Page 122 of Merciless Queen

Her directness hits at my insides, and suddenly, our pleasant conversation evaporates. I hide the strange sensation by brushing it aside and commenting, “A damn good contract. Sounds almost like a compliment.”

“As if.”

“It’s a punishment, Vanessa. You were supposed to remain in Italy with me, while you’d be a figurehead of the Bratva and I controlled both.”Just saying it aloud sounds horrible. “Then your Elite got you out, and you kept us alive. Despite everything, I suppose...” My throat runs dry, the next words new to even the shadows of my own mind. “...the scales are nearly balanced.”

“Nearly,” she repeats, amusement lightening her tone.

“Considering what your father did?—”

“I know,” she cuts me off. “Nothing will ever make up for that. Well aware.”

Something in that statement feels healing on its own. The simple acknowledgment drives my next words. “I never thanked you for not harming Serafina that day.”

“Don’t.”

I sit straighter at her frostiness. “Don’t what?”

“Do this. Don’t say thank you. No matter what happened, we’re not friends, Zeno. Regardless of telling you about the deal or you finding Agapov, nothing’s changed. This marriagewillend.”

There’s the Vanessa I know. Shut down. Cold. Limits who sees the real her. I’m lucky, for those few minutes, she let me inside.

“Yet you called me.Thankedme,” I point out. “If we’re not friends, why was I the person you called?”The person you cried to.

There’s a long pause before she bitterly replies, “I don’t know. Once he was gone, I needed someone to talk to. Someone who isn’t on the inside. Since you made today possible…I just, I don’t know. I guess I’m grateful.”

As much as I enjoy her stumbling, I’m quick to talk and end her rambles. “Do you mean that?”

“I wouldn’t say something I don’t mean. So remember everything I’ve ever told you, Mancini, because what hasn’t come true yet, will.”

She’s trying to distance herself from anything pleasant between us. This ceasefire. The white flag that’s been raised. All the while, still attempting to induce a battle.

“If you mean everything you say, then promise me one thing.”

“What?” Wariness makes her tone sharp.

“No matter how much you want to forget Agapov and what he did to you, don’t. Today wasn’t about wiping the past away, but moving into the future. Pasts don’t define a person, but theydo shape us, and everything he and your father did only added a few lines into your shape. Built you up by laying parts of your foundation, and if you push it aside, then it crumbles ‘til you’re left with a gap. Use today to become stronger. You’ve spent years rising to every challenge the Bratva demanded of you, so continue doing that. Promise me you won’t forgetanypart of yourself: your past, present, and future.”

Her breath hikes, and for a second, I expect her to hang up and ignore everything I said.

But she doesn’t. And I stop breathing too, unwilling to let such a thing as an inhale mask her tentative reply. “Okay, Zeno. I’ll try.”

“Good.”

“Zeno?”

“Yeah?”

“Thanks again. For taking my call and…today.”

“You don’t need to thank me for doing what’s right,mia regina.”

Click.

When the call silences, I let the phone fall back to the bed and stand, wandering toward the window. The full moon casts a glow above. Madre, before she lost her faith in religion, used to say the moon was a mirror into God’s eyes. That it shone his light onto the planet, his warmth onto those he cared for the most. That was before she felt He stopped caring. Then the moon simply became the giant rock science has long proven it is.

I recall there being a full moon the night Padre died too. When Elio retrieved me from the club and pulled me away from my father’s body, weeping and shaking, the giant bright spot above caught my eye. I stared at it for the entire drive back to the villa, using it to mask my tears.

It’s fitting tonight, the moon witnessed another loss. This one, deserving death.

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