Page 18 of Queen
Emiliano lifts his head at last, his lips dragging the faintest line against my skin before he pulls back. He lingered long enough to make sure they saw it. That they all know what I am now.
His.
Temporarily. Publicly. Strategically.
But not forever.
He steps back. I let the silence stretch. Then I turn my gaze on each of them—one by one—burning holes into their smirks until they falter.
My voice is low. Deadly. “Let them watch. I’ll bury every one of them if they touch me.”
The smirks fade. The weight of my fury fills the room.
The fire crackles behind us, but the real heat is mine now, rising through my blood like a vow.
I may wear his collar. But no one here fucking owns me.
Not yet.
4
emiliano
Mine, Finally
The gates open slow, like they know who the fuck they’re letting in. Hydraulic groan, iron grinding against stone, heavy enough to make the air shiver. My estate doesn’t rush for anyone. It takes its time. Forces you to wait. To feel small. That’s why I built it this way.
The car rolls up the long drive, gravel crunching under the tires like bone fragments. Floodlights sweep across the stone walls, three stories high and older than most of the men guarding them. Every arch, every reinforced door is a monument to permanence. To me. To what I’ve built here—untouchable, immovable, mine.
I’m out first. Always first. Boots hitting the gravel with the kind of weight that makes silence follow. My men fan outautomatically, hands on weapons but eyes forward, trained and loyal because fear keeps them that way. The night air smells like wet pine, gun oil, and the faint smoke drifting from the guard towers.
I circle to her side of the SUV. My pulse ticks once—steady, sharp. Anticipation, not nerves.
Zina steps out like she’s walking into a fucking coronation. Head high, chin sharp enough to cut glass. A black dress hugs her like it was designed to be a weapon, and her lipstick’s the color of dried blood. She’s perfected the look of a queen pretending not to be terrified.
But I see her. I always see her.
Guido’s hand is locked in hers, knuckles white with the grip. His eyes dart everywhere—the guards with rifles, the spiked fences, the looming villa rising behind me like a fortress carved out of war itself. He knows this isn’t a home. Not yet. Maybe never.
“Inside,” I say. No need to raise my voice. The command carries, sharp and final, rolling across the courtyard like thunder. My men are already unloading their bags. The weight of the estate itself pulls her forward whether she wants to move or not.
The front doors swing open on cue. Trained staff—my staff—stand ready. The central hall yawns wide, marble floors veined with black, chandeliers dripping light older than half my enemies’ bloodlines. Every detail here is deliberate. Legacy forged in stone.
Zina’s heels strike the marble with sharp defiance. Each step is a bullet casing dropped in a church. She walks like she belongs here. She doesn’t. Not yet. But she will.
I watch her take it all in, pretending not to. She won’t flinch. Not here, not in front of me. Good. I didn’t bring her here to break her in the doorway.
We stop in the center of the hall. The staff line the walls—bodyguards in tailored black, the chef in his whites, maids with their eyes glued to the floor. And behind me, my consigliere Dario waits. Silent. Calculating. Assessing her the way he does any new piece on the board.
“This is Mrs. Maritz,” I announce. My voice fills the space like gunpowder in a closed room. “You address her as such. You show her the same respect you show me. More, if you want to keep your teeth.”
Her jaw tightens at that. I see it, the little tick in the muscle. But she doesn’t look at me. Smart. She knows the rules of performance. She knows this isn’t for her—it’s for them. A demonstration. A claim.
Guido stays plastered to her side, his small body stiff as stone. The kid’s quiet, but the grip he has on her hand says more than words ever could. He’s already learning. Already reading the air like a soldier’s son.
“Dario will see to your needs,” I tell her, my gaze never leaving hers. “Anything you require, you ask him.”
Her head turns toward me, chin tilting just enough to carve the words like a blade. “And if I require a way out?”
