Queen of Hearts

Chapter Twenty

ROSIE

Ican’t listen to his words. My parents, traitors, affairs, secret siblings, stealing. He doesn’t know what he’s talking about. I don’t stop in the bedroom to grab anything as I head downstairs because everything I have here, he bought anyway.

I just need to get out of this house and away from Julian. I need to put some space between us and think about my next move. Why did he have to make things so complicated? Why couldn’t we just go back to how things were before? Elijah’s eyes almost pop out of his head when I stride towards the door in nothing but my underwear.

“Urm…Rosalyn?” he calls, coming out of the kitchen.

“Yeah?”

He motions to my state of undress. “You might want to grab a coat?”

“Oh.” I was so angry and confused I hadn’t really thought about how I was about to walk out into the suburbs in nothing but some fancy lingerie. “Eli, the beef is done. There’s some mashed potatoes and gravy in the fridge, it just needs to be heated up.”

“Oh shit, Daniel’s heart. Can you grab it for me please?” I ask, ignoring the footsteps I can hear coming from upstairs.

Creed darts into the kitchen and quickly returns, handing me the Tupperware box, frowning. “Aren’t you staying?”

I inhale and exhale slowly before answering, trying to keep it together. Trying to not let my heart shatter even though I knew it would inevitably end this way. There was no future for me here, and I refused to be someone’s lackey. I didn’t care how big his dick was or how he smelt like a day at the beach or how he seemed to be obsessed with my banana muffins.

“No, I’m done here. Oh, and by the way…I think I’m currently winning,” I say, lifting the box with Daniel’s heart. “This puts the score at 1- 0 in my favor Creed.”

“I don’t think joint effort kills should count.” He scoffs, shaking his head as he stands in the doorway watching me carefully.

“Ahhhh, but I’m a liar and a cheat, so I’ll be claiming this one.”

He throws his hands up in defeat. “Fine, but I won’t go easy on you next time.”

We stare at each other for a moment in silence, the three mafia-teers over before they had even begun and a new unease creeping into everything.

Finally, I sigh and give Creed an apologetic look. “Elijah…let’s not run into each other again. I don’t want to kill you, okay?”

“I doubt we’ll have much choice.” His face is serious and I know he understands what I’m saying. The second my foot is over the threshold, this alliance, this uneasy truce we’ve had is dissolved. We’re no longer in a detente and it’s back to war. He’ll be back to hunting me. One of us will have to kill the other, since it’s his job to protect Julian, and mine to kill him.

“True.” There was no avoiding him if I want what’s rightfully mine. “I’ll make it quick then.”

That makes him grin, his competitive side coming out. “Don’t be so cocky, Queen of Hearts. I’m not going to go down without a fight.”

I nod with a small smile, accepting that this was the world I lived in. Grabbing one of Julian’s longer coats, I put it on and ignored the figure looming on the stairs. Nothing he could say would stop me now anyway.

I need room to breathe.

To think.

But to do that, I had to take care of something first.

“Did I or did I not warn you not to cross me, Valentina?” I ask as I run a knife down her cheek, the tip of the blade barely breaking the skin as it sliced down like I was cutting butter. The small trail of blood is nothing and yet she whimpers.

This is why I hate dealing with the elders in The Family. They were all mouth, ranting and raving about ‘the good old days’, but cut them a little and they cried. I have never personally kneecapped anyone, and that was popular amongst her generation. I could do way worse, that’s all I’m getting at.

“I’m sorry, I can’t hear you through the gag. Let me just…there! All better!” I sit on her dining room table and cross my legs, a bored look on my face as she sobs, tied to the chair in front of me. Her dark hair is a mess, and her designer clothes are rumpled as she almost melts into her bindings. A shade of purple has started blooming around her right eye.

Esme and Paulie have accompanied me to the Bruno residence tonight, but I have two more people positioned outside should Antonio return home from work early. Paulie had to go into hiding and has been laying low at Lola’s empty apartment with me, since his loyalty was uncovered. Esme volunteered to be here, she never really liked Valentina and when she heard that it was the old bat who was responsible for St Mary’s, well she wanted to be included in doling out the punishment.

“Did you get my special delivery?” I ask as her sobs slow, using the knife to carve my initials into her expensive table. I look at the RG and run my fingers through the gouges. I’d sent the heart to her this morning by special delivery, waiting until she was home alone. She’d tried to barricade herself inside this gorgeous townhouse but it was already too late. I was coming for her one way or another.

With her swollen eyes, she glares at me. I can’t decide if it was my punch earlier or all the crying that was making her look like a mess. Either way, Valentina Bruno was not looking her best right now.

“Who was it?” she whispers, afraid of my answer even though she already knows. She has to. I hope it’s like an ache, a giant fucking hole in her black soul. It’s the least she deserves for killing those children.

I feel my lips stretch into a slow, cruel smile. “Who do you think, Mommy dearest?”

Her body slumps as she exhales, “Daniel.”

“Daniel. Traitorous, little Daniel.”

She spits, “You are the traitor here, your father promised us that you would be the head of this Family but all you do is lurk in the shadows like vermin.”

I nod and Esme gives her a hard slap. I feel a sense of sick satisfaction as Valentina’s head whips back.

“My father died so that you could have a better future. This Family was his life,” I growl, leaning in. I wanted to gut the bitch for everything she’d done, but that would be over too quickly. This punishment needed to fit the crime. It would be drawn out and it would be painful, and in the end, she would be begging for mercy that I refused to give.

She scoffs, “Pfft, his greed is what got him killed. He wanted more money, more power and everyone knows it. You’re just a blind, bitter child, I never should have supported you.”

I smile again, her words are just designed to hurt me. I’d refused to sully my parents’ memories by digging up their transgressions. It didn’t matter what they did, I knew who they were. I knew that they loved me. Valentina doesn’t know shit, except the fact that she’s not making it through this, and now she’s trying to get under my skin. It won’t work. There were children in that church. Innocents. People who hadn’t chosen a side and just wanted to pray. She crossed a line, and now, I was going to make her pay for it.

Stabbing my knife into the table, I stand and boom, “Valentina Bruno, I charge you with the crime of treason against your Queen. Disloyalty, deception and pure stupidity are your offences and for that, your punishment will be fucking awful. I’ll make sure of it.

She starts crying again, big, heaving, wailing noises. Like mother, like son. How had I not seen the similarities sooner? Her howls grates on me just like Daniel’s did and I have to bite my tongue.

Grabbing her chin, I hiss, “And for the little trick with the church, I’ll make sure your entire family pays.”

I hear Esme make a surprised noise; I didn’t usually punish all of the family for the acts of one, but this was an exception. Well, them and the Rossi’s. Frankie’s boys still owed me a blood debt. I needed to clean house and know who was on my side. I wasn’t going to be disobeyed. I wasn’t going to watch my back amongst my own people. I didn’t roll like that.

“They had nothing to do with it!” Valentina cries, struggling against her bindings.

I laugh coldly. “When the roots are rotten, you get rid of the whole tree. You should know this by now and my patience has its limits.”

I walk leisurely around her, using the same tactic Creed did to confuse and disorient her. “Daniel already tested me. He died so much quicker than he should have. It was almost painless, I mean, I did cut his hamstrings, but that’s nothing really. Not in comparison to what I have planned for you.”

Her howls get louder and I put the gag back into her mouth, headbutting her when she tries to bite my fingers. She slumps unconscious in her chair.

Nodding to Paulie I command, “Take her away, don’t give her anything to eat or drink and be at the warehouse early tomorrow. We have some work to do.”

I’d shown up at The Blue Caterpillar demanding an audience with the Volkov’s, which I had been surprisingly granted. In exchange for my forgiveness over Alexi hitting on Julian, they’d kindly agreed to let me use another warehouse they had over in Port Ellesmere. I think they were both more afraid that I was there to devour their hearts than anything else, and would have agreed to anything in the moment.

I listen to Paulie drag her out to the van with one of the other men, aware that Esme has been lingering behind, waiting to say something. I’d turned up at her house two nights ago, in my underwear and Julian’s coat, a mess. I explained where I’d been and she updated me on Valentina trying to convince everyone I was dead and that Julian needed to be killed.

“Are you really going to punish the whole family for her crimes?” she finally asks.

I shake my head as I sit in the chair Valentina just vacated. “Antonio Bruno was plotting against Julian anyway. Cato found evidence of it and I’ve just been biding my time until I could get rid of the whole toxic family.”

When I’d returned to Lola’s flat yesterday with Paulie and found Cato waiting for me, I’d been so relieved. That‘s when they told me that Valentina was a plant by Antonio, put amongst my followers to push us towards killing Julian so Antonio as Consigliere could swoop in and save The Family. Lawrence was, of course, supporting the whole thing.

Fiddling with her fingers, her voice trembles a little. “So, you’re helping Julian?”

“No. Yes. Fuck.” I groan as I cover my face.

She comes beside me and lays a hand on my shoulder gently. “Rosie, have you ever actually thought about why you’re doing this and why you hate him?”

Sighing, I reply, “I think about it every day, Esme.”

We’ve both lost people because of what the Asaro family did that night and how things went down. But rationally I knew that wasn’t Julian. That was Felix. And Frank. And my father. He played his role in all of it too. Maybe he wasn’t as perfect as I’d remembered him, grief did that. But I still couldn’t fall into line under Julian. That was never going to be good enough for me.

“You’ve spent time with him now, do you still feel the same way?”

“I don’t know…” He said he tried to protect me, to shield me but I never needed that. He did. He was the naive one who needed protection, but I couldn’t make myself an underling for him. If he wasn’t fit to sit on the throne then he needed to be removed.

“Is there no way to compromise?”

I groan again in response.

Chuckling, she says, “Let’s make this simple: do you want to kill him?”

“No. But I will if I have to.” I don’t want to hurt him. I think it may actually hurt me too, but I need to put my Family first. The people who’ve looked after me for the last ten years deserve better.

“I really hope it doesn’t come to that.”

“Me too,” I mumble as I wipe away the lone tear that slides down my cheek.