Page 66 of Merciless Queen

Because this is where you’ve chosen to live.

This small villa feels like home, even though I’ve never lived here. With Madre’s touch, it’s like a recreation of the mansion she once decorated. Just being in her presence reminds me of a different time, when she lived in Rome and Padre was alive and we were all together, before war with the Bratva demolished us. In some ways, it was a better time, but that’s me being selfish because that very “better” didn’t involve Serafina, and to consider a time when she didn’t exist is unfathomable.

“That would be my troublesome sister,” I reply to Madre’s question, gaze lasering on Serafina who’s tapping away on her phone. Based on her eye roll, she’s still paying attention, even as she scrolls through strangers’ updates and their insistent need to complain about everything and everyone on her favourite social media app.

“If this is about the party last night, give up. Madre yelled at me enough for the both of you, and even Nero gave me an earful.”

“For good reason. You have a curfew, and when you don’t come home or answer your phone, no one knows where you’ve disappeared to.”

“You realize I’m eighteen, right? I can do what I want.”

Madre coughs, indicating exactly how she feels about that.

“It’s a dangerous world, Sera.”

Even if she doesn’t realize exactlyhowdangerous, but that’s because I’ve ensured she doesn’t know and never will.She’s aware of her background and how she came to be; that I’m a Cosa Nostra Capo, some of what the organization does, why Madre has chosen Ostia for them to live in rather than the Mancini villa. She understands why Madre hides from her own shadow and cries amidst the traumatic nightmares in her background.

What she doesn’t know is how she’s the only woman in the entire world who I’d trade my whole empire for. How everything I’ve done has been in vengeance of not only Padre’s death, but her life. How Madre and I have been determined to let her grow up as a regular, civilian girl and not deal with the political, deadly mob world.

Serafina rolls her eyes and stands from the couch again, barely sparing me a glance. “If you’ve only come to bitch at me, feel free to leave. You seem to forget you’re my brother, not my father.”

Be happy for that.I taper that comment as she stomps by me and heads down the hall. That’s when I’m stricken with how similar her attitude is, and how I’ve never noticed until now…

“Pack an overnight bag!” I call out.

Halfway down the hallway, she spins, all previous annoyance visibly gone and replaced by a bright expression. “Seriously?” And then she runs off without waiting for a response.

Madre watches her go with pursed lips and only when Serafina’s steps thump on the staircase, does she speak. “Rewarding her with a visit home?”

“For a night or two. I need her there for a bit.”

While I generally keep Serafina away from the villa to keep her as hidden as possible, she does come for the occasional visit. It’s fine, as long as we’re careful with our arrival and no soldiers or staff are around.

Madre hasn’t been back since she was six months pregnant with Serafina. I doubt she will ever be.

She shoots me a look that only a mother can master. “What have you done?”

“Got back from Russia this morning.”

Immediately, her eyes dart to the door, the need to escape from the ghosts haunting her past darkening the moment. She clenches her hands together, and then her eyes. Actions I’ve seen so many times. They’re movements her therapist once suggested to help ground her and not be transported back to the horrors she once lived.

“Why would you go there?” It’s a whisper I more read from her mouth than hear. Every syllable is packed with anxiety, apprehension, and the memories trying to yank her away from me. “It’s too dangerous, even withhimgone.”

I come around the counter and pull her into my arms. Sometimes, it’s difficult to recognize the woman who raised me. Her frail body used to be strong, and I recall being a young boy and running through the back door and straight into her arms, when she’d lift me and swing me in a circle before urging me to wash up before dinner. In the evening, we’d take walks around the property, swim in the pool, or watch a movie. Evenings with her were so different from my days with Padre and even though I wanted my future as a Capo, being with her was the perfect balance.

She’s no longer that woman. Even when, two years ago, I admitted that Ursin Volkov was dead so she could sleep a bit better knowing her villain no longer inhabited the planet. Albeit with hesitation on my part because I worried about what dredging up the past would do to her, but I hoped to get the mother from my childhood back.

It didn’t happen. Instead, that version exists in my memories. Her body’s shrunken in recent years, despite still being fairly young in age. The stress of hiding does that to a person, I suppose. It took years of her living here, away from theMancini mansion, to even leave these four walls and explore the town. At first, she demanded bodyguards, and after Serafina’s birth, it was even worse. She was petrifiedhe’dreturn for them. It was only when Serafina was close to two that she began feeling safer and willingly leaving home alone, which is why, I believe, Padre never mentioned the ongoing war and the numerous attacks he initiated after getting her back; he didn’t want to spook her back into self-imprisonment.

It's why Russia is so rarely been a topic of conversation. I enjoy Madrehere, with me and Serafina, and not clawing through the past.

“Why there?” she prompts again, anxiety sharpening her tone. “I’ve left it in the past, so you should too.”

Have you?I don’t dare say that to her though. She hasn’t, and at this point, I don’t expect her to. “I made a promise over Padre’s dead body,” I admit for the first time ever, having never told her of my vow. When he was murdered, she was in the trenches of caring for a young Serafina and then suddenly grieving the loss of her husband, though separated at the time, so she didn’t need the burden of my plans. “I vowed to Volkov that his entire family would pay for what he did to ours. For you, for Padre. His daughter, Vanessa, was next. After her father’s death, she took on the role of Pakhan. That’s why I was in Russia…except now she’s in the Mancini villa.”

Madre doesn’t respond, but her mouth falls open and her eyes shift toward the hallway, knowing but not saying what my plan truly is.

“No.”

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