Page 60 of Consort of the Crime Queen

The roar of my motorcycle engine fills my ears as I ride through the streets of Old Town towards my father's estate. I haven't been back here since the day I walked out, declaring I would never return. I pull up across from the looming wrought iron gates and high stone walls that once felt like a sanctuary in the city. It's been almost twenty years since I was a child inside those walls.

Now I'm a woman grown, tempered by blood and fire into someone unrecognizable from the wounded girl who fled from the only home she'd ever known. I wonder if traces of her still echo in these marble halls, memories imprinted into the cavernous rooms and manicured gardens.

But I shutter my heart against the restless ghosts of the past. Nero lies dead by my hand, and Aurora is safe. And I've come today to make my father reckon with the choices he has made over the years, the choices that set all subsequent events spiraling into motion.

I pull up to the intercom at the gate and kill the engine. Static crackles before a stern voice commands through the speaker, "State your business."

I raise an eyebrow in amusement as I tip my face back to be clearly seen by the camera. Do they not recognize me?

"Hadria Imperioli. I'm here to see my father."

A pause. Then three men with guns run out of the gatehouse and stand there pointing them at me through the bars.

"We have orders not to let you pass," the voice returns, edged with quiet menace. Too bad I don't scare so easily.

"Tell the Don who is here to see him. See what he says," I tell him in a bored voice.

I don't have long to wait.

The gates grind open and I roar through on my bike up the winding drive without hesitation, not bothering to acknowledge the guards training their weapons on me. I cut the engine again outside the front entrance, where more armed men await. Their eyes widen at the sight of me—face and clothes still spattered with blood and gore from the battle at Elysium. Their fingers hover nervously over their sidearms as I pull off my helmet and shake out my hair. Do they realize how laughably inadequate those weapons are against someone like me?

Wordlessly, I hand over my twin pistols from their holsters, and a switchblade from my boot. I smile as I do it, a reminder that I don't need weapons to kill them. They know I could end their lives empty-handed if I was so inclined.

But I'm not here for them.

One grunt jerks his chin, indicating I should follow. I stomp confidently over these once-familiar carpets, past gilded mirrors and oil paintings of Imperioli ancestors.

I am brought to the breakfast room first. Of course. My father keeps to his routines, sipping espresso and reading the paper still in his silk pajamas and brocade robe. The remains of his breakfast plate are hurried away by a silent maid as I enter.

He does not bother to rise when I enter, merely folding his paper neatly and raising one groomed eyebrow in that infuriating way.

"Coffee?" my father inquires politely, as if my arrival still spattered in the blood of Imperioli men is a common occurrence. He gestures to the silver pot on the table between settings for two. "Nero is late this morning. He will have to make do with what remains."

"No, thank you, Papa," I reply evenly, calling upon reserves of composure. My gaze drifts up to the portrait wall where generations of Imperioli patriarchs cast their implacable eyes down upon the room, confirming that regardless of era, women in this family are intended only to exist in the margins.

For two decades, I've been determined to see my portrait up there.

I wander the room, looking at the rest of the portraits. The family portrait that used to show me with Papa and Nero is conspicuously absent, my presence expunged.

"I must admit, you are the last person I expected to receive this morning," he says calmly. Too calmly. My fingers itch with the urge to wrap around that wrinkled throat. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"

I turn, meeting his hooded gaze. "I've come to tell you that your son is dead."

Shock flickers across his features before the mask slides back into place. "I had…not heard."

"No," I agree. "I don't think you would have admitted me so readily if you had. But that's a problem for you, Papa, that no one has let you know. Perhaps they worried about what your reaction would be."

His eyes are devoid of any soul. I see that now. "What do you hope my reaction will be, Hadria? Do you expect me to beg for my life?"

He's very calm still. But I detect the quaver of mortal fear beneath.

I lean casually against the heavy table, regarding him thoughtfully as I let him dangle a moment, awaiting my pronouncement.

We are so very much alike in some ways.

But he will never truly know me, only what haunts his own shadowed mind.

"No, Papa," I tell him at last. "One vendetta at a time is enough. And for all your faults, you did not harm Aurora. Not like Nero would have."

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