#Villa Rosso – Early Morning Light#
The silence in the villa was different that morning.
No guns, no orders, no updates. Just sunlight creeping through the tall windows and the low hum of wind against the olive trees outside.
Sienna sat alone in the master bathroom, barefoot, in Alessandro's old robe — the one that still smelled faintly of his cologne.
The pregnancy test sat on the marble counter. Two pink lines.
She stared at it. Not blinking. Not breathing.
Three weeks.
Three weeks since her body quietly began protecting what her heart didn't know it still carried.
Alessandro.
Him.
Inside her.
Her fingers touched her flat belly, her jaw tightening. And for the first time since that night at the villa… since the shot… since the black dress turned crimson…
A single tear escaped.
It rolled slowly down her cheek and landed on her thigh.
Not because she was weak.
Not because she was broken.
But because he lived. In her.
"Amore mio…" she whispered. (My love…)
She didn't crumble. She didn't fall apart.
She stood. Composed. And walked to the mirror.
Her eyes met her own reflection — not the widow, not the queen, but the mother of Alessandro Black's last heir.
And in that moment, her vengeance crystallized into something colder, sharper, unstoppable.
"This child will carry your name," she said aloud. "And they will inherit a kingdom... not a graveyard."
---
Later That Day – Villa War Room
She didn't tell the Daughters. Not yet. Not while blood still needed to be spilled.
But something in her changed. Her decisions grew more calculated. Her mercy vanished entirely.
She circled the next name on the board.
Luca Greco.
"Make it loud," she said. "The streets need to hear this one."
And she dabbed her lips with Crimson No. 7.
The world would burn for Alessandro Black's name.
And their child would be born into a throne of vengeance — not fear.
---
#Palermo – Temporary Hideout, Seaside Cliff Mansion#
Leonardo Ricci stood on the terrace, eyes fixed on the crashing waves. The sky above Sicily was a haunting grey — not stormy, just heavy. Like it knew something.
He lit a cigar with a trembling hand, trying to push back the latest whispers.
She's not just killing them…
She's building something.
She's pregnant.
The words reached him through the usual channels — quiet, cautious, but constant.
One of the girls in Sienna's inner circle, a cleaner, had been overheard whispering "il bambino del Re Nero" (the child of the Black King).
Another source swore she had a physician flown in from Florence… and killed him after. Clean. No record.
Ricci didn't want to believe it.
He couldn't believe it.
"No," he muttered to himself. "That womb was never meant to carry legacy."
But it did.
And the truth settled into his bones colder than any bullet ever could.
---
#Flashback – The Last Toast#
He remembered the toast at the wedding. Alessandro raising his glass with one arm wrapped around Sienna's waist.
"To a future ruled by love," Alessandro had said.
"To a legacy that won't need blood to survive."
Ricci had clinked his glass that night… smiling.
All the while planning his death.
He thought he killed the legacy with the groom.
But now... it was growing.
In silence.
In vengeance.
In her.
---
#Present – Ricci's Private Office#
He swept a glass off his desk, shattering it against the wall.
"Find out if it's true," he snapped at his second. "I want proof."
"And if it is?"
Ricci's jaw clenched.
"Then we're not just fighting a woman anymore."
"We're fighting a dynasty."
---
#Palermo – Ricci's Office, 2:14 a.m#.
The lights were low. The scotch was full. The air was tense with something unspoken.
Ricci sat at the head of the long table, flanked by two remaining allies — men too afraid to betray him now, but not brave enough to look him in the eye.
On the table before them: a photo.
Sienna Black.
Leaving a discreet clinic in Florence. Dressed in all black. Sunglasses. No bodyguards. Her hand over her stomach.
Proof.
The room was silent.
"So it's true," muttered one of them. "Lei aspetta." (She's expecting.)
Ricci didn't look up. Just stared at the image, his jaw twitching.
"She's not carrying a child," he said coldly. "She's carrying a threat. A bloodline with teeth."
He stood, poured himself another glass, then turned to the window.
"If that child is born, they'll write songs about her. They'll crown her Queen of the damned."
He turned, eyes sharp.
"She cannot give birth to a legend."
---
"Operation Stillborn"
The name made even his men flinch.
A plan was whispered: a car crash. A gas leak. A poisoned gift delivered to Villa Rosso under forged sympathy.
It had to be discreet. No blood. No noise. Just a quiet end to the future.
"She'll never see it coming," Ricci muttered.
But even as he said it, the back of his neck prickled.
Because somewhere in his soul, he knew: Sienna always sees it coming.
And if this failed…
She wouldn't just kill him.
She'd erase his entire bloodline.
---
Elsewhere – Villa Rosso
Sienna stood by her war map, hand resting on her belly.
She felt it. The shift in the air. The target on her womb.
And for the first time, she whispered aloud:
"Let them try."
Her fingers tightened into a fist.
"This child will be born into fire… and they'll rule its ashes."
---
Location: Zurich, Switzerland – Private Medical Facility
She had planned the trip carefully — a decoy appointment sent out through a secure network of fake clinics. Word leaked, intentionally, and within 24 hours, the trap was set.
A woman in white showed up at the facility, credentials flawless, soft-spoken, fluent in Italian. She introduced herself as Dott.ssa Maria Verdi, a specialist in maternal care.
Only problem?
The real Maria Verdi had disappeared 48 hours earlier in Milan. Her body would be found a week later — in a freezer, lips painted red.
This one… was an imposter. And she'd come bearing Ricci's poison.
But she never reached Sienna.
---
Zurich – Basement Level
Dott.ssa Verdi awoke tied to a chair. Cold steel. Blinding light.
Before her stood a tall, statuesque woman with scar across her jaw — Isadora, Sienna's interrogator, formerly a cartel enforcer known in Latin America as La Viuda (The Widow).
Verdi whimpered. "I—I was just hired…"
Isadora leaned in, her voice as smooth as silk and just as sharp.
"You were hired to kill the future of a queen."
A door opened.
Heels clicked slowly on concrete.
Sienna entered, dressed in a winter-white coat, her black hair swept into a sleek knot. No emotion on her face. Just silence.
She approached the woman.
Pulled a chair forward.
Sat.
Then whispered:
"Tell Ricci… I don't carry a child." She paused. Her voice turned to ice.
"I carry vengeance with a heartbeat."
Verdi's breath hitched.
Sienna stood.
"I'm letting you live. You'll deliver the message personally."
She turned to Isadora.
"Paint her lips."
A moment later, the woman was released — walking out of the building into the cold morning air with crimson lipstick bleeding down her chin, smeared, trembling, broken.
Word spread by nightfall.
Sienna Black knew everything.
And Ricci's failure now had a face.
---
Palermo – Ricci's Temporary Compound, 3:12 a.m.
He hadn't slept.
Not since the Zurich incident.
The woman — his assassin — had returned barely alive, makeup smeared in blood-red horror, repeating one phrase over and over like a broken prayer:
"She knew. She knew. She knew…"
Now she was in a catatonic state. Useless. A liability.
Ricci smashed the decanter against the wall, shards flying like shrapnel. His security team flinched but said nothing.
He turned to his consigliere, eyes bloodshot and wild.
"She's not human!" he screamed. "She's a curse in heels!"
He stormed to the war map — dotted with red Xs where his men once stood.
Only three names remained uncrossed… including his own.
"She wants me to watch. That's why I'm still alive," he whispered.
"She wants to burn my kingdom before she buries me."
---
The Walls Close In
Phone calls went unanswered. Some of his men had gone ghost. Others had switched sides — no one would admit it, but he knew.
The criminal underworld had shifted. And worse than fear… was belief.
They believed in her now. Not out of loyalty.
Out of reverence. Out of fear.
They called her La Regina Nera (The Black Queen).
They said she walks untouched by death. That her unborn child already carries the scent of smoke and blood.
And in every whisper, one message echoed:
"Sienna Black is coming."
---
Final Order
Ricci turned to his consigliere, voice low.
"If she gets close… if she even breathes my name—"
He pulled a small silver pistol from the drawer and set it on the table.
"Put it in my mouth and pull the trigger."
His man nodded once. But even he knew:
It wouldn't be that easy.
Because Sienna wouldn't grant him the mercy of a bullet.
She would bury him in shame. In fire. In crimson lipstick and legacy.
And when she was done, the world would remember her name... not his.
---
#Location: Prague – Black Velvet Club, 11:27 p.m#.
The lights pulsed red. The bass throbbed through the walls like a heartbeat. Wealth and corruption danced on the same floor.
And at the back booth — hands on two women, drink in one — sat Matteo Russo.
Number Twelve on Sienna's list.
A man who once kissed her cheek at her wedding, toasted her happiness, then signed Alessandro's death order the next day.
He had no idea that tonight, the music would be his requiem.
---
#The Daughters Move#
They entered separately.
Luna — the sleek one, ex-Russian arms dealer turned assassin — slid past the bouncers in a low-cut emerald dress.
Selene — silent and watchful — took the balcony. Sniper-ready, eyes on every exit.
Nerina, with her ink-black curls and Sicilian tattoos, whispered sweet things to the bartender as she slipped a powder into Matteo's drink.
Within minutes, Matteo leaned back, blinking slowly, heart sluggish.
Luna approached his booth.
He smiled. "You're not from around here."
"No," she said softly, taking the seat beside him. "But I'm exactly where I need to be."
Before he could react, she leaned in — one hand under his jaw — and kissed him.
Not with passion.
With judgment.
Her crimson lips left a perfect stain on his cheek.
By the time the poison reached his heart, he was smiling.
A glass fell.
Then silence.
---
#Message Sent#
By midnight, a courier delivered a velvet-lined box to a political fixer in Berlin — a known Ricci affiliate.
Inside?
Matteo Russo's Rolex.
His ring.
And a lipstick print on a folded napkin.
The card read:
"Three names remain. Ricci, save your prayer. The Queen is nearly home."
— Daughters of the Night.
---
#Location: Venice, Italy – Palazzo D'Oro#
The second-to-last before Ricci.
Dario Bellini.
Once Alessandro Black's "financier," now Ricci's loyal pocket snake — laundering blood money through art auctions and the Church.
A coward in silk suits. A traitor with rosary beads.
He lived like nobility in a Renaissance palace overlooking the Grand Canal — a gilded fortress surrounded by water and lies.
But even Venice couldn't keep the darkness out.
Not tonight.
---
#Arrival of the Daughters#
They came by separate gondolas, timed to perfection.
Chiara — Venetian native, once a courtesan and spy — navigated the canals with ease.
Aria, the tech ghost, had already cut security and set a false alarm across town.
Viviana — known in Milan as La Spina (The Thorn) — moved like a shadow through the lower corridors.
At 12:02 a.m., Dario Bellini was finishing a glass of Barolo in his gallery room — admiring a forged Botticelli — when the lights went out.
Footsteps echoed across the marble floor.
"Chi va là?" (Who's there?)
Then, candlelight.
Then… her.
Chiara stepped into view, dressed in a red silk gown with a thigh-slit like a wound. Her heels clicked with deliberate rhythm.
"Buonasera, Dario." (Good evening, Dario.)
He froze. "Sienna sent you?"
Chiara smiled.
"No. I am Sienna… in form. In fury."
A single shot rang out — silenced — straight through his heart.
He dropped before his glass hit the ground.
Chiara knelt. Pulled out her lipstick.
Crimson. Matte. No. 7.
She kissed his forehead gently.
"For Alessandro."
---
The Gondola of Death
By dawn, Bellini's body floated facedown beneath the Rialto Bridge — lips red, suit soaked, heart still.
On the wall behind the crime scene, in blood:
"Only two remain. Ricci — you're mine."
— S.B.
---
#One Before Me#
#Location: Ricci's Secure Estate, Southern France#
Rain slapped against the windows like warning drums. Ricci stood in the war room, a drink shaking in his hand, eyes locked on the screen.
News headline:
"Prominent Venetian Banker Found Dead—Crimson Message Left Behind"
His eye twitched.
Another one.
Dario Bellini — gone.
Just like Russo. Just like the rest.
That made fourteen.
One more name between him and death.
He laughed — sharp and nervous, the kind of laughter that echoed off empty souls.
"Haha… one person before she kisses me," he muttered to no one. "Just one. Lucky bastard."
But his voice trembled at the end.
He felt it — the weight of fate curling around his throat like a noose.
She was coming.
And she wouldn't send the Daughters.
Sienna would come herself.
---
#The Panic Move#
By morning, he flew in six new men — ex-mercenaries from the Balkans. No questions asked. Brutal. Expensive.
He doubled the perimeter guards, activated drone surveillance, burned old contact lines.
Anyone with the slightest link to Sienna was cut off, interrogated, or worse.
He gave them orders:
"If she steps onto this land, shoot her. Do not wait for a signal. Do not ask me for confirmation. If you see black velvet or red lipstick—empty the clip."
Still, the shadows lingered.
Because Ricci understood something he would never admit aloud:
Sienna didn't need a door.
She was already inside.
---