Page 136 of Merciless Queen

“Maybe it’s a sign. Go home. Sign the divorce papers. Move on.”

Our conversations go in circles, and this time, I’m determined to break it. I step in front of her, blocking her view of her parents’ final resting place. “If I don’t want to?”

Her jaw clicks into place. “How’d you know where to find me?”

“Lev.”

“Asshole,” she murmurs in an affectionate tone. “Fuck, what is with everyone today?” It’s a question more for herself. With a final headshake, she steps to the side. “Bet you’re pleased to witness this.”

I remain silent, swaying on my heels as I watch her expression to figure out which response to give, but opting for the truth. “I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t.”

“I’d call you an idiot if you weren’t.” A smile ghosts over her face so quickly, I almost imagine it. “Unfortunately, there’s no body here.” She kicks the grass in front of Ursin’s stone. “His body is wherever theFamigliaput it. For months following his death, Ivan pleaded with Rossi to return him, but it never happened.”

“What did you want?”

She meets my eyes, and with that gaze, it’s like she acknowledges me for the first time since I got here. Then she blinks and that coldness, the one as chilly as the wind, returns.

“Then: I don’t know. Part of me couldn’t care less. Now: I still don’t.” She pauses, wrapping her arms around herself, her shoulders bowing inward. So used to only caring for herself and never letting another hold her. “It took months before I came here, and when I did, it was only to curse him and let him know I’d be claiming the Bratva without a husband. When I got home from Rome and found his journal…” Her expression pinches. “It didn’t redeem him, but it was insightful.” She sighs, long and pained, even a bit ashamed. “I found myself here three different instances in the past month.”

“You’re allowed to miss him.”

“He’s one of the worst kinds of humans on the planet. The love he had for his own mother, for mine, for…me…at one point doesn’t redeem him.” She pauses again, her swallow rough. “It was a book filled with pain. His own, since he was a product of his environment, of losing those he loved—as much as he could comprehend that emotion. He also wrote about kidnapping your mother and Serafina’s birth. There was no remorse. Just acknowledgement.”

My attention moves from his beautiful daughter to the focus of this conversation. He’s nothing but a stone, and not even that since his body isn’t beneath our feet. Still, I’d love to rip up the grass and destroy the place meant for his immortal soul.

Vanessa’s next murmured words instantly quell the flames. “I’m sorry, Zeno. I knew you weren’t lying. Hell, I saw the truth for myself in Serafina, but reading his depiction of it…of what he did to me. The journal was a tough dose of reality. That my papa deserved nothing less than what he got, and if I found the book before his death, I’d have done it myself. My first trip here was meant to be my final one. I don’t want to visit the grave of someone who’d caused so much horror, but I never managed to say the words.” She snorts, shaking her head. “Helps knowing his body’s probably chopped up somewhere. That I’m speaking only to dirt. To the other dead who don’t care about one man’s errors. Every time I come here, it’s to make it the last time, and yet, I continue visiting.”

“Grief’s funny that way,” I interject, my hands itching to reach out and hold her. Instead of doing something that’ll break the tentative peace, I turn toward the other grave marked with a Volkov surname. “Your mother?”

She nods, not bothering to glance at the second stone. “Yeah. After reading what he wrote, I wondered if she was still alive, what kind of man he’d have become?”

If Ursin had any affection for his wife, would he still have kidnapped Madre? Would Serafina have been born? If Padre and Madre split up, would Padre have been killed by him?

Would I have met Vanessa? If those events didn’t pass, I wouldn’t have been hunting Ursin’s family. My life would be much different, more peaceful, but I wouldn’t know Vanessa the way I do, and I wouldn’t have my sister.

Both are not options I’d ever accept.

“Theories we’ll never know,” I answer.

She falls silent as we both stand among the dead souls never met, in front of the parents of my unwilling wife. The mother who birthed the goddess beside me and the villain who shaped her. The Pakhan who tried to make her a piece in his own game, all to lose the entire board to her.

After a few minutes, I glance her way, finding her eyes shut, head tipped into the cool breeze. She looks utterly at peace, except I know this isn’t it. Not yet. Her father might be gone, Boris too, but there’s an anger, a tenseness still clenched around Vanessa’s heart that tells me she hasn’t found her peace yet.

Although it’ll end badly, I slip my hand alongside hers, fingers linking with her own.

Immediately, she flinches and yanks her hand from mine. Her lip curls and she pins me with a deadly glare that could raise any one of the dead around us. With a jerk of her head, she backs up.

“Like I said earlier, Zeno. Return to Rome.”

She walks away without a backwards glance, and again, I let her go, waiting until she’s out of sight before facing the gravestones. To the one marked with Ursin’s name, and the comical inscription it reads.

Ursin Volkov

Great Pakhan of the Bratva

Beloved Father, Honoured Husband, & Cherished Brother

“Always hoped we’d end up here, Volkov. Me, standing above you the same way you did my father. It’s too bad only your fractured soul lingers.”

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