Page 42 of Queen
But Santino doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t even blink. His stillness makes it worse. The red blooming beneath my handprint is proof enough that I struck him, yet his expression stays carved from stone. His refusal to react turns my defiance into something hollow.
Romeo whistles low under his breath, teeth flashing as he rolls the toothpick again. “Well, shit. She’s got more bite left than I thought.”
Dante doesn’t move from the shadows near the banister. He doesn’t need to. His silence is a blade all its own, sharp and patient. His gaze stays locked on me, as though he’s calculating whether I’m prey or a threat worth bleeding for.
Santino leans in, the heat of his body brushing against me though he doesn’t lift a hand. His breath grazes my ear, deliberate, invasive. “He left me one thing,” he whispers. “A recording. It proves everything.”
My stomach turns cold. A recording. Two words that open up a thousand locked doors in my mind.
My lips part, my voice coming out smaller than I want. “What recording?”
His eyes flicker—not with doubt, but with satisfaction. He’s already won this moment, not by showing me the blade, but by letting me imagine how sharp it is.
Santino lets the question dangle like a noose. Then he turns, cassock sweeping with the weight of finality, as if he’s already pronounced judgment.
Romeo hasn’t stopped smirking, the lighter’s click-click-click a cruel metronome in the silence. Dante’s stare is worse—heavier, deliberate. His eyes track every shift in my posture like he’s cataloging the weaknesses in my armor.
I swallow, the taste of Giovanni’s cologne thick in the air, choking me. My palm still stings, but it’s nothing compared to the ache that blooms low in my chest.
A recording. Something Giovanni left buried, hidden, saved. Something Santino is dangling like a crown of thorns.
If it exists, it could cut me open.
If it doesn’t, he wants me to waste my life bleeding just to find out.
Either way, the game has changed. And Santino knows it.
The Hallway Ghost
I don’t walk away from Santino. I break from him, sharp and fast, before his words can sink their hooks any deeper.
The east wing stretches ahead, cloaked in a silence that isn’t peace—it’s warning. Giovanni always kept this part of the house sealed. He said it was for renovations, or privacy, or a dozenother excuses. But I always knew the truth. Closing doors was his favorite way of burying things.
The moment I cross the threshold, the air changes. Cooler, denser, as though the walls themselves are holding their breath. My heels strike the marble, the echoes too loud, bouncing back like the house is reminding me I don’t belong here anymore.
I keep moving.
The hall unfurls like an old photograph—edges blurred, colors faded, yet still sharp enough to hurt. The memories rise unbidden, pressing close from every side: whispered arguments behind closed doors, the sharp snap of Giovanni’s temper cutting through midnight, the rhythmic creak of a cradle that always stopped before dawn.
At the far end waits the nursery door. The cream paint has yellowed, the brass knob dulled, but the weight in my chest tells me I know it too well.
I curl my fingers around the handle. It’s cold, biting into my skin.
The door opens with a groan, and my breath stutters.
Empty. Stripped bare. Not just cleaned—erased. No crib. No curtains. No soft blankets or scattered toys. Just four walls and a floor, blank and pitiless. The kind of emptiness that feels intentional, like someone wanted to deny this room had ever held life at all.
But I know better.
I kneel, dress pooling around me, hands sweeping over the floorboards until I find the one I loosened years ago. Back when I needed a place to hide something I wasn’t ready to lose. My nails pry into the crack, pulling until the board lifts enough to reveal the hollow beneath.
And there it is.
The wooden soldier.
Small enough to fit in my palm, its paint chipped, its sword broken clean in half. Guido’s first toy. Giovanni had thrown it away, said it was dangerous, unfit for his son. I’d pulled it out of the trash that night, hands shaking with fury, and hidden it here like a smuggled relic.
I lift it out carefully. My thumb traces the jagged edge where the sword snapped. It’s only wood, but in my hand it weighs as much as a gun. Proof that he was here. Proof they can’t erase.
