Page 44 of Queen (Shattered Pieces #2)

Gunfire erupts from the upper floors. Windows shatter, glass raining down like daggers. My soldiers scatter, some diving for cover, others firing blindly into the blaze. A bullet whines past my ear, another tears into the column at my side, spraying marble shards across my cheek.

I shove Zina and Guido behind the fallen body of the guard I gutted minutes ago. My pulse pounds so loud it drowns the storm. Her eyes meet mine—fierce, unbroken, burning even through fear. She mouths one word: Go.

I rise into the gunfire.

Every step is fury. My boots skid in blood, sparks spit from ricochets at my heels, but I climb the staircase carved into the courtyard wall, climbing toward him like a man clawing up from Hell. My lungs sear, my vision tunnels, and still—still—I climb.

Santino doesn’t flinch. He leans against the balustrade like he’s watching a fucking opera, eyes gleaming with contempt. “You never learned, Emiliano. You can’t crown yourself with ruin. It consumes you. Just like it consumed her.” His finger flicks toward Zina, crouched in the shadows below.

My vision goes red.

I reach the landing, shoving aside one of his soldiers with a blade across his throat, the man’s body collapsing in silence. My brother and I stand a breath apart now, the balcony trembling beneath our weight, the fire snapping at our heels.

“You want my throne?” My voice is raw, shredded by smoke and rage. “You’ll take it over my corpse.”

His grin widens. “That was always the plan.”

He lunges.

Our bodies collide in a storm of fists and steel, the balcony erupting into a personal battlefield.

He swings wild, his blade flashing, grazing my ribs.

I slam my fist into his jaw, feel bone crack under my knuckles.

He spits blood, laughs through it, and drives his knee into my gut.

Pain explodes up my spine, but I hold the dagger firm, slashing across his forearm, painting the stone red.

The courtyard below roars—soldiers, allies, enemies, all watching. But to me, there’s only him. Santino. My blood. My betrayal. The heir who thinks the crown is his by birthright.

I slam him back against the balustrade, the fire framing his face, sweat and blood mixing down his cheek. His laughter falters then, just a flicker, and I bare my teeth.

“This kingdom doesn’t belong to you,” I snarl, my dagger pressing against his throat. “It belongs to the fire. And she and I already rule it.”

The blade digs deeper. The world tilts. And the war between brothers explodes into its reckoning.

The Fall / Betrayal Revealed

The balcony shudders under the storm of bullets. Sparks spit off stone, fire licking higher with every detonation below. Santino’s laughter cuts through it all—high, unhinged, a sound that curdles blood faster than any gunshot.

I slam him against the iron railing, my blade pressed under his jaw. His pulse thrums against the steel, wild and hot. “You think you can unseat me?” I snarl, shoving harder. “You think you can take her ?”

His eyes blaze—not with fear, but with something fouler. Satisfaction. “Not take her,” he spits back, blood flecking his lips. “Destroy her. Destroy you. ”

The railing groans behind him, metal screeching as if the house itself wants to collapse under the weight of our war.

Below, the men roar, the courtyard a sea of chaos—bullets, fire, betrayal.

I don’t look down. I keep my eyes locked on Santino, because if I look away even a heartbeat, he’ll sink the knife already hidden in his palm.

“You betrayed your blood,” I growl.

He laughs again, sharp and cruel. “No, brother. I saved it. Giovanni’s crown was never yours. You stole it. You fucked his whore and paraded her as Queen. I’m the only true heir. I’ll bury you both, and Guido with you, before I ever kneel.”

The words rip straight through me, but worse—the venom aimed at my boy. Our boy. Rage explodes hot and white in my skull.

The knife flashes—he lunges, fast as a snake. I catch his wrist, twist until bone snaps like dry wood. His scream rips through the night, but still he fights, spitting curses, thrashing like a mad dog.

Then his words shift, guttural, desperate: “She’ll never love you, Emiliano. She’ll never be yours. She was his. She’ll always be his.”

Giovanni’s name on his lips is the last straw. I drive him hard into the railing, and this time, the iron gives way.

The balcony explodes in a rain of stone and dust. Santino’s body crashes over the edge, swallowed by firelight and screams below. For a heartbeat, the world stills—just the sound of my pulse, the echo of his words.

When I look down, I don’t see a brother. I see the serpent who nearly split my kingdom in half. His body writhes among the wreckage, soldiers scattering, some reaching to pull him up. I snarl down at them.

“Leave him,” I thunder, my voice shaking the air. “Let him choke on the ruin he built.”

And they obey. They step back. They let him lie in the blood and rubble, broken and gasping.

Behind me, the door slams open. Zina bursts in, smoke tangled in her hair, Guido clutched to her chest. Her eyes find mine—wild, furious, alive. For a moment, the battle falls away, and all I see is her fire.

But then Guido whimpers, and I see it—the smear of blood across his cheek, not his but close enough to make my knees weak. My chest caves, not from bullets, not from betrayal, but from that single drop of red on my son’s skin.

The war isn’t over. Santino isn’t dead. And the cost of this night has only just begun.

The Choice: Crown or Family

The courtyard is still burning when I hit the marble steps, Zina and Guido in the center of it all, their silhouettes cut against smoke and blood. Soldiers drag the wounded. Flames crawl the walls like veins bursting open. But my eyes are only for them.

Zina’s arms are locked around our boy, her dress shredded, streaked with dirt and blood. Guido clings to her with tiny fists, silent now, his shock carved too deep for sound. His face is pressed against her chest, but I see the smear of red across his cheek and it almost kills me.

I stagger closer, the rage in my chest heavy as iron. Santino’s laughter still echoes in my skull. My brother. Giovanni’s heir. My enemy. His words coil through the smoke: She’ll never love you. She’ll always be his.

Zina lifts her head, her eyes finding mine through the chaos. And for the first time in a long time, I don’t see fire in them. I see accusation. Pain. Fury that cuts sharper than any blade.

“They came for him,” she hisses, her voice cracking under the weight of it. “They came for our son because of this crown.”

I stop, chest heaving, blood dripping from my busted knuckles. “They came because Santino opened the fucking gates.”

Her eyes flash. “Does it matter? The crown paints the target, Emiliano. Every time you defend it, it costs Guido another breath.”

The truth slams into me harder than any bullet. Around us, men shout, the war still boiling, but the battlefield fades to nothing. It’s just her. Me. The boy between us, trembling like glass.

I want to roar, to tell her she’s wrong, that the throne is the only shield we have left. But when I look at Guido, pale and shaking in her arms, I choke on the words.

The kingdom. The crown. The empire Giovanni built, the empire I bled to keep alive—none of it weighs a fraction against that boy’s life.

And Zina knows it. She sees it written on my face. Her grip on Guido tightens. “So choose.” Her voice is raw, merciless. “Crown or family. Empire or blood.”

The soldiers are still fighting. My men are waiting for orders. If I speak now, I seal our fate forever.

I look at her—my Queen, my ruin, my salvation—and the choice is already made.

I stride forward, tearing the blood-slick signet from my finger, the last emblem of Giovanni’s throne. I fling it into the fire at our feet. The flames swallow it whole, jewels cracking, gold melting into ash.

The courtyard goes silent, the men frozen, watching their king burn his own crown.

I cup Zina’s jaw with a bloodied hand, my thumb brushing the tears she refuses to shed. My voice is a whisper, a vow that will outlive this night. “You. Him. That’s the only kingdom that matters.”

Her breath stutters, but her eyes—God, her eyes blaze like the first time I saw her.

And behind us, Santino drags himself out of the rubble, broken but alive, his face twisted with hatred as he witnesses what I’ve done.

Not the death of my rule. The birth of something he’ll never control.

The Last Betrayal: Brother Against Brother

The flames spit sparks into the night, swallowing the crown I hurled into their heart. The courtyard stinks of smoke and blood, silence falling in jagged pieces. My men stare like they’ve just witnessed the sky collapse.

Then the silence breaks.

A cough. Wet. Ragged. From the rubble of the balcony.

Santino drags himself upright, face half-shadowed in firelight, blood running down his temple. His shirt is torn, one arm limp, but his grin—that venomous fucking grin—cuts sharper than any blade.

“You think this is your victory?” His voice rasps, broken but strong enough to reach every ear in the yard. “You chose her. You chose the boy. You think that makes you a king?” He spits blood into the dirt. “It makes you weak.”

Zina shifts Guido behind her, her body instinctively shielding him, though her eyes stay locked on Santino. Fury burns in her stare, but I feel the tremor in Guido’s small hand clutching at my trousers.

I step forward, boots grinding over shattered glass. My chest heaves, rage thick enough to drown in. “Weak? No, fratello. Weak is hiding behind Giovanni’s ghost. Weak is selling your soul to cowards who can’t take me themselves.”

Santino laughs, the sound ragged and mad. “You think the De Lucas were the only ones? You think this war ends with tonight? You’ve already lost.” His eyes flick, deliberate, toward Guido. “He’s the prize. Not you. Not her. The boy.”

Zina’s gasp is sharp as a blade unsheathed. Guido clings tighter, burying his face against her side.

I bare my teeth, my vision tunneling red. “Say his name again and I’ll rip your fucking tongue out.”

But Santino only smirks wider. “You’ll try. But the underworld doesn’t kneel to you anymore. And when it comes for him, when it comes for your Queen, your blood won’t be enough to stop it.”

He staggers back, signaling with his good hand. From the shadows of the courtyard gates, shapes emerge—dozens of them, armed, faceless. Not just De Lucas. Other families. Men I once fed, once paid, once trusted. Their eyes gleam with hunger.

The courtyard tightens, steel catching moonlight, muzzles lifting. My men raise their weapons, but the numbers are wrong. Too many.

Romeo steps beside me, jaw hard, pistol steady. His whisper is for me alone. “It’s not just him anymore. The whole fucking world wants what’s ours.”

Santino’s laugh rips through the smoke. “This empire dies tonight. Not by my hand alone—but by every hand you thought you owned.”

I lift my chin, fists clenching, the scar in my palm splitting open again. Blood drips into the dirt at my boots. My voice is low, steady, carrying across the firelit yard.

“Then let it die screaming.”

The courtyard erupts. Gunfire cracks like the sky splitting open. Zina pulls Guido behind the stone fountain, her eyes blazing into mine across the chaos. And I know—we’ll either rise from this night as something new, or we’ll bleed into the dirt with our enemies.

Santino vanishes into the smoke, his laughter trailing like a curse.

And just before the flames swallow him whole, I hear the words that will haunt me long after this war ends:

“You’ll never keep him safe. Not from me.”

The world tilts, breaking into fire and blood. The storm has arrived.