QUEEN OF THE UNDERWORLD

Florence, Six Months Later.

The mirror didn't lie.

It never had. It reflected everything Valentina tried to bury—shadows beneath her eyes, the slight tremor in her fingers, the scar beneath her collarbone where a bullet once grazed her heart. Power had aged her. Or maybe it had just burned away everything that once was soft.

She fastened her earrings slowly. Emeralds, sharp and cold. A statement, not an accessory.

Behind her, the city glowed beneath a wine-dark sky. The lights of the estate's balcony flickered in the distance. She could hear the security teams rotating below, could sense Nina cursing over code on a screen somewhere. And she could feel Bryan's absence like a wound she refused to acknowledge.

He hadn't slept beside her in weeks.

Not since the first package arrived.

⸻

It had come in a black box. No return address. Just her name scrawled in old ink across the lid: Valentina Vellaro. Inside was a red velvet pouch, and when she opened it, her blood went cold.

A bullet. Hollow-tipped. Engraved with her initials.

It was a threat. A promise. And a message in the language she knew best.

No more warnings.

⸻

Tonight, she would meet with Leen Greco, consigliere to the eastern syndicates—a man whose tongue was silver, but whose eyes never smiled. He'd been pushing for an alliance. She didn't trust him. But trust wasn't a requirement in her world. Only leverage.

She descended the stairs in silence, her black dress trailing behind her like smoke. The guards at the door stepped aside. Her car was already waiting.

"Where's Bryan?" she asked.

"Out on assignment," one of the men answered quickly. "Didn't say where."

She didn't reply.

Just got in and shut the door.

⸻

The rendezvous was at an old opera house converted into a private club. Gilded arches, low chandeliers, violin music echoing through the bones of old velvet.

Leen stood near the stage, sipping brandy and smiling like sin.

"Bellissima," he greeted her, taking her hand. "If your father could see you now, I think he'd weep from fear."

"Then he'd finally understand what it meant to raise a daughter in his image."

He chuckled and motioned for her to sit.

They didn't speak in pleasantries. They never had.

"Someone's moving product through your ports without your seal," Leen said casually. "I hear whispers. A new player with old ties. Very old."

Valentina's gaze sharpened. "You wouldn't be here unless you knew more."

He leaned closer. "I think The Red Circle is back."

She stilled.

The name hadn't been spoken aloud in over a decade.

The Red Circle was myth. A cult-like faction of blood-purists and old-money butchers—disbanded after a massacre left twenty heads in the river. But now they were showing up again. Symbols. Bullets. Rituals.

"And your advice?" she asked.

"Step back," he said. "Let the real kings play."

She smiled slowly.

Then threw her drink in his face.

⸻

Back in the car, her phone buzzed.

Bryan.

Only one word:

"Come home. Now."

⸻

She arrived at the estate with engines still hot. Nina met her at the front door, eyes wild.

"We have a breach."

Valentina's heart turned to stone. "Where?"

"The nursery wing."

The world tilted. Valentina ran.

Down the hall. Past the iron doors. Into the private section of the estate that no one but her and two guards knew about.

The crib was empty.

The room smelled of smoke.

A note lay where the child had been.

Just one line:

"You took a throne that wasn't yours. Now we take what you love."

⸻

Valentina fell to her knees.

Then stood with fire in her veins.

"They want war," she whispered.

Bryan appeared behind her, blood on his knuckles.

"Then we give them hell."