THE QUEEN OF CHAOS
2033 Words
THE QUEEN OF CHAOS
The dampness of the ruined church seeped through the soles of my boots, but the true cold was inside me.
I held the weapon with a steady grip, aiming directly at Dante Moretti’s chest. The blood moon filtered through the cracks in the crumbling roof, bathing his face in a scarlet hue that made him look like the corpse of a profane saint.
"Are you afraid, Sofia?" Dante asked, taking a step forward without a single muscle twitching. The yellow envelope vibrated slightly between his fingers. "You smell of the fear that Aaron D’Luca has infused into your veins. But you also smell of him. Of his damn tobacco. Of his possession."
"Don't speak of him," I hissed, my fingers tightening around the grip. "Give me the names, Dante. Give me the names of the men who drowned my mother, or I swear this ruin will be your grave."
Dante let out a dry laugh—a lugubrious echo that startled the nocturnal birds hidden in the ivy.
"And what will you do if I give them to you? Will you run to your owner's bed to ask his permission to kill them?" He took two more steps, defying my line of fire. "The main name in that report is D’Luca. Aaron’s father gave the order, and Aaron himself, when he was just a power-hungry teenager, cleaned up the scene. He erased the tracks from the financial report, Sofia. Your husband is the architect of the silence that shrouded your mother’s death."
The ground seemed to sway beneath my feet. A wave of nausea hit my stomach, but I forced myself to keep the gun raised.
Aaron cleaned up the scene. The image of his large hands—the same ones that had pinned my wrists against the mattress—erasing the evidence of my mother’s murder, pierced my brain.
"You're lying," I whispered, though my voice trembled, betraying the crack in my armor.
"I am not lying and you know it." Dante extended the envelope, almost brushing the tip of my gun. "Hand over the Vatican key. With the diocese accounts frozen and the identities of the informants in my possession, The Commission will destroy Aaron before dawn…"
"…I will give you a new identity. I will give you the freedom that monster stole from you."
I looked at the envelope. I looked into Dante’s melancholy eyes. The temptation of freedom was a siren song in the middle of my storm.
But then, a subtle, almost imperceptible crunch echoed at the church entrance. The Tuscan wind stopped blowing. The air grew heavy, dense, charged with a familiar scent that paralyzed me completely.
Imported tobacco and woody cologne.
"It’s a tempting offer, Moretti." Aaron’s voice emerged from the shadows of the central aisle. It wasn't a shout; it was that whisper that seemed to rise from the graveyards.
"The only problem is that you are trying to buy an asset that already has an owner. And the price of this asset is higher than your decaying family will ever be able to pay."
Dante spun around with feline speed, drawing his own weapon, but before he could raise it, a red laser dot landed directly in the center of his forehead. Then another on his chest. Franco’s snipers already dominated the room.
Aaron advanced from the gloom. He wasn't wearing his overcoat, just a charcoal three-piece suit. His hands were tucked into his trousers pockets, and his posture was one of such absolute calm that it was terrifying.
He stopped three meters away from us, scanning his gaze first over Dante and then over me.
When his eyes locked onto my leather clothes and the gun I still held, a slow, cruel smile curled his lips.
"Well, my little viper," Aaron murmured, his steps echoing on the damp stone. "You really believed a sedative in my glass would work twice. I let you come, Sofia. I wanted to see how far your audacity went. I wanted to see if the specimen I molded was a weapon or a defective toy."
"Stay back, Aaron!" I shouted, turning my gun toward him. Now I was caught between two demons, and my weapon was aimed at the man who shared my bed.
"I know what you did! I know you cleaned up the scene of my mother’s murder! I know you erased the tracks!"
Aaron didn't stop upon hearing me. He kept moving forward until the barrel of my gun pressed directly against his vest, right in the same spot where, hours earlier, I had pressed the dagger. I could feel the rhythmic, astonishingly calm beat of his heart.
"And are you going to shoot me for that, Sofia?" he asked, his voice dropping to an intimate, almost affectionate tone, completely ignoring Dante.
"Are you going to kill me based on the word of a Moretti? I told you at the mansion: my father gave the orders back then. I only made sure the D’Luca name wasn't stained by the stupidity of your progenitor."
"…If you want to shoot, do it. But if you kill me, remember that the order for Franco’s men to execute your father at the safe house is already programmed to trigger if my heart stops beating."
"You are a damn demon!" Tears of frustration and hatred ran down my cheeks, but I didn't lower the gun. I gripped it tighter.
"I am the demon keeping you breathing, darling," he replied, raising a hand with agonizing slowness to stroke my wet cheek with the back of his fingers. His touch burned.
"Now, lower the gun. We have business to settle with Mr. Moretti."
"Don't do it, Sofia!" Dante intervened, the laser sight flashing on his forehead. "If you believe him, you are signing your own execution. He will never let you go!"
I turned my head toward Dante. Then I looked at Aaron. In that microsecond, all the strategy Aaron had taught me, all the cunning I had accumulated in that golden cage, crystallized in my mind. A good player never shows their cards. And I held the highest card of all.
"You are both right," I said, my voice regaining a cold calm that surprised both men. "Neither of you wants me free. Both of you want me as the key to a vault. So, we are changing the rules of the game."
Before Aaron could react, I took a step back, slipping out of his reach, and aimed my gun directly at the envelope Dante held in his hand. And I fired.
The thunder of the bullet filled the ruined church, and the impact shredded the yellowed paper, sending the forensic reports flying in pieces ignited by the gunpowder.
Dante recoiled in shock. In that exact moment of distraction, Aaron drew the small gun hidden in his boot and fired twice.
The bullets slammed into Dante’s shoulders, bringing him to the ground with a cry of agony.
The Moretti’s gun flew out of reach, lost in the darkness.
Aaron walked over to him with the elegance of an executioner and stepped on his wounded hand, wrenching a groan of pain from him. Then, he looked up at me. His eyes burned with a mixture of savage fury and a fascination that bordered on madness.
"That was... unexpected," Aaron admitted, his breathing altering for the first time. "You destroyed the evidence, Sofia. You destroyed your supposed truth."
"I destroyed Dante’s version," I corrected, walking toward them with firm steps, the leather of my clothes creaking in the sepulchral silence. "And now, Aaron, you are going to give me your version. But not here. Not in front of your snipers."
Aaron smiled—a genuinely pleased expression. He leaned down, grabbed Dante by the hair, and dragged him a few inches.
"Franco," Aaron called out into the darkness. His right-hand man appeared immediately from the shadows. "Clean up this place. Take Dante to the mansion's basements. I want him alive for when my wife decides to continue her interrogation."
"Yes, Don Aaron," Franco replied, signaling the guards to carry the wounded man away.
Aaron turned to me, holstering his weapon. Then he stepped closer and, without asking permission, grabbed me by the waist with brute force and pulled me against his body.
His hands traveled down my back, claiming every inch of my black leather-clad figure.
"You have crossed the Rubicon, Sofia," he whispered against my lips, his hot breath mingling with mine. "You fired in my presence, coordinated an ambush, and destroyed the enemy. You are a D’Luca in every fiber of your being, even if you hate me for it."
"You're right. I hate you, Aaron," I replied, digging my nails into his shoulders, feeling the adrenaline burn inside me. "I hate you so much that the day I destroy you, I'll make sure to look into your eyes until they go dark."
"I hope you try, my little queen," he murmured, before capturing my lips in a fierce kiss. It was both a punishment and a reward. The kiss tasted of passion, gunpowder, betrayal, and a blood pact that could no longer be broken.
The return to the mansion was different. This time, Aaron kept me sitting on his lap, but his arms weren't a protective prison; they were the arms of a general who had just discovered his trophy was, in reality, his equal on the battlefield.
As we entered the suite, the dimness of the room welcomed us like a silent accomplice.
Aaron closed the door and, for the first time, did not use force. He took off his jacket and tie, letting them drop onto the chair, while watching me remove my boots and the dagger from my boot.
"The Commission meets tomorrow at noon, Sofia," he said, leaning against the bedpost.
"Dante is in the basement, your father is still alive, and you have the password in your head. What is your next move?"
I approached him slowly, unbuttoning my leather jacket, letting the black lingerie expose itself to his hungry gaze. The black diamond on my neck shimmered under the moonlight.
"My next move, Aaron," I said, stopping an inch from his chest, "is to sit at The Commission table. But not by your side. Not as your trophy. I am going to sit as the owner of the Vatican documents. You will move the army pieces, but I will hold the crown."
Aaron took me by the chin, forcing me to look into the darkness of his soul. His thumb traced my lips with agonizing slowness.
"And if I refuse? What if I decide I'd rather lock you in this room and forget about the damn key?"
"If you do," I replied, bringing a hand up to his neck, brushing the pads of my fingers against his jugular, "the password dies with me. And you will spend the rest of your days knowing that the devil was defeated by the woman he himself tried to chain."
Aaron let out a throaty laugh—an expression of surrender to the monster he had created.
He lifted me up, throwing me onto the bed with an urgency that no longer sought to dominate, but to fuse with the chaos I represented.
"Then let's rule hell together, Sofia," he whispered against my skin, his hands stripping away the rest of my clothes with desperation. "Because tonight, we both know that betrayal is no longer a mistake. It is our masterpiece."
As his body covered mine in the darkness, I understood that the girl who feared the D’Lucas had died in that ruined church. The game for the crown of Italy had just begun. And I was ready to burn the entire board—not alone, but with the devil by my side.
- Writer
