Epilogue – Lira
The Dantès Estate, The East Wing Ballroom
Two years.
The room is gold.
Not metaphorically. The walls are papered in it—soft matte sheen over silk panels, the moldings touched with real leaf.
There are hundreds of candles in carved holders and chandeliers that throw warm light against lacquered floors.
The men gathered here today—dons, judges, financiers, a few scattered royals—they sit beneath this glow like moths caught inside something beautiful and quietly dangerous.
I stand at the center, dressed in red.
The violin rests easily in my hands. The bow is angled just above the strings. The hush in the ballroom is complete. Even the guards along the walls have gone still. All that breathes is the music as it spills from my hands. High. Clear. Wounded.
I don’t close my eyes.
I let them watch.
Nicola sits closest, in the front row, her fingers clasped before her.
She nods softly with every rise in the melody, her face a mask of calm, but I know pride when I see it.
Beside her, Matteo leans back, legs spread, head tilted slightly as if surprised.
As if this performance is some new face I’ve never shown.
But it’s the man in the middle—my husband—who hasn’t looked away .
He’s not blinking.
One hand is on the armrest. The other curled around the ring he gave me, the same one I never took off. His lips part the smallest bit as the note climbs, and when it breaks through into something delicate, he smiles.
Not a grin. Not a smirk.
Something soft. Devoted. Almost helpless.
I finish the piece.
The last note doesn’t linger. It dies cleanly, like it knows it’s the end.
For a breath, the room holds its silence.
Then the applause begins.
Not the usual kind—no polite tapping, no murmured praise. It’s loud. Real. Startling in its warmth. Some are even standing. Not many, but enough. I don’t bow. I simply lower the violin, step back, and drink them in.
They will never love me.
But they fear me. And respect has always followed fear.
I turn slightly, scanning further back. In the shadows of the marble pillars—Maksim stands stiff, his right eye milky and useless, a scar dragging from his cheekbone to the side of his jaw.
Mina is beside him, elegant in emerald, her jaw locked so tight the tension shows in her temple. They don’t clap. Of course they don’t.
They still hate me.
They’ve tried everything. Poisoned contracts, hidden bombs, whispered lies to the Vatican’s banking council. They sent men. Then spies. Then gifts. Always wrapped in poison.
They failed.
The snake that bit Maksim had been real. One of the older routes through the Papuan line. He’d gone against Dantès orders to secure it for himself. A venom spit to the eye and everything changed. I hadn’t even needed to lift a finger.
Now he answers to me.
They both do.
And I look at them like they’re dust. Discarded things. Still trying to scrape back into relevance.
I return to my seat beside Severo, and I feel his hand take mine under the table.
The ring gleams beneath the chandelier light.
And still—still—his thumb moves across my knuckles like he can’t believe I’m real.
Across the hall, the dons continue watching.
Some of them still plot against me. I see it in their eyes.
But they bow when I pass.
They whisper when I speak.
And when I smile, they never know whether to feel safe or afraid.
I like it that way.
Everyone in this room worships me in their own way.
Some from awe.
Most from fear.
And I love it. Every drop of it.
Two years ago, I was clawing for space—scraping to matter in a world that forgot women unless they came with blood on their hands or power at their back. Now? Now, I am the one they whisper about. The one they prepare for. The one they obey even when they hate it.
I picked up the violin again last spring. Nicola gave me a new one—amber-stained wood, polished like a promise. She had found it in Vienna, sent it to me with a note: Don’t forget you were more than danger .
She meant well. She always does.
But music bends for power too.
I don’t play because I crave the sound or the calm. I play because it reminds them all that I can move them to tears and still burn down everything they love. I play to haunt them.
The final note fades into the gold-draped room.
Silence. Then thunder.
Chairs scrape, bodies rise. They clap. Some have tears on their cheeks. Some hide clenched jaws with forced smiles. All of them stand. Every single one.
I nod and step behind the curtain.
Severo is waiting. His tie’s gone, shirt half-open like he’d rather be anywhere but a ballroom. Matteo stands beside him, already holding out a glass of water and a napkin. I take the water, sip. The curtain parts again. The dons start pouring in.
They shuffle toward me like moths—kisses on my hand, comments about tone and posture. Half of them don’t even know what key I played in. I smile for each one. The smile I practiced in mirrors. Not too wide. Just sharp enough to remind them I could end them with a single word.
Then they arrive.
Maksim enters first. That ruined eye still makes people flinch. The milky whiteness sits in contrast to the dark suit he wears like armor. The scar down his temple is thick and red, healing poorly. He walks like someone who’s relearning balance.
Mina floats in behind him, all silk and coiled rage. Her dress is green, the same shade as the snake that took her brother’s eye. I keep my face calm.
I greet them like they’re family.
“Mina. Maksim.” My voice is light. “Did you enjoy the performance?”
Mina’s smile is tight. “We had no choice. Can’t have you shutting down more of our ports.”
I tilt my head. “You’ve both been so well-behaved. You can rest easy.”
She steps closer. Her perfume is the kind that turns in your throat—sweet and rotting. She leans in. Her lips don’t move at first.
Then a whisper, hot and sharp: “I’ll kill you with my own hands. You and him both.”
Severo speaks behind me. Calm, bored. “We love you too, sis.”
Mina straightens. Maksim looks at me with that one working eye, full of venom he doesn’t have the courage to speak aloud.
They leave.
I drain the last of the water, hand the glass to Matteo, and smile at the next man who steps forward to shake my hand.
Nicola walks toward me the second Mina and Maksim vanish through the far doors. She doesn’t bother with words. She just wraps her arms around me.
I melt into the hug, arms tight around her waist, chin hooked over her shoulder. She smells like citrus and something clean—like quiet mornings and open windows. I close my eyes, just for a second. It’s the safest I’ve felt all night.
“You were incredible,” she whispers. “You always are.”
I pull back and look at her. She’s beaming, cheeks flushed, eyes glassy with pride. I smile, a real one , and tuck her hair behind her ear the way she used to do for me back when the world was softer.
When we first reunited, after everything, after I told her the truth—the blood, the men, the power—she had only asked me one thing.
“Are you happy?”
Tears had slipped down my cheeks before I could answer. But I nodded. I meant it. I still do.
Nicola didn’t ask for more.
She had pulled me into her arms and told me that was all that mattered. That she would always be here. That she would love me even if I had a gun in one hand and a crown in the other.
So, I gave her something back. A new house in East Melbourne, quiet and walled, with lemon trees in the back. A new car, white leather seats, soft as clouds. A job at one of the Dante family’s clean-law branches—contracts, trusts, trade permits. The safest part of a dangerous empire.
She didn’t ask for any of it. But I needed her to have it. I needed one piece of my world to be untouched. Unbloodied. Pure.
After we say our goodbyes, I wave over one of my men and instruct him to get her home safely. She sets a date for shopping next week, teasing me about how long it’s been since I bought heels without a bodyguard at my side.
When she leaves, I stand still for a long moment.
Watching her go reminds me of who I used to be. Not because I want to go back. But because I still need something real. Something warm.
In this brutal life—of ports and power plays and betrayal—Nicola and Severo are the only two things that keep me sane.
Matteo appears just as Nicola’s car disappears down the stone path, the taillights dipping behind the line of pines. His coat is half-unbuttoned, his expression sharp but expectant, like he’s been standing by for the right moment.
“We caught them,” he says, voice low.
I glance up. “Caught who?”
“The men skimming cargo and rerouting shipments through unauthorized docks,” he answers. “Two of them. They’ve been using our routes without paying the levy. Third man ran. We’ve got the others locked and waiting.”
Beside me, Severo sighs like a man with an early headache. “Can’t this wait till tomorrow?”
I almost say yes.
Almost.
But then I roll my shoulders back, tilt my head, and smile. “Where are they now?”
Matteo’s face lifts just slightly. “Holding room. Ground level. The south wing’s sealed.”
“Good.” My voice is calm, but my pulse is already shifting.
Severo touches my chin lightly. His fingers are warm. “You’re not tired?”
I shake my head . “I feel as energetic as ever.”
His eyes search mine, and he knows that look.
He lets go, and I turn to Matteo.
“Give me ten minutes to change.”
Matteo nods, already moving ahead of me, muttering something into his comms. Probably telling the men in the lower wing to prepare.
I don’t ask what for.
****
Dantés Estate, Lower Grounds