Chapter 6

Siena POV

As I walked away from Elmira's sickeningly sweet smile in the Grand Foyer, my mind drifted to a memory from three months ago in the East Wing Suite.

Elmira had laced her own Earl Grey tea with a mild toxin, staging a pathetic frame-up to accuse me-the commoner Queen-of attempting to assassinate an Elder. She had wanted to use the Castillo bloodline to crush me.

But Dante hadn't even blinked. My Dark Don had simply unholstered his Glock, slamming the heavy metal onto the mahogany table with a deafening crack. *"If anyone touches my wife, I will have the Underboss and my Enforcers drag every maid in this wing to the Underground Interrogation Room. We will flay them alive until we find the truth."*

Terrified by the sheer, suffocating bloodlust radiating from him, Elmira had immediately backed down, scapegoating a low-level Associate to save her own skin. Now, she thought she could outsmart me by using Chiara as her new pawn.

By noon, the battlefield shifted to the Formal Dining Room. Adeline had orchestrated a lavish luncheon, ostensibly to "teach" Chiara our rules, but truly to isolate me.

"It is a tragedy when youth and arrogance blind someone to the sacred Family Bond," Adeline drawled, swirling her expensive Bordeaux. She didn't look at me, but her target was obvious. Isabella smirked into her napkin, relishing the lecture. "A true Queen unites the bloodline; she doesn't trample it on a whim."

I scoffed, the sound slicing through the clinking of silver. I pushed my chair back, the legs scraping harshly against the marble floor. "Your hypocrisy is exhausting, Aunt Adeline. Enjoy your meal."

Before I could turn away, delicate fingers clamped onto my silk sleeve. Chiara looked up at me, her eyes shimmering with perfectly timed, unshed tears.

"Siena, please," she whimpered, her voice trembling with that familiar, sickening fragility. "Don't anger the Elders for my sake. I can bear the slums, I promise."

The sheer audacity of her performance made my blood run cold. This was the exact face she wore before the garrote wire tightened around my neck.

I didn't slap her. Instead, I flipped my hand, my fingers wrapping around her wrist like a vice. I squeezed until I felt the bones grind together, leaning down so my lips brushed her ear.

"One day," I whispered, my voice a demonic, hollow rasp meant only for her, "I will kill you with my own hands."

I released her abruptly. Chiara stumbled back, clutching her reddened wrist. The mask of the sweet victim shattered, replaced by raw, unadulterated shock. She stared at me as if looking at a monster, completely oblivious to the fact that she was the one who had created it.

I didn't wait for Adeline's inevitable praise of Chiara's "sacrifice." I walked out.

The adrenaline carried me all the way back to the Master Suite's Nursery. I needed silence. But the moment I stepped onto the plush wool rug, Maria, the Associate nanny, turned around with a bright smile.

In her arms was Leo. My five-month-old son, swaddled in expensive cashmere.

"He just woke up, *mia Regina*," Maria cooed, stepping toward me to present the heir. "Look who missed his mother."

She held him out.

*"I don't want a weak commoner for a mother!"*

The phantom wire sliced into my throat. White-hot fire exploded in my windpipe. I didn't see a pure, innocent infant. I saw the ten-year-old boy standing in the shadows of the interrogation room, his Castillo eyes dead and cold as he watched me choke on my own blood.

"No!" A raw, guttural scream tore from my throat.

I scrambled backward, my hip slamming violently into the vanity. Perfume bottles crashed to the floor, shattering into a hundred pieces. "Get him away! Get that monster away from me!"

Maria froze, her face draining of color. She clutched the baby to her chest, backing away in sheer terror. Sensing the panic, Leo began to wail, the high-pitched cries piercing my skull like shrapnel.

"My Queen!" Gia and Rosa rushed into the nursery, their eyes wide with alarm.

I couldn't breathe. I slid down the vanity, my knees hitting the floorboards amidst the broken glass. I curled into myself, trembling violently as the past and present collided in a horrifying mess. I didn't know how to look at the flesh and blood that had condemned me to hell.

In the suffocating darkness of my panic, my fractured mind craved only one thing. I needed Dante. I needed the terrifying, absolute protection of his arms, the only place in this blood-soaked world where the ghosts couldn't reach me.