The air in my office felt like it was made of lead. Every time I inhaled, it sat heavy in my lungs, reminding me that the atmosphere of a kingdom ain't the same as the air in the streets. Up here, in the penthouse suite of my flagship salon, surrounded by velvet chairs and the scent of French perfume, you'd think I was safe. But the walls were starting to talk, and they weren't saying nothing I wanted to hear.
I was sitting behind my desk, staring at a spread of financial reports that looked like gibberish because all I could see was Rico's face in that alley. The way his eyes had looked—blown out with a terror so deep it turned his pupils into bottomless pits. I'd made a choice. A "cleaning house" choice. And even though my hands were scrubbed raw with the strongest soap money could buy, I could still smell the faint, ghostly scent of bleach.
A sharp knock at the door made me jump. My hand instinctively twitched toward the drawer where I kept the pearl-handled 9mm.
"Lina? You in there?"
It was Maya. Her voice was thin, like a wire about to snap. I took a breath, smoothed the front of my silk jumpsuit, and hit the buzzer. "Come in, May."
The door swung open, but the woman who walked in wasn't the laughing, gossiping best friend I'd known since we were rocking pigtails and skinned knees in the projects. Maya looked like she'd aged a decade in a week. Her eyes were rimmed with red, and her skin—usually glowing like honey—looked sallow under the office lights.
"We need to talk," she said, and she didn't wait for an invite to sit. She stood in the center of the room, her arms crossed tight over her chest, like she was trying to hold herself together.
"I'm a little busy, May. The Q4 projections—"
"Stop it, Lina. Just stop." She cut me off, her voice trembling. "Don't give me the CEO routine. Not today. Not after what happened at the salon. Not after the way you've been acting like a damn stranger in your own house."
I leaned back, my chair creaking. I kept my face a mask of stone. "I'm trying to keep this business afloat while people are literally shooting at us. I don't have time for a heart-to-heart."
"People are shooting at us because of *you*!" Maya's voice rose, a sharp, jagged sound. "We used to tell each other everything, Lina. Every secret, every crush, every dream. Now? Now I look at you and I don't even know who's behind those eyes. You're cold. You're secretive. You look at me like I'm a liability instead of a sister."
"I'm trying to protect you," I said, and the words felt like ash in my mouth.
"By lying to me? By keeping me in the dark while you move like a ghost? Lina, I saw the way you looked at Rico before he disappeared. I saw the way Bishop was watching him. And now Rico's gone? Just like that? No call, no nothing?"
I felt the ice settle in my veins. "Rico decided to move on. That's all you need to know."
Maya let out a hollow, bitter laugh. "Move on. Right. Is that what we're calling it now? You're turning into a monster, Lina. This 'Queen' thing? It's eating you alive. And the worst part is, you're letting it eat *us* too."
She turned and walked out before I could find a lie big enough to cover the truth. The silence she left behind was louder than her shouting. I sat there, the "killer eyes" Stone talked about staring back at me from the darkened reflection of my computer screen. I wanted to go after her. I wanted to tell her I was sorry. But in this game, an apology is just an admission of weakness.
I didn't have time to dwell on Maya's hurt because the door burst open again. This time, there was no knock.
Jordan came in hot, his cane thumping rhythmically against the hardwood floor like a war drum. He didn't look like my baby brother anymore. The soft edges of his face had hardened into something jagged and sharp.
"Tell me you heard," he barked, slamming a newspaper down on my desk. The headline was about the "Queens Alley Massacre"—Dante's work.
"I heard, Jordan. Calm down."
"Calm down? Lina, Dante is out here turning our people into statistics! He's spitting on our name, and you're up here sitting in a silk chair looking at spreadsheets!" He leaned over the desk, his face inches from mine. "Ghost is in a coma, Lina. Ghost! The kid who used to share his lunch with me in middle school!"
"I know what happened to Ghost," I said, my voice dropping to a low, dangerous octave. "And I'm handling it."
"Handling it how? By sending Bishop to do more 'cleaning'? By playing hide-and-seek with a detective who wants to put you in a cage?" Jordan's eyes were wild, fueled by a mix of trauma and a newfound, toxic ambition. "Dante's attack proved one thing: you need more muscle. *My* muscle. I'm tired of being the protected little brother. I'm tired of being the prince in a gilded cage while the kingdom burns."
"You're a kid, Jordan. You don't know the first thing about a real war."
"I took a bullet for this family!" he roared, gesturing to his mangled leg. "I've bled for this! That makes me a soldier, Lina. Whether you like it or not. I want in. I want to be at the meetings. I want to be the one who goes back at Dante. I want him to see my face before I send him to hell."
I stood up, my chair flying back and hitting the wall. The power in the room shifted. I wasn't his sister anymore. I was the Queen.
"You want to be a soldier?" I stepped around the desk, my shadow looming over him. "A soldier follows orders. And my order is for you to stay the hell away from the street side of this business. You think because you survived a drive-by you're John Wick? You're a liability, Jordan. You're impulsive, you're emotional, and you can't even walk without that stick."
Jordan flinched, his face turning a deep, angry shade of red. "A liability?"
"That's right. Every time I have to look over my shoulder to make sure you're safe, that's a second I'm not looking at my enemies. You aren't an asset to this operation. You're a weakness. And Dante knows it. That's why he's targeting you."
"I stayed loyal," Jordan whispered, his voice shaking with a rage that was turning into something much colder. "I kept your secrets. I lied to Mom. I did everything you asked. And this is how you see me? As a mistake?"
"I see you as my brother," I said, trying to soften my voice, but the "Queen" wouldn't let me. The words came out like shards of glass. "And as long as I'm in charge, you stay where I put you."
Jordan stared at me for a long beat. The air between us was electric, a bridge burning in real-time. I saw the moment the respect in his eyes curdled into resentment. I saw the moment the boy I'd raised decided he didn't need me anymore.
"Fine," he said, his voice terrifyingly quiet. "If you won't give me a seat at the table, Lina... I'll find someone who will."
He turned on his heel, the *thump-clack* of his cane echoing in the hallway as he stormed out. I stood in the center of my beautiful, empty office, the silence pressing in on me like a physical weight.
I'd protected them. I'd lied for them. I'd killed for them. And in the process, I'd become the very thing they hated.
I walked over to the window and looked out at the city. The lights were twinkling, beautiful and cold. Somewhere out there, Dante was laughing. Somewhere out there, Stone was waiting. And somewhere out there, my brother was looking for a way to prove me wrong.
I looked down at my hands. They were clean. Perfectly, surgically clean.
But as I watched my brother's car peel out of the parking lot, I realized that the foundations of my empire weren't made of bricks or bills. They were made of people.
And I could hear the glass starting to shatter.
***
I reached for my burner phone to call Bishop, to tell him to follow Jordan, to keep him safe—but a new message was already waiting for me.
It was a video file from an encrypted source.
I hit play.
The footage was grainy, taken from a high-angle security camera in a seedy bar I didn't recognize. In the center of the frame, sitting in a dark booth, was Jordan.
And sitting across from him, leaning in with a predatory, welcoming smile, was Dante Cruz's top lieutenant.
Jordan wasn't just looking for a seat at a table. He was looking for mine.