Page 101 of Queen
Zina. My Queen, my ruin. Her wrists bound, body dragged against stone, a pistol digging into her temple. And Guido, our boy, clinging to her skirts with tiny fists, eyes wide, trembling in terror he shouldn’t yet understand.
The traitor holding them thinks steel will make me hesitate. He doesn’t know who the fuck I am.
“NO!” My roar splits the heavens, raw and feral, louder than the gunfire around us.
I slam into him before the barrel steadies. My knife punches up under his ribs, slicing through muscle, bone, life. His gasp is wet, guttural, blood bubbling over his lips. His eyes widen in shock before rolling back.
His grip falters. The chain slips loose.
Zina doesn’t wait. She rips the pistol from his hand with a snarl, pivots, and smashes the butt into his skull. The crack echoes across marble like thunder. He crumples, boneless, his blood painting the stones beneath us.
Guido wails against her waist, sobbing into her dress. His little body shakes so violently I can feel it from feet away. Zina bends low, one arm crushing him against her chest, the other leveling the pistol outward, steady, unflinching. Even in themiddle of war—smoke thick, bullets hissing, bodies falling—she is sovereign. My Queen, painted in ruin and fire.
Relief surges through me, slicing sharp against the rage. They’re alive. I reached them. For now.
But then a laugh cuts through the chaos—cold, mocking, carried from above.
Santino.
He leans against the balcony’s iron railing, framed by the fire raging behind him. Smoke curls at his shoulders like wings, his smirk carved deep into his face. He doesn’t even bother to aim a weapon. He doesn’t need to. The rifles behind him lift as one, his soldiers already obeying.
“You think killing one dog breaks the chain?” His voice is silk stretched over steel. “You think saving her once saves her forever?”
I bare my teeth, my blade still dripping. “Step down here, fratello, and I’ll show you what breaking really looks like.”
His smirk widens. He raises a hand. The rifles above us tilt down, black mouths yawning wide.
The courtyard falls silent for a heartbeat, every shadow holding its breath.
This wasn’t the end of the chain. It was only the first link snapping.
And Santino is ready to tighten the rest around our throats.
Fire on the Balcony
The world narrows to fire.
Gunpowder hangs thick in the courtyard, the acrid smoke stinging my lungs as I drag Zina and Guido behind me, my blade still wet with the traitor’s blood. Soldiers scream in the distance, the crack of rifles ricochets through the marble arches, but all of it blurs against the one sound I can’t ignore—Santino’s laugh.
I lift my gaze.
He stands framed in firelight on the balcony above, the stone rail glowing with the reflection of flames spreading through the west wing. His suit jacket hangs loose, his tie gone, his shirt open at the throat like he dressed for war instead of dinner. His grin cuts through the chaos like a blade, white teeth gleaming, the smile of a man who thinks he’s already won.
“Look at you,” he calls down, his voice amplified by the inferno. “Giovanni’s shadow pretending at a crown. You bleed for her, for the bastard boy, and you think that makes you a king? You’re nothing. You’re a man waiting to bury his family.”
My grip tightens on the dagger, knuckles splitting open again, blood dripping fresh onto the stone. “Come down here and say it, fratello.”
His smirk sharpens. “No. Tonight, the stage belongs to me.”
He raises a hand. The signal.
Gunfire erupts from the upper floors. Windows shatter, glass raining down like daggers. My soldiers scatter, some diving for cover, others firing blindly into the blaze. A bullet whines past my ear, another tears into the column at my side, spraying marble shards across my cheek.
I shove Zina and Guido behind the fallen body of the guard I gutted minutes ago. My pulse pounds so loud it drowns the storm. Her eyes meet mine—fierce, unbroken, burning even through fear. She mouths one word:Go.
I rise into the gunfire.
Every step is fury. My boots skid in blood, sparks spit from ricochets at my heels, but I climb the staircase carved into the courtyard wall, climbing toward him like a man clawing up from Hell. My lungs sear, my vision tunnels, and still—still—I climb.
