QUEEN OF THE UNDERWORLD

The estate was quiet—too quiet. The kind of silence that clung to walls after blood had been spilled.

Valentina sat alone in her father's study, the air thick with the scent of old cigars, mahogany, and memory. The curtains were drawn, shadows pooling like secrets across the rug. She hadn't slept. Her crimson suit had dried with Niko's blood at the cuff, but she hadn't changed. Couldn't. Not yet.

Bryan entered without knocking.

"They burned the tapes," he said. "Just like you ordered."

"Good."

He approached slowly, watching her like one might watch a flame—close enough to feel its warmth, far enough to avoid being consumed.

"You haven't said a word in hours."

She ran a fingertip along the edge of a photo frame. Her father, young and unsmiling, his hand on her shoulder like a claim. "Niko wasn't just a soldier. He was mine."

Bryan sat across from her. "He made a choice."

"He was a boy," she snapped.

"Boys grow into men. And men betray." His voice softened. "You taught me that."

Their eyes locked. For a moment, neither of them spoke.

"You should sleep," he said finally.

"I can't," she replied. "Because if I sleep, I'll see him."

⸻

Later, in the lower chambers of the estate, Valentina descended into the armory. She walked past rows of weapons—relics from wars her family had fought for decades. But it wasn't bullets she sought.

It was memory.

She opened a drawer and pulled out a folded cloth. Inside: a small silver pendant, engraved with a crest she hadn't worn in years. Her father's ring. Her inheritance.

Valentina clutched it until her knuckles turned white.

⸻

Bryan waited for her in the garden.

He knew she'd come. She always did, when she needed to remember she was still human.

Moonlight filtered through ivy-wrapped arches. The scent of roses and danger filled the air.

She walked in silence.

He didn't speak.

Then, finally: "I loved Niko too. In my own way."

Her throat tightened. "Then you know why it hurt."

He nodded. "But you didn't break."

She turned to him. "Not yet."

Their eyes met.

He stepped closer. "You don't have to be alone in this."

"I am alone," she whispered. "That's the price of the crown."

He reached out. His hand hovered at her cheek—but didn't touch. Not until she closed the distance.

When their lips met, it wasn't gentle. It was fire. Desperation. Need. A clash of steel and silk.

When she pulled away, breathless, her voice was hoarse. "This doesn't make us safe."

"No," Bryan said. "But it makes us dangerous."

⸻

The next morning brought a new message. Delivered in a black envelope, sealed with wax.

Inside: a single bullet.

And a name written in looping, feminine script.

Bryan.

Valentina stared at it.

The message was clear.

The Bianchi cartel knew.

And they weren't done.

—

The Vellaro Estate was eerily quiet, the kind of silence that settled like a shroud before a war. Valentina stood by the arched window of her private chambers, watching the moonlight skim across the manicured courtyard, her glass of Chianti untouched. It had been hours since Bryan stormed out after their confrontation in the cellar—where truths bled and trust cracked.

She hadn't followed. She couldn't.

Because if she did, she'd admit the one thing she couldn't allow herself to feel—fear. Not of her enemies, not even of death.

But of losing him.

A knock echoed at the door, sharp and firm.

"Come in," she said, voice steel-laced velvet.

It was Collins, her head of security, eyes shadowed with fatigue and barely hidden urgency.

"Another message. This one came from one of our front operations near Via Carbone." He handed her a thin envelope, the Moretti seal burned into the wax—defiled. Red wax this time, not the usual black. It dripped like blood.

She sliced it open.

One sentence.

"Bring Bryan, or your empire turns to ash. —E.B."

Her fingers tightened on the paper. Elena Bianchi. Her name alone made Valentina's jaw clench with centuries of vendetta.

"What's the damage?" she asked.

Collins hesitated. "Three men dead. One of ours taken—Matteo."

Matteo. Her most loyal courier. Barely twenty. Sweet-eyed. A boy raised within these walls.

"They took him alive?"

Collins nodded grimly. "Security footage shows a woman—blonde, silk gloves, glass heels. Elena's taste."

A hiss escaped Valentina's throat.

"She's baiting me," she said.

"Is it working?" Collins asked carefully.

Valentina smiled coldly. "She thinks I'll deliver Bryan like a dog on a leash."

"Will you?"

Her eyes narrowed, distant.

"No," she said, turning away. "But I'll make her wish she never asked."

⸻

Bryan sat on the edge of the weapons room table, his shirt half-unbuttoned, bruises still fresh from the earlier interrogation gone wrong. He heard Valentina's footsteps before he saw her—the confident, calculating rhythm he'd memorized like a heartbeat.

"You got my letter," he said, voice low.

"You mean the one Elena sent threatening to burn my empire if I don't gift-wrap you?"

"That one." His smile didn't reach his eyes.

"She wants you, Bryan," she said. "Why?"

He held her gaze. "We all make mistakes when we're young. Mine had a name. And legs that wouldn't quit."

Valentina didn't flinch, but her silence was louder than a slap.

"She saved me once," he admitted. "Pulled me out of a Sicilian pit with a bullet in my thigh and a bounty on my head. But that debt's been paid."

"She doesn't think so."

"Because obsession doesn't need reason. Elena doesn't want me. She wants what she thinks I became under you."

Valentina walked closer, their breath now shared air.

"And what did you become under me?"

He didn't hesitate.

"Yours."

The words hit her harder than a bullet.

"You can't mean that," she whispered.

"I mean every damn syllable."

He reached out, brushing a loose strand of hair from her face. She didn't pull away. She let him.

"You should run," she murmured. "If she gets her hands on you, I won't be able to protect you."

"Maybe I don't want protection. Maybe I want revenge."

A beat passed. Tension curled between them like smoke and gasoline.

She stepped back.

"We go tonight," she said. "No negotiation. We take the estate. We take her head."

Bryan gave a grim nod. "What about Matteo?"

"We get him back," she said, voice like a blade. "And then we send her a message of our own."

⸻

The drive to Elena's outer compound—a Renaissance villa retrofitted with armed towers and poison ivy—was silent except for the loaded thoughts each carried like ghosts in the back seat.

Niko used to ride here beside her. His absence was still a wound, still scabbed with guilt. And betrayal.

Valentina stepped out of the armored vehicle first, her coat sweeping the gravel like a queen preparing for execution—or coronation.

Elena's men stood lined across the gate, rifles in hand. But she wasn't there.

Instead, a screen flickered to life from the tower.

Elena's face appeared—lips redder than sin.

"Darling Valentina," she purred, "how bold of you to show."

"Where is he?" Valentina's voice was ice.

"Alive. For now. But I grow bored. Shall I send you a piece to prove it?"

Valentina drew her gun and fired once—into the screen.

The guards flinched, the image shorted, and chaos erupted.

Bryan leapt into the fray beside her, blades and bullets flying. They fought like poetry—bloody, relentless, synced. As if this violence was their love language.

And maybe, it was.

By the time the gunfire stopped, the gates were cracked open.

But inside still waited Elena—and the final reckoning.