Chapter 11
Venom
THE MAESTRO | Past
The scent of this place is all wrong. It’s sterile, smelling of lemon polish and the cloying, expensive perfume of the woman sitting across from me. It’s not the scent of jasmine and rain. It’s not her.
Two weeks.
It’s been fourteen days since she ran out of this room, leaving the air stale in her wake. Fourteen days since I last tasted the salt of her skin, since the frantic, silken heat of her core pressed against my palms.
The image of her burns on the back of my eyelids, her hair fanned out across the table, her eyes wide with a terror that I put there.
I haven’t slept.
Every time I close my eyes, I feel the phantom weight of her wrists in my hands.
I smell the rot of my own desperation and the floral musk of her arousal that I forced to the surface.
I am a man haunted by a ghost I created.
I am ruined, and I am ruining everything I touch.
“…and the wedding must have $500k flowers. I love roses. Honestly, Zagreus, the centerpiece height is important for the photos. I think we should go with pink roses. What do you think? Oh, and also, what about the cake? I think chocolate is on trend. What do you say?”
Crystella sits there, draped in labels that cost more than most people make in a decade, flipping through a bridal magazine as if she’s planning a gala and not a funeral for my soul.
The wedding planner sits across from her. He’s suggesting ways to make this more extravagant, though it’ll only be miserable for her as I’d planned.
My hands flex once, then go still, before I let anything reach my face.
The ache in my head is keeping time with the urge to reach into my desk, pull out my Beretta, and put a bullet between her vapid, sparkling eyes.
Fucking leech. She doesn’t want a husband; she wants a throne and a credit line. And I am giving her none.
“Jasmine,” I rasp.
Crystella freezes, her hand poised over a picture of a three-tiered cake. She blinks at me, her perfectly laminated brows drawing together. “Jasmine? It’s too delicate. Besides, it wilts. It doesn’t have the structural integrity of a rose.”
I lean forward, and I don’t bother hiding the predator behind my eyes. I give her the glare that makes seasoned capos stutter. I want her to feel the frost in my marrow.
And tell her she doesn’t mean shit to me.
“We’ll have jasmines,” I repeat, my voice dropping to a growl. “Every square inch of the cathedral. Every table. Every hallway. If I smell a single rose, I’ll burn the florist’s shop to the ground with them inside.”
Crystella pales, her eyes flickering with a moment of genuine fear before she recovers, smoothing her features into that practiced socialite mask. She forces a hollow laugh, her fingers fluttering.
“Wow… such a great idea,” she stammers, scribbling something down with a gold pen. “You know, you’re right. Roses are so outdated, so cliché. We should definitely do jasmine. It’s so… exotic. So unexpected.”
Expected.
Everything in my life is expected now. The marriage. The ports. The slow poisoning of my own heart.
I stand up, the chair screeching back, and walk to the floor-to-ceiling window. The city of Rome stretches out before me like a map of my own sins.
Somewhere out there, in a room I’ve erased from the records, Selene is breathing. Or maybe she’s screaming. Maybe she’s lying in the dark, hating me with a fervor that is the only thing keeping us both connected.
I think of the way she looked at me when she asked if I was going to take her against her will.
The memory is a serrated edge sawing at my throat. I didn’t take her.
I will never force myself on her.
I let her go. She fled like a wounded animal, and I stayed in the silence, surrounded by the scent of her surrender and my own filth.
“Is there anything else?” Crystella asks, her voice tentative now.
“Get out,” I say, not turning around.
“But the seating chart—”
“Get. Out.”
I hear the rustle of her silk dress, the click of her heels, and finally the heavy thud of the oak door, the planner trailing out after her.
Silence.
I lean my forehead against the cool glass. The jasmine won’t be for the wedding. It won’t be for Crystella. It will be a shroud. A reminder of the woman I’ve buried alive so that I can wear this goddamn crown.
I am the King of the Underworld, and my kingdom is made of ash.
I reach into my pocket and pull out a small, crumpled ribbon, the one she dropped in her haste to escape me. I press it to my nose and inhale. It’s fading.
The scent of her is disappearing, being replaced by the sterile, lemon-polished lie of my current existence.
Two weeks, Selene.
Two weeks of dying. I hope you’re faring better than I am.
But I know she isn’t.
We are two halves of the same wreckage, and no matter how many flowers I buy or how many ledgers I sign, the fire she started is still burning. And I have no intention of putting it out.
I reach for the phone.
The ringing doesn’t even finish its first cycle before a voice picks up, breathless and trembling with a nauseating reverence.
“Signore Vitale! An honor, a true honor. We did not expect a call so soon. We have the sketches for the Union bride’s tiara ready for your—”
“I don’t give a fuck about the tiara,” I cut him off.
The manager of L’Eclat de Rome, a man who has appraised the crown jewels of fallen monarchies, chokes on his own air. He is practically bowing through the receiver, the sound of a chair scuttling as he likely stands out of instinct.
“Of course, Signore. Forgive me. My tongue is ahead of my brain. How can we serve the House of Vitale today? Anything you desire, we will scour the earth—”
“A ring,” I interrupt. I’m looking at the city again. “The Pink Star diamond. I know you’ve been holding it in the vault for the auction in Geneva. It’s no longer for sale.”
A pause.
A long, terrified silence where the manager is likely calculating the loss of commission versus the loss of his life. He chooses correctly.
“The… the Pink Star. Fifty-nine carats of flawless vivid pink. A masterpiece, Signore. A stone like that… it requires a setting that speaks of—”
“Minimal gold,” I snap. I weave the crumpled ribbon between my fingers, the silk rasping against my calloused skin. “Prongs like claws. I want it to look like it’s being held by a beast.”
“Claws… yes. Striking. And the size, Signore? Should we use the measurements on file for the Contessa Crystella? She was in last spring for a fitting of her—”
“No.” The thought of that stone on Crystella’s finger makes me want to reach through the phone and rip the manager’s throat out. “Not for her.”
I look down at the ribbon. It’s so small. So fucking delicate. “I’m sending the measurements later,” I say, my voice dropping to a whisper that sounds like a death sentence. “If it’s off by a fraction of a millimeter, I’ll close your shop. Permanently. With you in it.”
“We will be ready, Signore. The courier will be met with a private guard. Is there… is there a deadline?”
“Sixteen days,” I say, and hang up.
I stare at the ribbon one last time before tucking it into a silk envelope. Sixteen days until the wedding. Sixteen days until I stand in a cathedral filled with the scent of a woman who isn’t there.
My Father thinks he’s bought me.
He thinks the trade is closed.
He doesn’t know I’ve spent the last two weeks not just mourning, but calculating.
The Zurich accounts are mine. The South American routes are moving. The secondary ledger is burned into my memory. I’m not just becoming the King; I’m becoming the end of the line.
I think about the wedding, the hundreds of Union and Cosa Nostra members gathered under one roof. All those “leeches,” all those men who think they can trade Selene’s soul for a shipping lane.
The Pink Star won’t be a gift. It will be a mark when I marry the woman I love.
A book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us. My axe will be made of lead and fire.
I’ll give them their wedding.
I’ll give them their merger. And when the room is full of the scent of jasmine, when the music reaches its peak, I’ll show them what happens when you try to cage a man who has nothing left to lose but the ghost of a girl.
It won’t be a wedding. It will be a massacre.
A beautiful, blood-soaked slaughter of everything the Vitale family stands for.
I’ll bathe in the blood of the Union until the pink of that diamond is the only thing left that isn’t stained red.
Wait for me, Dolcezza.
I’m bringing you a ring. And I’m bringing you their heads.
The King is dead. Long live the monster.