Page 20 of Queen
“Dinner tonight,” I tell her, my voice cutting through the hush. “Several families. You’ll dress like the woman who rules beside me, not beneath me.”
Her gaze lifts to meet mine in the mirror. Venom glitters in her eyes, sharp as the edge of a dagger. “Is that how you want your enemies to see me?” she asks coolly. “Crowned or collared?”
My grin is slow, deliberate, meant to provoke. “Why not both?”
Her jaw tightens, lips pressed into a thin slash of defiance. But she doesn’t argue. She knows how to pick her battles, and tonight isn’t the one. She turns back to the vanity, sliding open a drawer and pulling out lipstick the color of arterial blood. She applies it with steady precision, each stroke like a silent fuck you.
I watch every movement. The way her shoulders stay squared, the way her hand doesn’t shake. She hates me—but she won’t give me the satisfaction of seeing weakness.
By the time she steps out of the closet, she’s in the dress I had sent up hours ago. A fitted, floor-length red that clings to her curves like a tailored sin, slit high enough to double as a weapon. Her heels strike marble with sharp defiance, every click announcing her arrival like gunfire.
“You’re overdressed,” I murmur.
“You’re overbearing,” she fires back.
Stalemate. For now.
I close the distance, fingers reaching into her hair, adjusting the fall so that the diamond collar at her throat gleams in the candlelight. My knuckles brush her skin—warm, tense, fighting not to tremble. I catch the shiver she tries to bury.
“Tonight, you’ll be watched,” I tell her, voice pitched low for her alone. “Every look, every move, every word cataloged and twisted. If any of them touch you—” I lean in, lips grazing the shell of her ear “—I’ll cut off their hands.”
She doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t shy away. Her defiance is a steady flame. “How generous,” she murmurs.
“Generosity has nothing to do with it.”
Her eyes narrow, venom simmering, but she swallows whatever cutting words she wants to spit. Instead, she turns sharply toward the door, walking ahead with that regal stride that makes even the walls seem to bow.
Good. Let her think she’s leading.
By the time we leave her wing, the estate hums like a live wire. Kitchen staff move in swift silence, platters steaming under silver domes. Bodyguards line thresholds, rifles hidden beneath tailored jackets. My consigliere runs final checks on the guest list, murmuring orders to underbosses like chess moves.
This isn’t dinner. It’s theater.
And Zina isn’t just another guest. She’s the headlining act. My queen. My weapon. My leash.
And mine.
Power and Performance
The dining hall is a cathedral of excess. A polished mahogany table stretches down the center, gleaming like a battlefield awaiting blood. Chandeliers drip light across the assembled faces—men I’ve fought beside, men I’ve buried enemies with, men who would slit my throat if they thought they could get away with it. Allies. Enemies. Often both in the same breath.
I take my seat at the head. And to my right, where no woman has ever sat in this house, I put Zina.
Not subtle. A statement. A claim. A warning.
The air shifts the moment she sits. Like everyone can feel the imbalance in the room tilt. The men look. The women whisper behind jeweled hands. Glasses lift, wine sipped for show, but no one’s paying attention to the food.
They’re studying her.
She knows it. I can see it in the way her shoulders roll back, in the way her chin lifts. Every angle of her body says queen, even if her eyes are spitting curses at me. Her fingers curl around the stem of her wine glass—not like she’s holding a drink, but like she’s palming a blade.
Perfect.
Plates arrive. Crystal clinks. Forks scrape porcelain. I don’t taste any of it. My attention keeps cutting back to her. The curve of her mouth—not smiling, not quite sneering. The way she doesn’t avert her gaze when another man looks too long. She meets them all head-on, daring them to blink.
And then Arturo Silva tests me.
Old money. Older arrogance. He leans forward, voice a low purr designed to travel down the table. “You’ve done well for yourself, Emiliano.” His eyes linger on Zina like a stain. “Beauty and strength—a rare combination.”
