Page 104 of Queen
But Santino only smirks wider. “You’ll try. But the underworld doesn’t kneel to you anymore. And when it comes for him, when it comes for your Queen, your blood won’t be enough to stop it.”
He staggers back, signaling with his good hand. From the shadows of the courtyard gates, shapes emerge—dozens of them, armed, faceless. Not just De Lucas. Other families. Men I once fed, once paid, once trusted. Their eyes gleam with hunger.
The courtyard tightens, steel catching moonlight, muzzles lifting. My men raise their weapons, but the numbers are wrong. Too many.
Romeo steps beside me, jaw hard, pistol steady. His whisper is for me alone. “It’s not just him anymore. The whole fucking world wants what’s ours.”
Santino’s laugh rips through the smoke. “This empire dies tonight. Not by my hand alone—but by every hand you thought you owned.”
I lift my chin, fists clenching, the scar in my palm splitting open again. Blood drips into the dirt at my boots. My voice is low, steady, carrying across the firelit yard.
“Then let it die screaming.”
The courtyard erupts. Gunfire cracks like the sky splitting open. Zina pulls Guido behind the stone fountain, her eyes blazing into mine across the chaos. And I know—we’ll either rise from this night as something new, or we’ll bleed into the dirt with our enemies.
Santino vanishes into the smoke, his laughter trailing like a curse.
And just before the flames swallow him whole, I hear the words that will haunt me long after this war ends:
“You’ll never keep him safe. Not from me.”
The world tilts, breaking into fire and blood. The storm has arrived.
epilogue
A Town That Doesn’t Know Her Name
The market smells of oranges and salt, of seaweed drying on nets strung between poles, of bread crisping golden in brick ovens that never heard the word bloodshed. The sea wind whips through the narrow streets, tugging at skirts, rattling awnings, carrying the vendors’ shouts in dialects older than Rome. I move among them in silence, a woven basket balanced against my hip, my black dress loose and unremarkable.
Here, I am no queen. No widow. No survivor of a bloody empire. Here, I am simplySignora Bianca.
They nod as I pass—polite, unknowing. A fisherman gestures proudly at his catch, hands rough from rope and salt. He smiles, easy and thoughtless. He doesn’t see the calluses beneath my gloves, the pale scars that rope my wrists. He doesn’t know Ionce sat at the head of a table carved from oak and blood, that I once wore crowns heavier than iron, sharper than steel.
“I used to wear diamonds like armor,” I murmur beneath my breath as I choose two lemons and a loaf of bread. “Now I wear salt on my skin and quiet on my tongue.”
The words taste foreign. They taste like lies I want to believe.
A little girl darts past, tugging on my skirt before daring to look up. Her eyes are brown, wide as the sea. She offers me a flower—wild, white, delicate as ash. I tuck it behind my ear, and she giggles before running back to her mother. For one dangerous second, my chest warms. For one dangerous second, I forget that every stranger could be a watcher, every smile a mask, every hand a blade waiting to cut.
The sound of waves breaking against cliffs follows me home. Our villa perches above the water, a pale stone square built for hiding, not for living. It smells of rosemary in the windowsill, olive oil slicking the counter, woodsmoke curling up from the hearth. Too small for a queen, too fragile for a fortress—but enough for survival.
Guido waits on the porch, bent over a chessboard, the pieces carved from driftwood. His small shoulders hunch forward, his mouth pursed in concentration. He has grown taller, leaner, harder in the year since fire drove us from our throne. The child who once trembled at shadows now studies the board like a general measuring battle lines.
“You’ll lose your queen that way,” I say softly as I climb the steps.
He doesn’t look up, just shrugs, moving his knight with careful precision. “Better her than the king.”
The words lance straight through me. A dagger twisting in the ribs. My boy, speaking of sacrifice as if it were second nature. As if he hasn’t just learned it—he’s inherited it, carried it in his blood.
I set down the basket and brush a hand over his hair, thick and dark like Giovanni’s. Like the man whose ghost still haunts our exile. Guido doesn’t flinch. That unsettles me most. My son, once wide-eyed and fragile, no longer startles at touch. He sits steady, jaw set like a soldier in miniature. Healing, yes. Whole, no.
I sit beside him, letting the roar of the sea fill the silence. I should feel peace. This town doesn’t know my name. The market doesn’t bow to me. No whispers follow me home. But power isn’t something you bury. It is stitched to your bones.
The gulls cry. The waves churn. The flower the girl gave me trembles in my hair, fragile and fleeting.
I look at Guido. At the boy who has already lost too much, who carries fire he doesn’t yet understand. I look at the sea that stretches endless, wide enough to swallow kingdoms.
And I know the truth: I may walk these streets as Signora Bianca. But the Queen is only sleeping.
