Page 35 of Merciless Queen

Fuck. I won’t make it far like this. Not with my adrenaline waning, darkness creeping over the edges of my gaze.

I make it another dozen steps before stopping again, my body physically betraying me when it refuses to go farther. If I stop now, it’ll be all too easy for her people to find me and I doubt the Merciless Queen has mercy in her heart after my murder attempt.

If only I didn’t miss.I’ve failed the Cosa Nostra. Failed myself.

My next step ends in a falter that brings me down in a gathering of three thick trees. I nestle myself against one, hissing as my body fights to get comfortable on the floor of twigs and fallen leaves before studying the injury, flexing my leg, which only ends on a grunt.

Doesn’t seem like anything’s still in there; that the bullet left my leg, but fuck, if something’s happening to me…

My head falls back against the trunk as sweat breaks out on my forehead and the back of my neck. Is this how it all ends? Me dying pathetically in the Bratva’s private forest being a failure? It’s a cruel twist of fate. No matter how much I’ve worked, the Volkovs will always win.

My eyes flutter shut as the dizzying weakness drags me under.

No! Don’t sleep. Don’t pass out. Don’t…

From the moment I let Vanessa kiss me, it’s gone downhill. Once the game was up and I had her pinned to the window, I really should have taken her life. It would have been easy. A knife slice across her throat. A cough and a gurgle. Her life would be snuffed out.

Instead, I taunted her. Played with her for longer and stupidly hesitated. For a moment, it seemed like so much of what I’ve been researching about her was a lie. That in the end, she’s merely a woman who lost her father too early and is in over her head as Pakhan. It was a shame to even consider that, because tonight was fun, and recent weeks of watching her masked that truth.

But it was all a lie. She wasn’t bargaining for her life at all. She tricked me, even getting me to answer her question about who had sent me.

It’s a shame Ursin never better prepared her regarding the bloody history between the Bratva and the Cosa Nostra, and the influence the Cosa Nostra holds worldwide. As one of the oldest crime organizations, they have alliances everywhere. Many more than the Bratva, but Vanessa has been so focused on her own rise to power, she’s never looked at expanding her empire, protecting herself from wars to come. It’s all not that surprising that Ursin left her to fend for herself like this and now she’s in a sink or swim predicament.

Although, how this is shaping up to be, I’m the one sinking.

Vanessa’s smart, that much I know. Surely she would have done her homework on all the other organizations when she took over. That her head wasn’tsofar up her own ass, she didn’t study everyone who could become an enemy or an ally.

It makes me wonder if she’s aware of exactly how the Cosa Nostra functions, and the numerous levels she’d need to learn about. That the reason they’re so powerful is because they’re not just one organization, like her own or theFamiglia. Known as the Five Families, with each family governing a different territory. One in Italy, two managing other parts of Europe, and two in the United States, holding regions theFamigliahasn’t claimed. Each family is led by a Capo—a Boss essentially—with a governing Commission overseeing all five Capos to ensure none try to overthrow one another and destroy the Cosa Nostra from within. Once, that was a Godfather’s job, but long before I was born, the Padrino—Godfather—of the time nearly sold the Cosa Nostra out to the federal police to save his own ass, so the five Capos overthrew him and founded a new system to prevent history from repeating itself.

The family based in Rome is where my orders have come from. The particular one her father shares a dark past with, which based on her questions, she has no idea about.

The one I’ve failed.

Darkness continues to drag me under, but in the final moments of consciousness, I root through my pockets for my phone. I was advised not to take it with me in case events like this happened. So before tossing it away for good and hoping that when the Bratva discovers me, they don’t find it—and the truth locked within—I make one last call.

One to outline a revised plan.

I’ve made mistakes tonight, but as I lie half-dead in a forest, they’re not unfixable at this point. They’re adaptable. My injury might be the key to make this work.

For now, I wait. Wait for her minions to find me, to torture me.

Then I’ve definitely failed every person in my past.

And have no one to blame but myself.

The Cosa Nostrajust initiated a motherfucking war for this.

Zeno grunts before disappearing out of my bedroom after my latest shot, making me believe I’ve hit him. I rush toward the doorway, hooking my free hand on the doorframe in time to catch him limping at the end of the hallway, right before taking the stairs.

Based on his unsteady stumbling, the bullet definitely hit him, which makes him extremely catchable.

I whirl around, immediately rushing into action by retrieving a robe off a nearby chair, and then my cell from where I abandoned it earlier with my dress, and text a call-out to any soldier on the premises. It’s the only time I regret not following Papa’s system and keeping many around.

Gun in hand, I take off down the stairs, making it to the bottom right as the half-dozen men gather in my foyer. The front door is wide open, suggesting Zeno wisely isn’t hiding somewhere in here.

“Enemy breached our lines. He’s injured so probably won’t be making it far. He’s somewhere out there.” I nod towardthe open door and the two men closest to the entrance angle themselves that way. “Find him. Bring him to me alive. Go.”

They rush out the door and fan out immediately, each taking a different direction.

---