Page 62 of Queen
“Anything else, Queen?” he asks. The word isn’t mockery. It’s acknowledgment.
I pull the dagger free. The maps breathe, edges springing up from the wound. “Yeah,” I say, sliding steel back against my thigh. “Find out which of your men sold us. Then bring him to me.”
His eyes darken. “To you.”
“Do I stutter?”
His nod is clean, sharp. No hesitation. “No.”
I move to the wall of screens. Light burns my eyes, cold and unflinching. The throne isn’t a chair—it’s presence. It slides across my shoulders like armor I should’ve worn years ago.
“Good,” I murmur to the city itself. “Because I’m done asking.”
Emiliano doesn’t touch me. Doesn’t temper me. He yields the space, stepping aside—not out of reach, but out of my way.
Let the world take note. Emiliano Maritz commands empires. But today, he yields the room. And I—dressed in black, blade humming, grief sharpened into a weapon—take it.
Finding the First Rat
The walls of this house are thick, but secrets bleed through them if you know where to listen. Giovanni trained me in that art. A queen in his kingdom wasn’t meant to smile for the cameras—she was meant to hear what he couldn’t, to see what he missed. I sharpened myself on whispers, on footsteps too light for a soldier, on the sweep of a broom that lingered too long outside a door.
Tonight, I call that training back.
Maria shuffles into my sitting room, her shoulders bent with age, her hands still smelling of soap and polish. She served under Giovanni’s reign, back when I believed loyalty could be bought with coin or kindness. She was the one who used to slip folded scraps of gossip under my teacup—secrets overheard while scrubbing ashtrays or turning sheets. She was never wrong.
Now, I don’t need gossip. I need blood.
“Tell me,” I whisper.
Her voice trembles, but her eyes hold steady. “One of his men… the tall one. Matteo D’Orsi. Always slipping away. Hours at a time. I followed him once, my lady. He went past the gates, down to the docks. No orders were given. None that I heard.”
Matteo. Emiliano’s lieutenant. The name tastes like acid.
“Did you see him with anyone?” My tone is quiet but unrelenting.
She shakes her head quickly. “Only that he came back late. His hands too clean for a soldier’s.”
Guido’s empty bed flashes across my mind, the sheets still neat, still cold. Rage claws my throat. My boy stolen, and some rat thinks his silence will protect him.
“Good,” I murmur. “You’ve done enough. Go.”
She hesitates, voice breaking. “And if he learns I—”
I seize her chin—gentle, but unyielding. “He won’t. Because he’ll never see daylight again.”
Her eyes widen. Then she nods and scurries out, skirts whispering across marble.
The moment the door clicks shut, I move. No hesitation. My phone glows in my palm, tracing the last signal from Guido’s burner before it went dark. The map flickers—too close to home. Too precise. Betrayal rooted inside these walls. My blood runs cold, then hot, molten steel flooding my veins.
I stride through the corridors, servants scattering. The house feels smaller, its shadows too sharp, too knowing. At the first guard I see, I snap, “Lock it down. Nobody leaves. Nobody enters. Not until I say.”
His eyes widen, but he nods sharply and disappears into the dark to carry out my command.
By the time I reach the courtyard, my voice is iron. “Bring me Matteo D’Orsi. Alive. Drag him to the cellar.”
For a second, hesitation flickers. A dangerous mistake. I step closer, letting them see the fury burning in my eyes.
“You heard me. The cellar. Now.”
