The first rule of inheriting a mafia empire?
Know who's smiling at your coronation—and who's plotting your funeral.
Valentina stood before the tall, arched windows of the Vellaro Estate's great hall, her reflection barely visible against the night beyond. The city lights below blinked like distant fireflies. But it wasn't the city she watched—it was the drive leading to the estate gates.
Every black car rolling up tonight might carry her allies… or her executioners.
"Any word from Bryan?" she asked without turning.
Nina, lounging in the armchair by the fireplace with her boots kicked off and twin daggers hidden beneath her dress, tilted her head. "He sent flowers. Black orchids. Card said, 'In mourning—and in anticipation.'"
Valentina's lip curled.
"Cocky," Nina added, "but poetic."
"He always was."
Tonight was her father's posthumous gala—a tradition meant to reassure allies and silence enemies. But this one felt more like bait than celebration.
And Valentina knew exactly who the trap was for.
⸻
The grand ballroom glittered with sin.
Chandeliers dripped light onto gold-veined floors. Velvet curtains billowed from the tall windows, the city's chill licking through. The Scarlatti name was everywhere—on glasses, on tongues, in the eyes of every man watching her.
Valentina descended the marble staircase in a gown of obsidian silk that clung to her like spilled ink. Her shoulders bare, her spine a straight line of defiance. Around her neck hung the old Scarlatti pendant—the one her father had hidden. She wore it now not as tribute, but as a challenge.
Let them see what he feared.
Applause followed her descent, subtle and cold. Men in suits dipped their heads. Women sized her up like a threat. The music was haunting, a slow waltz laced with menace.
Then she saw him.
Bryan Moretti.
He stood alone at the bar, hands in his pockets, untouchable. Dark-haired, scarred along one brow, dressed in black with a crimson pocket square—his family's color. He looked like the man you call when you've buried the body and need to burn the forest around it.
He didn't smile when she approached.
"Didn't think you'd come," she said, accepting a glass from the bartender without breaking eye contact.
"You sent an invitation sealed in blood-red wax,"Bryan said, voice low. "It felt… pointed."
Valentina sipped. "Should I apologize?"
"No," he said, and his gaze dropped to the pendant around her neck. "But you should be careful which ghosts you wear to a party like this."
Her pulse fluttered.
"You don't believe in ghosts, do you?" she asked.
"I believe in memory," he said, leaning in. "And in vengeance."
Valentina smiled, slow and deadly. "Then we have something in common."
⸻
The night bloomed into something between elegance and war.
Valentina danced with two politicians, a banker, and a cartel heir. She smiled for cameras. Laughed at whispered threats. And with every step, she studied the faces—who looked nervous, who looked smug, who didn't look at all.
Nina stood at her side the entire time, silent and sharp.
Then the power flickered.
Just once. Just long enough for everyone to tense.
Valentina didn't flinch. But when the light steadied again, she saw it—
A card tucked into her glass.
She lifted it slowly.
No crown is worn without blood. Midnight. South garden. Come alone.
Her heart thudded once, heavy and clear. She didn't show it.
Instead, she lifted her glass to the crowd and drank.
⸻
The south garden was quiet.
The air was colder here, the ivy-covered walls bending in shadows. Statues watched with hollow eyes, and the scent of damp earth and dying roses clung to everything.
Valentina walked alone, heels silent on the stone path. The pendant pulsed warm against her skin.
Then a voice behind her: "You came."
She turned.
Bryan stepped from behind the old fountain, hands still in his pockets, jaw tight.
"I was expecting a knife, not you," she said.
"I am the knife," he answered.
A beat. Then he added, "I told my brother not to move against you."
Valentina's brows arched. "And yet someone just threatened me in my own home."
"I didn't say he listened."
She stepped closer, their shadows merging beneath the moonlight. "So why warn me?"
"Because I don't want your blood on his hands," he said. "I'd rather it be on mine."
The heat between them snapped like a wire.
Valentina exhaled slowly. "You think you can kill me,Bryan?"
He moved in. "No," he whispered. "But I think you're about to kill everyone else."
Their faces were inches apart.
And just like that, the tension broke—not with a kiss, but with steel.
Bryan drew his knife, handed it to her hilt-first.
"Next time," he said, backing into the shadows, "don't come alone."
She held the blade in her palm long after he vanished.
And in the silence that followed, Valentina Scarlatti smiled.
The Queen wasn't playing their game.
She was rewriting the rules.