Page 43 of Queen
The air shifts behind me.
The hairs on my neck rise, prickling.
“Find what you came for?” Emiliano’s voice slides into the room like smoke—soft, but hot enough to burn.
I spin, clutching the soldier so tightly my knuckles ache. “Your sons want me dead,” I bite, words cutting sharper than the wood in my hand.
He steps forward, unhurried, his shadow stretching long across the nursery floor. “They’re not mine.”
The soldier digs into my palm, my chest tightening as I meet his eyes. “But Guido is.”
The silence that follows is suffocating. The room itself seems to hold still, walls and air conspiring to trap the truth between us.
His stare doesn’t waver. His jaw tightens, just enough for me to see the crack in his control.
In my grip, the broken soldier stops being a toy. It becomes a weapon. Not one that can kill him, but one that can remind him—remind all of them—that Guido is real. That he existed. That he can never be erased, no matter how many rooms they strip bare or recordings they whisper about in the dark.
And I know—this truth about Guido isn’t just mine to protect.
It’s mine to wield.
Guido’s Heartbreak
The guest quarters are quieter than the rest of the house, but it’s the kind of quiet that feels borrowed, like it could be stolen at any moment. Heavy curtains choke off most of the afternoon light, casting the room in muted gold shadows.
I’m still holding the wooden soldier in my pocket, my fingers closing around its broken edge, when Guido’s small voice breaks the stillness.
“Are we leaving?”
He tugs at my sleeve, his eyes wide and searching. He’s too young to mask the hope in his tone, too innocent to hide the way his fingers twist into the fabric like he’s anchoring himself to me.
“Soon,” I lie, my voice softer than I feel. I can’t give him the truth—not yet. The truth is that we’re trapped here, at least for now.
Guido glances toward the door, toward the long stretch of hallway beyond. His whisper is small, but it cuts through the stillness like glass. “Why does the boy with the cross necklace hate you?”
Santino. The weight of his cross, the venom in his eyes, the words still burning in my ears. I swallow hard, forcing the ache in my throat down. “He doesn’t understand,” I tell him,steadying my tone. It isn’t a lie—but it isn’t the whole truth either.
Guido looks down, lashes lowering to cast shadows across his cheeks. “Why do they hate me?”
That question is different. It lands like a blade. No accusation. No anger. Just quiet confusion.
And that’s worse.
I kneel in front of him, brushing the dark hair back from his forehead. His face is so open, so unguarded, that my chest aches just to look at him. “They don’t know you,” I whisper. “That’s all.”
I pull him into my arms. His small frame presses against mine, his heartbeat uneven, too fast. I hold him tighter, as though I can shield him from the poison in these walls, from the sharp edges of the family name he never asked to carry.
But I know better.
I can’t protect him from all of it—not here, not when this house is lined with ghosts and grudges. The Rivas bloodline is both crown and curse, and he wears it whether they speak it or not.
He buries his face in my shoulder. The warmth of his unshed tears seeps through my dress, damp and fragile. I rock him slightly, the way I used to when he was smaller, when the world hadn’t yet taught him to question his place in it.
“Why can’t we just go home?” he whispers, muffled against my collar.
My throat burns. “This is only for a little while.”
I don’t add the rest—that the definition of “a little while” depends on Emiliano, on Santino, on secrets buried in recordings I haven’t yet seen.
