The engine purred like a contented beast as the black sedan sliced through the rainy night. Inside, Alexander finally allowed himself to look at her.
"You're staring, Alexander," Seraphina said, her voice a low melody that vibrated in his soul.
"Twenty years," he breathed. "For twenty years, I've carried the memory of a girl by an Italian lake. I never thought I'd see her again."
Her eyes widened slightly. "You remember."
"I remember everything. The way the sun caught your hair. The mole just above your lip." His voice dropped to a whisper. "I've killed for you. I've died for you every day since I lost you."
She reached out, her fingers brushing against his. "All this time... I thought I was alone in remembering."
"Never." The word was a vow. He cupped her face, his thumb tracing that perfect, maddening mole. "This was always meant to be."
When their lips met, it wasn't gentle. It was desperate and hungry, a storm of twenty years of longing. Her fingers tangled in his hair, pulling him closer as if she could merge their souls.
They broke apart, breathing heavily. Outside, the rain intensified, matching the wild rhythm of their hearts.
"He's watching us," she whispered, her forehead resting against his.
"Let him see," Alexander growled. "Let our son understand what real love looks like before he kills us for it."
The car surged forward, speeding toward the cliff's edge. But in that moment, with her taste still on his lips and her body warm against his, Alexander had never felt more alive. Death was coming, but he'd already found heaven.
---
The throne room doors swung open before me, twenty feet of polished mahogany that whispered of old money and older sins. I walked into the lion's den, my footsteps silent on the Persian rug that cost more than most men make in a lifetime.
They said the Queen was beautiful. The rumors didn't do her justice.
She stood by the floor-to-ceiling window, backlit by the setting sun, a silhouette of grace and power. When she turned, the air left my lungs in a rush.
ISABELLA.
The name whispered through my memory like a ghost. They called her Queen Isabella now, but I knew her as the girl from Lake Como. The one who haunted my dreams for twenty years.
"Alexander Vane," she said, her voice like velvet wrapped around steel. "The famous Shadow King."
I bowed, the motion feeling foreign and stiff. "Your Majesty."
When I rose, my eyes found what I'd been searching for without even knowing I was searching. There, just above her perfect Cupid's bow-the mole. That tiny, exquisite dark spot I'd memorized when I was twenty and she was barely fourteen.
The world tilted.
It can't be.
[Sound of a sharp intake of breath]
Memories flooded me-the sun-drenched Italian afternoon, the girl sketching by the water, the way she'd looked up and our eyes had met for one eternal moment. I'd searched for her for weeks before my duties forced me to leave Italy. She'd become my personal ghost, the one pure thing in my life of darkness.
And now she stood before me-the Queen of the very empire I'd vowed to destroy.
"Is something wrong, Mr. Vane?" she asked, one perfectly sculpted eyebrow rising.
I forced my voice to remain steady. "You remind me of someone I knew long ago. In Italy."
Her eyes-those same dark pools I'd drowned in decades ago-narrowed slightly. "Many people find me familiar. It must be the burden of royalty."
She moved to her desk, the silk of her dress whispering secrets as she walked. Every movement was grace, every gesture power. But I saw the slight tremor in her hand as she picked up a crystal glass. She remembered.
God help me, she remembers.
The girl I'd spent half my life dreaming about was now the untouchable Queen. The widow of the man I'd murdered. The mother of the boy I was manipulating.
Fate, it seemed, had a truly vicious sense of humor.
"Your son requires guidance," I said, forcing myself back to business. "The empire needs steady hands."
She looked at me, really looked at me, and in her eyes I saw the ghost of that young girl. "And you have the steadiest hands in America, don't you, Mr. Vane?"
Our eyes locked, and in that moment, twenty years disappeared. We were just a boy and a girl by a sun-kissed lake again. But the guns in my jacket and the crown on her head reminded me we were anything but.
The game had just become infinitely more dangerous.
And infinitely more personal.
---
The air in the throne room was thick with the scent of her perfume and the weight of twenty years. Isabella's gaze held mine, a queen's command and a girl's plea warring within them.
"My son, Lorenzo," she began, her voice steady yet layered with a mother's fear. "He is young. The wolves are already circling. He needs a teacher. Not a sycophant. He needs a man who understands true power." Her eyes drilled into me. "He needs you, Alexander."
It was a request that was an order, a plea that was a test. She was handing me her only son, the legacy of the man I hated, and trusting me, the architect of his father's demise, to shape him. The irony was so sharp it could draw blood.
I took a step closer, breaching the professional distance, drawn by the invisible thread that had connected us since Italy. "To teach him is to shape him," I said, my voice low, for her ears only. "To shape him is to shape the future of this entire empire. You are asking me to become the architect of your son's soul."
"I am," she whispered, her eyes flickering to the mole on my lip, a mirror of my own fixation. "Do I trust the wrong man?"
I didn't answer with words. I gave her a vow, my voice dropping to a lethal whisper. "I will teach him, Isabella. I will teach him everything. I will make him the master this empire needs. I swear it to you."
It was a promise, and a threat. I was agreeing to become the most powerful man in the life of the new King, and she was letting me. For a moment, our shared, forbidden history hung between us, a third presence in the room. Then, with a slight, almost imperceptible nod, she dismissed me.
---
I found Lorenzo in his father's old billiards room, not on the throne. A calculated move to appear casual, in control. He was leaning over the green felt, lining up a shot, a crystal glass of amber liquid beside him. He tried to emulate his father's swagger, but it sat on him like a boy playing dress-up.
"Uncle Alex," he said, without looking up. He took the shot. The balls cracked together, one sinking into a corner pocket. "My mother insists you are to be my... tutor."
He said the word like it was an insult.
I didn't speak. I walked to the rack, selected a cue of my own, and chalked it slowly, the sound grating in the silence. I moved to the table, my presence forcing him to straighten up and step back.
"The first lesson," I said, my voice flat and cold. I pointed my cue not at the balls, but at him. "Power isn't taken. It's accepted. The men out there..." I gestured vaguely towards the window, to the city beyond. "They don't follow you because of your name. They followed your father because they were afraid. They will follow you only if they are more afraid of the alternative."
He bristled, his youth showing in the tight line of his jaw. "And what is the alternative?"
I leaned down, my eyes locking with his. I didn't blink. "Me."
The single word hung in the air, heavy and absolute. I let him see it in my eyes-the cold truth that I was the one who had held his father's empire together, and I was the one who could let it crumble.
"You think you are the King," I continued, my voice still quiet, but now dripping with disdain. "You sit in his chair, you drink his whiskey, you give orders with his voice. But you are a boy. And this city eats boys for breakfast."
I turned from him, ignoring his furious, stunned silence, and lined up my shot. I didn't just sink a ball. I broke the formation, scattering the remaining pieces with a violent, precise crack.
"The second lesson," I said, straightening up and finally looking at him again. "Never turn your back on someone more dangerous than you. Your father forgot that."
I placed the cue back on the rack without another word and walked towards the door. I left him standing there, amid the ruined game, the truth of his fragile power settling around him like ash.
I had vowed to his mother I would teach him.
And my first lesson was in fear.
---
The phone call came in the dead of night. Lorenzo, in a fit of arrogant ambition, had gone to broker a deal with the rival Bianchi family without consulting me. Now he was trapped in a warehouse on the docks, surrounded, with only two bodyguards left standing.
Isabella burst into my study, her face pale but her eyes blazing with a mother's fury and fear. "They have my son," she said, her voice trembling but firm.
I was already moving, grabbing my custom-made Berettas from the desk drawer. "Stay here," I commanded, my voice tight with rage-not just at Lorenzo's stupidity, but at the danger he had put himself in. "I'll bring him back."
But as I headed for the door, I heard the distinct click of a safety being disengaged behind me. I turned to see Isabella holding a pearl-handled pistol with steady hands.
"I am not a porcelain doll to be left on the shelf, Alexander," she said, her eyes burning with intensity. "He is my son. I'm coming with you."
THE SHOWDOWN
We arrived at the docks in a black SUV, the rain making the air thick and heavy. Through the fog, we could see the warehouse, surrounded by Bianchi's men.
"Stay close to me," I ordered Isabella, my protective instincts screaming at me to lock her in the car. But the determined look in her eyes told me that wasn't an option.
We moved like shadows through the darkness, taking out Bianchi's perimeter guards with silent efficiency. Each time I eliminated a threat, I glanced back at Isabella, expecting to see fear. Instead, I saw cold calculation in her eyes.
When we reached the warehouse entrance, we could hear Lorenzo's voice, strained but defiant. "My father will-"
"Your father is dead, boy," a rough voice cut him off. "And soon you will be too."
That's when Isabella did something that shocked me. She stepped out from the shadows, holstering her weapon, and walked calmly into the warehouse.
"Gentlemen," she said, her voice echoing through the vast space. "I believe you have something that belongs to me."
All eyes turned to her. Lorenzo was tied to a chair in the center of the room, surrounded by a dozen armed men. Marco Bianchi, the family's don, stood before him.
"Isabella," Marco said, a cruel smile spreading across his face. "How kind of you to join us."
"I'm here to collect my son," she said, her gaze never leaving Marco's. "And to offer you a choice."
Marco laughed. "You're in no position to offer choices, my dear."
"Aren't I?" Isabella's voice was ice. "You see, while you've been busy with this... spectacle, my men have surrounded this warehouse. And your home. Your wife and daughter are currently having tea with my associates."
Marco's smile vanished. He pulled out his phone, his face paling as he saw the missed calls.
"Now," Isabella continued, her voice dropping to a dangerous whisper. "You can kill my son and die knowing your family will suffer unimaginably before they join you. Or you can let us walk out of here, and I'll consider this a misunderstanding between friends."
The warehouse was silent except for the rain hammering on the roof. I stood in the shadows, my guns trained on Marco, ready to put a bullet between his eyes if he so much as twitched wrong.
Finally, Marco lowered his head. "Take the boy," he muttered.
Isabella didn't rush. She walked calmly to her son, untied him with steady hands, and helped him to his feet. Only when they were safely behind me did she look back at Marco.
"Remember this lesson, Marco," she said. "A queen protects her king."
THE AFTERMATH
Back in the car, Lorenzo was shaking, his bravado completely shattered. "Mother, I-"
"Not now, Lorenzo," she said softly, wiping the blood from his face with a handkerchief. She looked at me, and for the first time since we'd stormed the warehouse, I saw the fear she'd been hiding.
I reached across the seat and took her hand. It was trembling now, the adrenaline fading. "You were magnificent," I whispered.
She gave me a tired smile. "A mother's love makes us capable of many things, Alexander. Even facing down monsters."
In that moment, as I looked at this woman who was both the girl of my dreams and a queen who commanded armies, I knew I was lost. Completely and utterly hers.
And I knew I would burn the entire world to ashes before I let anything happen to her or her son again.
TO BE CONTINUE _ visit YouTube for full Audiobook of Part 1