12. Tamayo
TAMAYO
I do everything in my power to avoid Zarina Gallo for the next twenty-four hours. It’s not easy. We’re both stuck in this compound, avoiding the guns circling the outer perimeter like vultures waiting for a last dying breath. Darius and I spar in the training room. I hole up in my office and actually catch up on paperwork for the first time ever. I avoid the kitchen, the second floor, any place Zarina might suddenly walk in wearing Darius’s shirt and nothing else.
Like I didn’t buy her the entire fall collection.
When she finally slips into the backseat of the car wearing the gold dress—the one that hugs her figure as if she was stitched into it, a slit slashing up her left thigh, and the back cut so low, it’s practically missing—all that space I pushed between us snaps closed, a rubber band stretched too far. Avoiding her has only made her more potent. Her hair is shiny, and she smells of jasmine shampoo. Her red lips match her ruby necklace glinting in the low light of the streetlamps as Darius drives us across town to the firing squad. Or Council meeting. Same-same.
“Are you ready?” she asks .
I hum, not trusting my voice to be anything less than husky.
She assesses my outfit, starting at my Italian leather boots and ending at the collar of my silk shirt. “You look expensive.”
I snort. “Thanks.”
“And you didn’t wear any weapons, right?” She fidgets with the chains of her purse, crosses and uncrosses her ankles.
“I didn’t.”
“Good. That’s good.” She chews on her lip, staring out the window before twisting again. “Make sure you kneel at the altar first. God before idols and men, or whatever.”
I don’t look directly at her, yet she’s all I can see. “I know.”
“Let me do most of the talking,” she says.
I shake my head at that. “We’ll both talk.”
“I’m serious, Tamayo.” She finally turns fully in her seat.
“So am I.”
She huffs. “My mother yesterday was only a taste of what tonight will be.”
“I’m not incompetent, princess.” I pull my phone out when it buzzes—a capo reporting on today’s weapons drop. It can wait. “I got where I am for a reason.”
Zarina doesn’t immediately reply, and I frown at her—her eyes are fixed on my hand where it holds my phone, brows furrowed. Headlights bounce through the cab and over her face, forcing her to blink. I tuck my phone away again.
“Your ring,” she says.
I pull my left hand out of my pocket and hold it up where it catches the glow of passing streetlights. On the third finger sits a yellow-gold band inlaid with scrollwork similar to the tattoos on my neck. And set in its cradle is a large, oval ruby as beautifully cut as the one at Zarina’s throat.
“Is that…” She gulps down the rest of the question.
“It is.” I glance at her fists balled in her lap. Not a single ring adorns her fingers despite the heavy, black box I gave her yesterday. I want to ask, but I bite my tongue. She knows the Council far better than I do. She must have a plan.
Saint Christopher’s Cathedral looms ahead, stained glass windows set in stone arches, statue saints standing guard along the parapets. We stop at the front steps, and I reach over, placing my hand around Zarina’s knee and squeezing “We’ve got this. Just breathe.”
And then her door is opening and Pat is offering their hand. Zarina takes it, her leg slipping out from under my grip as she steps out of the car. I follow after her, buttoning my suit jacket. A light drizzle patters against the sidewalk as we stride toward Darius already standing at the large, wooden double doors carved with the story of Christ.
At the bottom of the stairs, I grab hold of Zarina’s hand. She frowns down at my fingers as they thread through hers. “Ready?”
She straightens her back until she’s scowling down her nose at me. “Born ready.”
I grin wide, canines biting my bottom lip, and lift her knuckles to my mouth. “Let’s go, princess.”
Darius holds open the door as we walk across the threshold to face the Council. He doesn’t follow us in. Weapons are forbidden within these stone walls—no bodyguards, no guns, no knives. It is the most important rule among the Cardinal Families, borne out of bloody necessity. Our steps echo through the chamber as we cross into the nave. The ceilings sweep in repeated arches above the wooden pews, and prayer candles flicker when we pass, Zarina’s gold dress glittering in their light. Saint Christopher’s is the oldest Catholic church in the city, and the Cardinal Families have called it safe harbor for nigh on a century—since long before the rules of engagement were established and viciously enforced. I’ve never set foot in here, not allowed to attend mass or confessional as a dishonorable gang leader .
I worship a different goddess, anyway.
In the front rows sit five men. There should only be four. I toss Zarina a frown, but she’s aiming a vicious glare at the dark-brown head of hair sitting in the pew beside another peppered gray. He turns in his seat, and I almost trip over the rug.
Marcus Accardi.
He wears a self-satisfied smirk that screams over-confidence as his eyes trail down Zarina’s figure, stopping on the slit in her dress and the leg-ass combination it draws attention to, and licks his bottom lip. Zarina snorts, unbothered. But something like a huffed growl rumbles through my chest. I want to curl my hand around her waist and yank her behind me. I want to punch the hungry look off Marcus’s face.
Instead, I wait until his gaze rolls back up and his eyes shift to mine, like he’s waiting for my reaction. I offer him a lazy grin and a wink. He scowls.
In the row ahead of him sits a man with a head of hair the same color and curl as Zarina’s—Riccardo Gallo. But where his shoulders are high around his ears, his neck reddening, Zarina stands tall and powerful. Every inch a princess.
At the altar, I release Zarina’s hand to slip it around her waist, stroking my thumb across the bare skin of her back. The smallest gasp breaches her lips. I lean in to kiss her temple, offering my other hand to help her keep balance as she kneels before God.
I lower myself beside her. We draw the same cross before us and bow our heads toward the crucifix suspended above. I rise immediately, but Zarina stays for a breath longer. Her fingers trace the gold chain of her necklace, the ruby hung by a noose, as her eyes remain closed. She pulls in one, two, three steadying breaths before she lifts her hand. I take it and help her stand.
She turns without a glance to me, shoulders back and chin high, to address the four patriarchs of the Cardinal Families and the most powerful men in Louredo. “Zarina Gallo, daughter of Alessandra and Riccardo Gallo, appearing before the Council of her own volition.”
“Welcome, Zarina Gallo.” David Capone, don of the North, sits in the front-most pew as the eldest Council member, hair streaked gray and a glorious mustache atop his lip. He wears an ill-tailored suit, the jacket too big for his skinny frame.
I step forward, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Zarina. “Andrea Tamayo, appearing before the Council at their request.”
David Capone, who just addressed Zarina with something like affection, hitches his lip at me with affronted disgust. Zarina’s knuckles whiten on her clutch, but mine remain relaxed in my pockets, my face unbothered, if not slightly amused. David rakes his blue eyes up and down my body in a way that takes stock of its capital-worth rather than of its patriarchal-pleasantry.
He dismisses me without a word. “Zarina, your family worries for you.”
My gaze shifts to Riccardo Gallo and the Accardis in the pew behind him—Marcus and his father Alonso.
Zarina bows her head deferentially. “Thank you. But these worries are unfounded. As you can see, I am safe and healthy.”
David continues to lead the meeting despite the quiet scoff falling out of Alonso’s mouth. “And yet you arrived escorted by Andrea Tamayo.”
“Yes,” Zarina answers.
David’s eye twitches, like he wants to squint a scowl at her for impertinence. “Did Andrea compel your attendance tonight?”
Two minutes into the meeting, and Alonso’s face is purpling with unsaid words, teeth clenched and bared as if he’s physically stopping them from spilling out. Marcus is more collected, waiting and watching.
“ Tamayo ,” Zarina corrects, triggering a burst of warmth in my chest, “did no such thing. We are here together to present to the Council.”
And they called us both.
“Perhaps Andrea should leave.” David ignores Zarina’s correction. “So that you can speak freely.”
If it weren’t for the circumstances leading Zarina to my club and us to this meeting on cursed ground, I might think David Capone was being kind. That he was asking the correct questions to be certain Zarina is unharmed and safe. But Marcus Accardi sits behind David, his eyes narrowed and posture relaxed, assured in the knowledge that he’ll never be asked to stand here, before the Council, and answer for his sins despite his bloodied hands.
And Zarina’s parents mean to marry her off to him, the city’s most cruel prince. No one asked her then if she was compelled. No one pulled her aside to be sure she was safe.
I clench my jaw at the same time Zarina forces hers open. “I speak freely now,” she says. “Tamayo stays.”
A prickle shivers over my scalp at her words. They offer no space for dissenting opinion or contradiction, wielding subtle power over the Council. Over me.
Jimmy Falcone leans forward, elbows on the pew in front of him and one hand gentle on David’s shoulder. His black hair is long enough to brush his shoulders, and his eyes are a striking hazel-green that bore into me then Zarina. “Before yesterday, you had never visited the Tamayo Family.”
“Not in Tamayo territory,” she says. Just as Juliet never left her tower to visit Romeo until they married.
“Explain,” he demands.
Zarina returns his stare with her own. “I’m a woman, Mr. Falcone. And a lesbian woman at that.”
Every single man shifts in his seat. The rage on Alonso’s face contorts into disgust. Marcus’s eyes alight as if this is the source of all his fantasies. And Riccardo Gallo can’t even look at his daughter, like he’s either ashamed of her or himself. I can’t tell which. The other two, David and Jimmy, fidget as if she’s just spoken about vaginal discharge, God forbid. I shift my weight back half a step and allow Zarina the spotlight she deserves. Let them choke on their hypocrisy.
“And as a queer woman”—her gaze settles on her father—“I am not afforded the same liberties to meet with lovers as you and your sons are.”
David Capone scoffs in offense at the insinuation that every man in this room, including him, has a lover other than his wife. Despite its veracity.
Jimmy, though, only smirks in amusement. “So you’ve been meeting in secret.”
“For months, yes,” she lies. We agreed to keep it mostly vague.
“What prompted you to expose your relationship yesterday?” he asks.
Zarina doesn’t shift her gaze away from Jimmy. “The Gallo-Accardi merger.”
Alonso’s clenched jaw finally unhinges. “Marriage! Marcus wants to marry you. This is not business!”
Zarina snorts, still not shifting her focus from Jimmy. “I’ve spent a sum total of twenty minutes alone with Marcus in my entire life. This is anything but romance.”
“You object to the marriage,” Jimmy cuts in before Alonso can sputter a retort.
She arches a brow. “For obvious reasons.”
Alonso shoves to his feet with a pointed finger, spittle flying from his lips. “Your lifestyle choices don’t exclude you from your duty to your family! We all make sacrifices.”
Marcus yanks his father back down into the pew as he settles his gaze on Zarina with outright lust. “Our marriage doesn’t have to mean you sacrifice your…proclivities.”
My hands ball into fists in my pockets, and my eye twitches, my mask of indifference fraying at the edges. David shifts, wood creaking under him, and looks away from Zarina. Riccardo stares at the crucifix like he’s the one hanging from the cross, nailed down and unable to change the direction of this meeting, of the decision forming among these silent men, powerful enough to stop this but not lifting a finger to do so. To them, Alonso has a point. And it seems that point is more important than the threat of combining the power of the South and West.
Jimmy leans back in his pew, watching us both like he’s waiting for our next move.
Zarina must come to the same realization as I do. She blinks and affects a somber expression belied by her tight grip on her purse. “I understand that,” she says. “Death before dishonor—these are the Gallo Family words. They mean we keep true to our deals, pay our debts, keep others beholden to theirs.” She fiddles with the zipper, glances down at my hand still gripping her waist, and straightens again. “And they’re the reason why I cannot accept Marcus’s proposal.”
Riccardo’s head snaps up, and he finally looks at his daughter. She doesn’t look at him, her eyes steady on David Capone’s, the eldest Council member and their northern star.
“I cannot agree, because I already accepted another proposal.” She unzips her purse, fingers trembling. The Council might think she’s nervous, but the tension in her arms, her thighs and shoulders, speaks of her checked urge to lunge forward. I want to pull her tight against me, take the weight of her body so that she can rest. But I stand still. This is her show, her fate on the line, and I won’t ruin it.
She takes out the black velvet box I presented to her yesterday and fumbles the lid. On the satin bed inside rests a large, clear ruby surrounded by diamonds and set on a narrow, gold band. It’s simple, apparent wealth without being gaudy. Her mouth opens with a little oh as she studies the engagement ring, and I wonder if she didn’t look at it until now .
For the first time since this farce of a meeting started, I step in front of Zarina. I pluck the ring from its seat, and she watches, eyes wide, as I lower to one knee, her left hand in mine, and slip the ring onto her finger. It spans the length of her first knuckle, the edges scraping her neighboring fingers. I lean forward and press a kiss to the back of her hand. She releases another gasp and swallows hard.
Someone clears their throat.
Zarina’s gaze snaps up to the Council, like she forgot they were there. She squeezes my hand, still in hers, and pulls me to my feet. I thread my fingers through hers, her engagement ring knocking against my knuckles.
“I cannot marry Marcus Accardi”—Zarina speaks clearly, a hint of smugness in her voice as she meets Alonso’s churlish rage then Marcus’s irate indignation—“because I am already engaged. To Andrea Tamayo.”