THRONES OF DUST

Rose and ash fragrance filled the air. The former and now vacant Monticelli villa, abandoned because of the destroyed wedding, was a field of memories. White roses on hedges with arches were trampled and scattered all over, petals bruised like the hearts left behind the stone walls. Bianca rested against the balcony railing, wedding dress billowing. Hair escaped the chignon she had scattered about hours before. Veil lost; forgotten. Blood had been spilled at the altar. Lorenzo Di Franco's. Memory of words said, and shadow, remained. Luca stood behind her. Unspoken gestures. "You need to sleep," he told her. Bianca did not turn. "I will not sleep." He stepped closer. "Nor will I." She stood before him, her hand following the line of his black trousers. "This was supposed to be the start of it all. A new law. A new time. And once more it is the same war, Luca." Luca's face tightened. "So we end it. Finally." She looked into his eyes. "Even if it costs us everything that we have?" He nodded. "Even then." A knock at the door. Raphael came in, manila folder in his hand. He slapped it down on the table between them. "We found her. The woman on the hill. The one at the wedding." Bianca reached forward, opening the file. A woman glared back at her—a woman in black veil, eyes scanning the estate with a sniper rifle belt around her waist. "Name?" Luca asked. "Elisabetta Romano. Sophia's second-in-command of her personal guard formerly. Thought to be killed two years ago when the raid struck Sicily." Bianca's brow furrowed. "Why now?" Raphael shrugged. "Maybe she's looking for her revenge. Maybe she thinks she can restore honor to the Romano family name." Luca's voice was ice steel. "She won't live long enough to try." Bianca snatched the photo. "Kill her. Kill the others. No more ghosts. They traveled that night, under cover of darkness, to the deserted Romano villa in the Italian South. Raphael headed the column of tanks. Luca and Bianca followed, in black, pistols at the ready. As they pulled up in front of the house, the house had partly been a mausoleum and partly a house. Vines had shattered windows and years had cracked weak sound which had echoed through its halls. The front doors still hung wide open. "It's a trap," Raphael warned. Luca moved forward. "Let's make her believe we've taken the bait." Candles were lit to fill long unused candelabras. In the ballroom, a single chair was solitary by itself beside the huge fire. A woman sat in it, her back to them. "Ah, you've arrived," Elisabetta said, her voice honey and poison. "To murder the final Romano." Bianca lifted her gun. "You haunted my wedding like a specter. What did you want?" Elisabetta got up slowly from the ground, confronting them. The veil on her face was now lifted. Scars lined her skin—marks of a fire she'd survived, one Sophia'd planned for herself. "I wanted to make you see blood never just disappears. It goes underground. It infects. You married the Mafia King, Bianca. But the crown was made on dead bodies. Ours. Too." Luca took another step forward into the room. "Sophia torched your family alive, not us." "But you thwarted her," Elisabetta scoffed. "You murdered her before she could take revenge on me." Bianca let go of her gun, her voice not so angry now. "What do you want from us?" Elisabetta took another step closer to them. "Nothing. I just wanted to remind you the world's still watching. That power makes you enemies. That love leaves you vulnerable." "You're wrong," Luca spat, cold and unforgiving. "Love makes us dangerous." And in a flash of lightning steel, Raphael fired once. Elisabetta died. No ghosts remained.  B                                                                                           --- It was a week. The Monticelli house was rebuilt room by room, blood scrubbed from marble and iron polished until it shone like a promise. Bianca stood with Luca in the garden, her hands in his. "Then," she said, of dawn. "Is this peace?" Luca kissed her forehead. "It's our start." Raphael came toward them, a box in his hand. "Last one. From the vault." Bianca opened the box and breathed in sharply. A ring inside—her mother's ring. Stolen years ago by Sophia. Bianca slipped it onto her finger and faced Luca. "Now we can marry right. No betrayals. No bloodshed. Just us." And they did. Two months went by, a full moon night and none but their nearest and dearest within hearing distance when Bianca and Luca promised to one another—this time, unbroken. And under the vigilant nights of the starry cosmos, the Mafia Queen and World King consecrated their union not in blood but in the shared promise of forever. War was over. The crown had been won. And could not be lost this time either.