching.

I lean forward, glare scorching the entire table. “If anyone disobeys that order, I’ll cut their tongue out and nail it right here.” My bloody hand spreads over the map. “Do I make myself clear?”

A ragged chorus of “Yes, boss” shakes the air. Enough to satisfy me. For now.

I sink back into my chair, chest heaving. Silence stretches like a noose. My men return to their notes, their mutters, their hollow strategies.

But I don’t hear them. All I hear is her silence. All I see is her back as she walked away. And all I know is this—whatever war is coming, it’s mine to command.

But the only battlefield that matters is the one between her heart and mine. And I’ll burn every city to ash before I lose it.

Memory Is a Weapon

The study is dark except for the faint glow of the desk lamp, its weak light bleeding across the shelves of ledgers and books that haven’t been touched in years.

This room has always been where I plot wars, shift territories, play God with lives and empires.

But tonight, it feels like a tomb. My tomb.

I pull the drawer open. Slow. Deliberate. As if rushing will shatter what little control I’ve got left.

Velvet lines the inside, black and smooth, cradling the pieces I’ve stolen of her. Not jewelry. Not coins or crowns. No—Zina isn’t measured in wealth. She’s measured in scars, in fire, in the ruins she leaves behind. And I’ve hoarded those ruins like relics.

The veil. Torn, frayed at the edges, a remnant of Giovanni’s wedding.

She wore it like armor that day, trying to cover the truth—her chains, her silence, her fear.

I wasn’t supposed to have it, but I slipped it from a pew when no one was looking, the faint trace of her perfume still clinging to the lace.

Even now, years later, I can smell her in memory. A ghost.

The lipstick. Crimson, worn down to the nub.

She used to paint her mouth with this when she wanted to wound me without a word.

A slash of red sharper than any knife, a promise of defiance every time she smirked.

I used to imagine kissing it away until nothing but her bare mouth remained, mine alone.

And the note. Creased from being opened too many times, the ink nearly faded. Only two words in her hand: Protect him. Not I love you. Not Don’t let go. Not even goodbye. Just a command. A plea sharpened to steel.

I pour a glass of scotch, the amber liquid burning in the low light. I don’t drink. Not yet. I just stare at it, waiting for her reflection to appear in the glass like some fucked-up miracle. It doesn’t.

The villa feels emptier without her, stripped of air, of warmth. Even the men look at me differently now. They whisper that she weakened me, that exile broke my grip. They’re wrong. She’s the only reason I’m still breathing. Without her, I’m just ash waiting for wind.

I lift the veil, press it to my face. The scent is long gone, but memory fills in what time erased. Her laugh echoing in that chapel. The fury in her glare when she caught me watching. The vow in her eyes that day: I’ll never kneel for you.

My laugh shreds the silence, jagged and hollow. Because she did kneel. In fire. In ruin. And still—she won.

I slam the scotch back, throat searing. My reflection in the window stares back at me: hollow-eyed, jaw tight, a king who looks more ghost than man.

The note crumples in my fist, blood smearing the words as the scar on my palm splits open again. My voice rips out, low and hoarse, a curse and a vow tangled together.

“You’ll come back. You always come back.”

But even as I say it, the lie tastes like ash. Because memory is a weapon, and tonight it’s cutting me to pieces.

Desperate Obsession

The bedroom reeks of her. Roses. Smoke. Skin. The scent clings to the plaster, soaked into the mattress, carved into the wood like an echo of the war we waged here. I stand in the doorway too long, staring like a lunatic, waiting for her shadow to stretch across the floor. It doesn’t. She’s gone.

But the room lies to me. It whispers otherwise.

I close the door and lock it. The slide of the bolt is final—a coffin lid slamming shut.

My guards mutter down the hall, pretending they know loyalty, pretending they’ve ever felt what it means to bleed for someone.

They don’t. Loyalty isn’t standing outside with a gun.

Loyalty is this sickness choking me now, the weight in my chest that splits me open because she’s not here to breathe me back together.

The bed is unmade, a crime scene left behind.

The sheets are tangled silk, knotted with sweat, still dented where her body lay.

My muscles ache with memory. I rip my shirt over my head and throw it aside, stumbling forward until I collapse into the hollow she left.

The silk is cool against my burning skin.

I bury my face in her pillow, inhaling like a drowning man clawing for air.

She’s here. She’s gone. She’s everywhere.