Page 2 of Queen
He wants spectacle. He wants me to crack.
My spine stays straight. Chin high. Eyes locked. “If I had,” I say, folding my hands with careful elegance on linen that still smells faintly of starch and smoke, “you wouldn’t be sitting here accusing me. You’d be lying next to him.”
Romeo’s mouth curves, venom sweet on his tongue. “Tell us, stepmother. Are you going to cry? Or just fuck your way to the top again?”
My jaw ticks. My fingers shift on the napkin, a single betrayal I kill as soon as it starts.
Flash—Giovanni on the floor, body twitching, warmth bleeding through my silk blouse. His hand in mine, grip weak but intentional. His eyes, for once, not fire. Not command. Love. And resignation. The memory is a blade I keep in the dark because it cuts cleanest when I need it to.
“You think I killed him,” I say, voice cold enough to burn fingertips, “but none of you loved him. You didn’t know how. You only saw his power and waited for him to fall.”
Santino’s chair claws the marble as he surges to his feet, fists clenched. “You goddamn bitch—”
Dante’s hand clamps on his forearm before he clears the table. “Sit down,” he growls—the first words he’s offered all morning. Gravel and command. “This is still Father’s house.”
I rise, unhurried, every inch a coronation. “No,” I say, and watch the word hit them. “It’s mine now.”
Flame meets gasoline. They look at me like I just declared war. Maybe I did.
Santino’s stare tries to cut me in half. Romeo sinks deeper in his chair, entertained, feeding on chaos like it’s dessert. Dante releases Santino but doesn’t relax; his stillness is calculation, not peace. Guido keeps his eyes on the edge of his plate, boy-small, man-quiet. He isn’t inside this room. He’s somewhere no one can follow.
I don’t sit again. I take the untouched goblet by my place, tilt it. Red wine spills across Giovanni’s pristine white tablecloth—slow at first, then greedy—staining thread like a wound opening up.
“I’ll have the staff replace it,” I say. “You can keep pretending this house belongs to him. The deed says otherwise.”
“You think that makes you queen?” Santino sneers, hate making him ugly.
“No,” I say, letting the words harden to iron. “I buried the king. That makes me something much worse.”
A Widow Among Wolves
The hallway stretches like a mausoleum, every step echoing, every wall hung with a version of a history that does not include me. Giovanni’s face stares back—smiling in one frame, scowling in the next, crowned in another—caught mid-laugh with a cigar, mid-whisper with a bishop, mid-lie with a rival he turned into a friend. The further I walk, the heavier the silence gets, as if the house itself has decided I’m an infection to wall off.
Guido’s door is cracked. My fingers graze the painted wood—blue, chipped near the handle—before I push it wider.
He’s sitting cross-legged on the carpet, back to me, hunched over a sketchpad. Pencils spread like fallen soldiers. The late morning light slants in across his shoulder, catching dust motes that turn the air soft. He doesn’t flinch when I step inside. He’s learned how not to.
“Guido,” I say softly.
He doesn’t answer. He draws a line. Slashes it with another.
The room still smells faintly of Giovanni’s aftershave—amber and cedarwood—and the plastic of new toys no one has touched. The bed is made too tight. The window latch is secured with a second screw—my addition. Bars beneath the sill—Giovanni’s. I taste metal at the back of my throat. Memory. Fear.
I kneel behind him, careful, a predator trying to be a mother. “You didn’t eat,” I say. “You didn’t come to the table.”
“They hate you,” he mutters. Quiet voice, sharp words. “They said you were just a whore who tricked him.”
The words land. They always do. I swallow the sting. “Your uncles are angry,” I say. “They want someone to blame.”
He turns his head a fraction. I see one eye, dark as his father’s. “Is it true?”
My throat locks. “No,” I say. “I loved your father.”
He looks back to the paper. I see it now—black lines like prison bars, a square that could be a window, could be a door, could be a chessboard. A knight scratched half-formed in the corner. My chest tightens. The past is a patient hunter; it knows every way back.
I reach for him. My hand hovers, then rests on his hair—gentle, careful not to spook him. “I love you,” I whisper, bending to press a kiss to the crown of his head. He doesn’t lean in. He doesn’t pull away. Neutral is a victory now. I take it and pretend it feeds me.
When I leave, I pull the door almost closed, leaving that same small crack. A promise. An apology.
