Chapter One: Queen's Don't Flinch ✦
SIYA's POV
The silence in my office isn't peaceful. It's deliberate.
Every sound—the tick of the old brass clock, the quiet rustle of paper, the soft hum of the city below—feels like it's holding its breath. Just like me.
I sit behind my desk, the weight of power draped over my shoulders like an invisible shawl. On the surface, everything is calm—orderly stacks of files, ledgers inked with precision, a full glass of wine untouched at my side. But inside?
A storm.
Because somewhere between verifying arms shipments and signing off on loyalty payouts, Alessandro Moretti slipped into my thoughts again.
I hate him.
I hate that name. I hate that face. I hate the way he walks into every room like he owns it, even when he doesn't. I hate that he doesn't have to raise his voice to make it lethal. That when he looks at me, he never blinks—like he's always calculating, always watching, always ten steps ahead.
But most of all, I hate how he lingers. In my mind. In my bloodstream. In the quiet moments like this.
We're due to meet tomorrow. A neutral ground summit. All the big players. Cold wars in tailored suits. My father would've expected me to strike first.
But Alessandro?
He'll be there, with his glass of whiskey and unreadable eyes. He'll smile like he knows something I don't. And I'll want to put a bullet between his eyes just to wipe that smirk off his face.
I press the pen harder against the page. Breathe. Focus.
Snap. Snap.
Fingers click sharply in front of my face.
I flinch.
Just slightly. But enough.
"You're doing it again," Nyra says flatly, standing over my desk with one hand on her hip and the other holding her tablet.
I blink, thrown off by how easily she reads me. "Doing what?"
She raises a brow. "Letting tall, dark, and Italian dance around in your head rent-free."
"I'm fine," I say, because that's what I always say.
"Don't give me that," she fires back. "You flinched, Siya. You never flinch."
Her tone is more steel than sarcasm now. And that's how I know she's not just poking—she's worried.
"You've been on edge ever since that Vienna meeting. Is he really getting under your skin that much?"
I stay silent. Which, for Nyra, is all the confirmation she needs.
She sighs and sets the tablet down. "You hate him. Cool. I hate his face too. But this? This isn't you. He doesn't get to live in your mind. Not after everything we've built."
My throat tightens—not because of Alessandro. But because she's right. This empire, this reputation, this crown on my head—I didn't earn it by being distracted.
I earned it in blood. In silence. In betrayal.
And in that one moment that changed everything.
My eyes drop to the edge of my desk—where the wood is still faintly scarred from that night, years ago, when I came back from the dead.
Nyra sees the shift in my expression before I say anything.
She always does.
Her voice softens, almost teasing. "You thinking about the storage room again?"
I nod, just once.
And just like that, the memory grips me like a steel vice.
~Flashback – Six years ago
I was bleeding.
Not just the cut on my arm or the cracked rib—I was bleeding from inside. From trust broken by people who were supposed to love me. My uncle had ordered a hit on me. His men nearly succeeded.
They thought I'd be too scared to run. Too soft to survive.
I limped into that dusty storage room at the back of Delhi Junction because I needed air. Needed to disappear for a second. My phone was dead. My driver was missing. And the train I was meant to take had exploded two hours ago.
I didn't expect the girl already in the room.
She was crouched in the corner, hoodie pulled low, cradling a laptop like it was a weapon. Her eyeliner was smudged, one boot missing, and there was something feral in her eyes—like she'd bitten the world back and was daring it to try again.
She looked up at me, completely unfazed.
"If you scream, I break your jaw," I said automatically, already reaching for the blade in my boot.
She didn't even blink. "You try, I crash your entire inheritance from this laptop."
I remember... I laughed.
First time I'd laughed in days.
We didn't trust each other. Not yet. But something about her—her complete refusal to flinch—pulled me in. We didn't talk like girls. We talked like ghosts. Like survivors.
Her name was Nyra Singh, and she was on the run from a politician she'd exposed—trafficking ring, police bribes, the whole nightmare. She had enough data to burn a government and nowhere to go.
I told her who I was. What I was running from.
We didn't say it, but we knew: if we walked out of that room together, it would change everything.
So we did.
I gave her safety. She gave me secrets. We took down my uncle, then two more families. Quietly. Precisely.
Now?
I didn't know it then, but I'd just met the only person in this world who would never betray me.
We made a deal that night.
And from that moment on... we were no longer alone.
She's not just my best friend. She's my shadow, my sword, my code-breaker, my person.
And maybe that's why I don't know how I feel about this... Moretti.
Because Nyra's watching me. Carefully. Warily.
And if there's one person in the world whose silence feels like thunder... it's hers.
SIYA's POV — after the flashback
The memory fades, but the feeling stays.
It always does.
Nyra's sitting back in the chair now, arms crossed, her eyes still fixed on me with that same look she had when she saw me bleeding for the first time—concern masked by defiance.
"You good?" she asks, voice lower this time. No teasing. No biting.
I nod slowly. "Yeah. Just remembering where we started."
She hums. "We were chaos. Still are."
I allow a faint smile. Then I reach for the files on the desk, pushing aside anything related to Moretti. He can wait. The real game is about to begin.
"We'll talk about the Italian snake later," I say quietly. "Right now, we've got bigger things to handle."
Nyra grins. "That's my girl."
The summit is less than twenty-four hours away. Representatives from the Russian bratva, the Yakuza, the Latin cartels, and of course—Moretti's faction. All powerhouses. All greedy. All vulnerable in the right hands.
Which is why Nyra's already pulling up files on her tablet, eyes scanning lines of code and decrypted documents like she's reading a bedtime story.
"I've already dug up the Russian consigliere's off-the-record dealings with a Colombian rival," she says smoothly. "Yakuza's tech supplier has a hidden mistress in Macau, and our friends from Brazil? One of them's been laundering money through a fake cancer charity."
"Use that," I say. "Not to blackmail. Yet. Just... reminders. Subtle ones."
Nyra nods, already in mission mode. "Leave the breadcrumbs. Make them sweat."
"And Moretti?" I ask, unable to stop myself.
She glances at me over the screen, brows raised. "What about him?"
I hesitate. Then, "What do we know?"
Nyra leans back, dark amusement flickering in her eyes. "Nothing we can use. Not yet. The man's cleaner than a surgeon's scalpel. But don't worry. Everyone bleeds eventually."
A beat of silence passes between us.
We don't say it aloud, but we both know this summit could shift the global power structure. And we intend to come out on top.
The Queen of the Indian underworld, and her ghost in the wires.
We don't play nice.
We play smart.
And we never play fair.
[In this context, "summit" means a high-level meeting between powerful leaders—usually used in politics or diplomacy, but here it's got a mafia twist.]
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~How did you like the 1st chapter??
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