Page 46 of Queen (Shattered Pieces #2)

“They’ll say I ran,” I whisper to the empty air. “They’ll say I broke.” My hand tightens around the cover, my jaw sharp as steel. “Let them.”

Because Emiliano knows better. Guido will know better, one day.

I didn’t lose my crown. I traded it—for a kingdom built on blood and love, for a throne no one can topple because it’s carved into the heart of a mother.

And as the fire in the hearth crackles, I brand the final truth into the silence:

“He loves me. I love him. Nothing—not betrayal, not exile, not death itself—will sever that.”

The waves crash against the cliffs outside, like applause from the underworld. And for the first time in years, my soul doesn’t feel like ruin. It feels like home.

A Queen’s Quiet Reign

The mayor’s invitation arrives folded neatly in his trembling hands, his hat pressed nervously against his chest. He calls me Signora Bianca , as he always does—never Zina, never Rivas. To him, to this town, I am only the widow on the cliffs who shops for fish and buys bread with exact coins.

I accept. Not for the mayor, not for his festival, but because Guido’s eyes light when he hears the music from the square. And because sometimes even queens need to walk among their people as if they are human.

The piazza glows when we arrive. Evening sun gilds the cobblestones, the air thick with the scent of roasted chestnuts and sea-salted air.

The church bells toll overhead, children shriek with laughter as they chase each other in circles, and women in linen clap their hands to the rhythm of a fiddle.

I wear linen too. Loose, pale, a garment meant for anonymity. Yet the invisible crown presses against my skull all the same, reminding me who I am, even when no one here speaks it aloud.

“Signora Bianca!” A flock of children rush toward me, their sticky hands tugging at my skirts.

Guido is swept into their game before I can blink.

His laughter—bright, raw, unguarded—breaks across the square like sunlight through storm clouds.

It’s been so long since I heard it that my chest aches with something dangerously close to joy.

I kneel, smoothing his hair as he runs past me, flushed and smiling. That sound, his laugh, is the true anthem of my reign. I have killed to protect it. I will again.

When the fiddles swell, I let the music take me. I spin barefoot across the worn stones with the villagers, linen skirts brushing against theirs, my body moving with a freedom I almost believe is real. For a fleeting heartbeat, I could be anyone. A widow. A mother. A woman.

But queens don’t forget.

Even as I dance, my eyes never stop measuring the crowd. Faces blur in the firelight, but I weigh them all the same—every smile, every stranger’s hand. The blade at my thigh presses cool and steady against my skin, reminding me that peace is only the costume I wear.

When I laugh, it is real. But it is never unguarded.

Later, as torches flare and the villagers toast to saints and blessings, I catch sight of my wrist in the firelight.

The faint scar glows pale—a single line left from the night Emiliano and I pressed our palms together and bound ourselves in blood.

No one here knows what it means. No one here remembers that vow.

But I do.

My fingers trace it as if by habit, and in that moment, I feel him. Across oceans, across silence—his presence still burns in me. Not gone. Not severed. Just waiting.

I raise my eyes to Guido across the square, his cheeks flushed, his grin wide as he collapses into a heap with the other children. My kingdom no longer laughs beneath chandeliers or behind guns. My kingdom is his joy, his small victories, his safety.

The villagers see a woman reborn. They see Signora Bianca.

But I know better.

I have not been reborn. I have been sharpened.

The Letter

It’s Guido who finds it.

I hear his bare feet padding across the stone porch, his small voice carrying through the salt-slick air. “Mama, someone left this.”

I turn from the stove, knife in hand, and see the envelope pinched between his fingers. No stamp. No return address. Just a crack of red wax sealing it—deep, thick, the imprint unmistakable.

A bishop’s ring.

My stomach knots.

“Guido,” I say carefully, keeping my voice level. “Put it on the table. Don’t touch it again.”

He obeys, though his eyes linger on me, too wide, too knowing. He deserves innocence, but he’s my son—born into shadows whether I wanted it or not.

I wipe my palms against my apron before reaching for it. The paper is thick, expensive—the kind used for proclamations, not threats. But when I break the wax and slide the letter free, there’s nothing holy in what waits inside.

The words are blunt, carved across the page like a curse:

The sins of the Queen are mine to judge.

—Santino

My pulse hammers, but it’s the photo tucked behind the parchment that steals my breath.

An altar. Marble steps slick with blood. Streaks across the cloth, handprints clawing at the edge like the dead tried to drag themselves free.

Guido tilts his head, trying to see. I snap the photo shut and press it to my chest.

“Is it bad?” he whispers.

Bad doesn’t begin to touch it.

I crouch in front of him, cradling his cheek in my palm.

His skin is warm, alive, mine. “It’s nothing you need to worry about,” I murmur, even as my throat scrapes raw from the lie.

I smooth his hair back and kiss his forehead, lingering like I can seal him in light.

“You are my everything, Guido. You, and your papa. Always.”

His lip trembles, but he nods, and drifts back toward the puzzle spread across the table. For a moment, I just watch him—my boy, my kingdom, my happily ever after. Not the kind they write about in storybooks, but the kind I carved with blood and ruin. Our kind.

I unfold the letter again, reading the line until it blurs. The sins of the Queen are mine to judge.

A laugh slips from me, sharp and bitter. “Judge me, Santino? You’ve no idea what I’ve already burned.”

But beneath the rage, love steadies me like steel. I see Emiliano’s hands, scarred and ruthless, holding mine in the blood pact. I hear his vow: If you kneel to her, you kneel to me. Even in exile, I feel him—our chain stretched but never broken. He is still mine. I am still his.

I press the photo flat to the table, my fingertip tracing the bloodstains, and whisper into the salt-heavy air: “This is our ever after. Emiliano, Guido, me. Nothing—not Santino, not the Church, not the whole fucking underworld—will take it from us.”

My scarred wrist throbs as if answering, a reminder of the vow I made in shadows and silk.

Santino wants a reckoning? He’ll have it.

But he’ll learn the truth the hard way:A Queen doesn’t bow to judgment.She delivers it.

The Game Begins Again

The letter still bleeds in my hand. Santino’s script, the bishop’s seal, the altar photo—it’s a noose disguised as scripture.

I don’t burn it. I don’t shred it. I fold it once, sharp and neat, and slip it beneath my palm like a card meant for a later hand. Because that’s what this is. His opening move.

The cellar door groans when I pull it open.

The air is damp, heavy with the musk of stone and wine casks.

My steps echo as I descend, the silence pressing in like confession walls.

I kneel before the concealed safe, fingers working the seam only I know.

When the lock clicks, the weight of history exhales.

The velvet box waits inside. Its crimson fabric is frayed, as though even time fears what’s inside. I draw it out, set it on the table. My reflection fractures in the tarnished silver latch.

When I lift the lid, the past breathes again.

My wedding dagger. Giovanni gave it to me the day he crowned me his bride. He called it ornament. We both knew it was prophecy. Blood would be demanded someday.

I strap it to my thigh with slow precision. The leather bites my skin, grounding me. My hand lingers there, pressing the steel into flesh. A reminder: I am not prey. I never was.

The house is too quiet when I climb back up. The kind of quiet before thunder splits the sky.

Guido is waiting on the porch, a puzzle piece clutched in his hand. His eyes are wide, but steady. My boy. My blood. My kingdom.

“Is it time?” he asks. His voice doesn’t waver.

I lower myself, brush his hair from his brow. Memorize him as a boy before war shapes him into something harder. “No, amore,” I whisper, my throat thick. “Not for you. Not yet. Your time is for living. Mine is for protecting.”

Because this—this love, this fragile, fierce bond of mother, father, son—is our happily ever after. It doesn’t look like anyone else’s, but it is ours. And I will kill anyone who dares to steal it.

Headlights crawl across the distant coastal road, unmarked, deliberate. A predator’s approach.

The car glints under the dying sun. Sleek. Black. Predatory. The same make Giovanni once favored for midnight meetings. The same shape Santino drove when he thought himself untouchable.

Not chance. Not coincidence.

They want me to see it.

I stand, the dagger warm against my thigh, my son’s small hand wrapped in mine. The letter still burns in my pocket. Emiliano’s vow still burns in my blood.

“It’s his turn now,” I whisper to the horizon. And for the first time in exile, I smile.

Because whatever waits on that road—Santino, De Luca, or the underworld itself—they still don’t understand.

I am not just a Queen in exile. I am a mother in love, a wife bound in blood, and a woman sharpened by ruin.

And I deliver judgment.

The headlights pause at the bend, idling like a beast waiting to pounce. And faintly—carried on the wind, too soft for Guido but sharp enough for me—comes a voice I know too well.

“Confess, Zina. Your Bishop has arrived.”