19. Zarina
ZARINA
C asa Nostra is like a speakeasy without a secret password. The host triple-checks our name on his list, like he can hardly believe street urchins are allowed to darken his precious doorstep, let alone the lounge he leads us to. I scan the dimly lit corridor, the too-muscled security standing in front of an emerald velvet rope blocking the stairwell, the well-worn hardwood with its polished sheen and creaky floorboards, the three closed doors we pass that are entirely too silent. And then we enter the lounge.
Unlike the Den of Inequity, it’s exactly what I expect.
My shoulders remain straight and tall despite the sigh that whistles out from under my tongue. The place is all bronze finishes and overstuffed leather chairs and whisky poured into neat tumblers with cigar smoke choking the air. Men, all of whom likely have a room in their ornate mansions or penthouse apartments that looks eerily similar to this, gather in besuited huddles and speak too loudly.
I keep my face neutral to hide my distaste. “The most powerful men in Louredo are in this room,” I murmur, “and all they can imagine for themselves is the same thing men have imagined since the invention of the wheel.”
Tamayo hums, leading us to the bar. A few patrons narrow their eyes as we pass, while a few more crane their necks to get a better look. “Whisky, leather, and cigars.”
“And women.” I spy the handful dotting the crowd, bright gems glittering in the smoke. Each of them hangs off a man’s arm or sits on a man’s lap. Always near power, but never grasping it. The hungry teeth inside my chest grate at the thought.
“I can’t fault them there.” Tamayo swipes her thumb across the small of my back, making my skin prickle with a shiver.
“I can,” I growl.
“Remember, wifey ”—she throws the horrid nickname I used back at me—“behave.”
I run my hand up her arm, onto her shoulder, and play with the shaved hairs at her neck. She leans a hip against the bar and orders for us—as if I am no longer an autonomous person who can order for myself, fuck you very much—and ignores me. I press closer, my chest against her arm and my nose at her ear. “What are the parameters, hm? What does it mean to behave?”
“It means”—her fingers fiddle with the chain straps of my dress, yanking one like a church bell—“use that pretty mouth to say only pretty things and don’t leave my side.”
I scratch my nails a little too hard over her nape. “That’s a tall order. What’s in it for me?”
She doesn’t turn, still. “Casa Nostra.”
“A poor deal.” I want to ruffle her hair just to see if she’ll do something about it, but I know this isn’t the place.
“Unfortunately”—she pays the bartender with far too much cash, which she insists he keep—“your knife was checked at the door.”
I chuckle, more breath than sound. “As if that’s the only weapon I keep. ”
She finally turns to meet my eye, sliding my drink toward me as she arches a brow and smirks. “I’d love to explore your arsenal.”
“Maybe.” I wrap my fingers around my glass and hold her gaze. “If you’re good.”
Her smirk brightens into a pleasant smile.
“Tamayo!” Jimmy Falcone approaches with a small entourage. “Welcome!”
“Jimmy.” Tamayo turns to shake Jimmy’s hand, my fingers leaving her nape and hers my back. I stand against the bar behind her and take a sip, playing the part of an ornament. Orange citrus lights up my tongue and sense memory slams into me—Tamayo on her throne, me on my knees, and Den of Inequity’s music vibrating up through the floor, into my legs. Another vodka Collins on another night risking too much for a chance to grasp at my own power.
Jimmy offers me a hand with a fond shake of his head. “Zarina.”
“Surprised to see me?” I tease. Despite his status as a cis man and a rival don with a penchant for chaos, I don’t mind Jimmy Falcone. He’s never expected me to be small, unlike every other man in this business.
He laughs, full and hearty. “Not even a little.”
“Good.”
“Come”—Jimmy waves for us to follow him, turning and walking away without checking if we’re behind him—“we’re sitting with Logan Anderson.”
Louredo’s district attorney.
Tamayo slips her hand around my waist again, lands a kiss on my cheek as if I’m incredibly dear to her, and whisper-growls, “Behave.”
I would like to shove that damned word down her throat.
We follow Jimmy across the room to a group of low, leather arm chairs already occupied by a handful of men. Pat and Darius stand against the wall, scanning the room. Casa Nostra is another neutral ground where most weapons aren’t allowed, save for soldiers and personal guards. Pat holds my gaze, their blue eyes bright despite the hazy air, and offers me the slightest tilt of their lip. I shoot them a wink.
Jimmy snaps his fingers, and three chairs open up, men jumping out of them as if bitten on the ass by rats. Jimmy settles into the seat beside Logan, Tamayo across from him, leaving the seat empty beside her. But she told me to behave, to stick by her side.
Which is exactly what I do when I sit in her lap.
Air huffs out of her, hot against my arm, and I wiggle backward until I’m fully seated in the nook of her thigh and hip. Her hand snakes around to grip my waist, the other landing on my thigh. She shakes her head and lands another kiss on my jaw, murmuring against my skin, “Brat.”
The men laugh as if I’ve performed the most uproarious prank.
“Can’t leave an inch of space between the two of you?” Jimmy teases.
“That’s what it’s always like in the beginning.” Logan waves a hand with a shake of his head as if to say, look at these na?ve lovebirds in their honeymoon phase . So cute. So silly. Two youths in love and doomed from the start. Fucking hilarious.
“You can’t be speaking from experience?” Jimmy’s laughing and rolling his eyes, his long hair swept aside. “You haven’t kept a woman longer than the beginning!”
“For good reason!” Logan roars, and really, calm the fuck down. My ears ring as they laugh themselves hoarse, their men chortling around them, and I hide my annoyance behind a sip of my drink.
“And you, Tamayo?” Logan leans back in his seat. “Is Miss Gallo the first woman you’ve kept past the beginning? ”
Tamayo squeezes my thigh, and I pretend I don’t want it higher. “Not the first, but she’s the last.”
Logan chuckles, his eyes stuck on her fingers splayed over my skin. “Smooth.”
“Or she knows I’ll kill her otherwise.” I smile sweetly.
“Careful, Tamayo, the Zarina I know doesn’t make promises she won’t keep.” Jimmy leans back in his chair, considering me then Tamayo then me again. He points at me, still holding his typical scotch. “I remember when you were sixteen at whatever gala and you almost cut some poor boy’s balls clean off. Who was it again?”
I cut a pointed look at Tamayo. “Billy Fawkes.”
“Right!” He snaps his fingers. “David’s nephew. Such audacity, you might as well have worn his balls for your own.”
I shrug. “He was getting handsy at coat check and wouldn’t stop .”
“You rendered him infertile.” Jimmy shakes his head.
“Weak boys like him have no business procreating.” I sniff. The insult is for them, not me. If I could tell the truth without losing the smallest bit of respect they’ve shown me, I’d tell them Billy Fawkes was a rapist and deserved worse than he got. If I were speaking plainly, I would tell them I was aiming for his gut, aiming to kill, but my hands shook and fumbled and the knife tilted wrong. But I can’t say that. Not me, Zarina Gallo, mafia princess and soft woman in a den of ravenous wolves.
Tamayo rubs her nose over my shoulder and pulls me closer as if I’ve slid too far down her legs. “Your ferocity is exactly what I love about you.”
“Careful it doesn’t come back to bite you in the ass,” Jimmy warns with a dangerous grin.
Tamayo matches him tooth-for-tooth. “Might be fun.”
Everyone laughs, Jimmy and Logan and their men and Tamayo. I sip my drink.
Logan wipes at his eyes despite no apparent tears falling. “ Only someone as crazy as you would take on the Accardis and the Gallos.”
“A fool for love.” Tamayo’s hand leaves my legs to raise her glass.
“A fool, indeed.” Jimmy crooks his finger, and a man with two bruised eyes, the skin mauve tinged with yellow, peels himself off the wall. He shuffles forward with his head hanging low until he stands before us. “Antoni, I believe you’ve met Andrea Tamayo.”
Tamayo sips her drink, but her grip on my waist tightens and her gaze narrows on Antoni.
“Yes, boss.” Antoni nods without looking up.
“Well?” he prompts.
Antoni turns, chin pressed to his chest, and clears his throat. “Ma’am—sir—Tamayo, please?—”
“Do it proper.” Jimmy’s voice has lost all warmth.
“Boss—”
Jimmy kicks out the back of Antoni’s knee. I snake my arm behind Tamayo’s neck, sneaking a glance at her face. She remains impassive, wearing that annoyingly unbothered mask she dons when she doesn’t want anyone to see . I wish I could study it closely now that she’s aiming it at someone other than me; mark the tension in her jaw, the wrinkles at the corner of her eyes, the set of her brow. But this is a show, performed by Jimmy to be viewed by Tamayo and me for god knows why, and to ignore it would be tantamount to slapping him in the face.
I lift my chin and look down my nose at Antoni on his knees.
His hands shake where they rest on his thighs, and his voice is strained as he speaks. “Tamayo, please forgive me.”
“For what, Toni?” Her voice rumbles in her chest, limned in violent threat.
He glances at Jimmy who arches a brow. “Mr. Falcone, um, he didn’t order me?—”
“No.” Tamayo sets her drink on the side table and lets her hand fall on my naked thigh. The cold condensation from the glass beads up between our skin, and she draws patterns with the droplets. “For what am I forgiving you?”
Antoni frowns, which makes him wince. “I don’t understand.”
“What did you do, Toni,” she asks, “that requires forgiveness?”
He gulps. “I double-crossed you.”
“Hm.” Her fingers trail further up my thigh, and only now does it hit me, full force with her knuckles teasing the hem of my skirt, that the last time I was in this position—sat on Tamayo’s lap as she touched me—was Saturday, when I begged her to fuck me. Red burns across my chest, up my neck, and I try to hide it with the raise of my glass and a gulp of my drink.
Tamayo’s touch slips just under my skirt. “And what will you do to earn my forgiveness?”
Antoni glances to Jimmy, who doesn’t offer an iota of help. “What do you want?” he asks.
Tamayo sighs, as if the question is loaded and there’s any way this won’t end in screaming. And with the way her fingers won’t stop drawing paths of condensation over my skin, I’d very much prefer my screaming to Antoni’s. She doesn’t spare me a glance, though, staring at the man on his knees. “I want what all men want—respect.”
Antoni’s face scrunches in confusion as he tries to understand what that physically equates to, how he can provide something so abstract to Tamayo. He glances to Jimmy, who watches Tamayo, who waits for Antoni. And I—with Tamayo’s hand two knuckles deep under my dress on the outside of my thigh—chance a roll of my hips disguised as a shift in weight.
Tamayo’s mask slips for a millisecond, her eyelids drooping and her nails digging into my skin. I hide a smirk behind a sip of my drink .
She sighs dramatically, disappointed. “What’s the cost of disrespect to your boss, Toni?”
His eyes widen, and he sputters the answer. “Broken bones.”
Tamayo hums, her hand sliding around to grasp under my thigh and drag my body further into the nook of her hip. Her fingers don’t leave, digging in just below the crease where my thigh meets my ass; the action merely an excuse to retaliate. I wish I could grin. Instead, I’m scanning the room, looking for the true reason I came to Casa Nostra in the first place—the Birdwatcher.
I find them playing poker, their long legs stretched out under the table and a long finger resting against their cheek. Their tawny skin burnishes in the low lamplight, rich amber in a crowd of chalky white. I’ve seen them twice before. Once when I was twelve and they visited Father before he and Mother closed a deal with the mayor, and again three years ago when they caught me fucking someone outside one of the only queer clubs downtown. They smirked, tipped their nonexistent hat, and continued on their way. And I just pressed the faceless woman harder against the alleyway wall.
My sexuality was never a secret to be weaponized.
Rough movement pulls my attention away. Darius has hold of Antoni’s shoulder, the poor capo’s feet struggling to find purchase as he’s dragged over the thick, wool rugs. Tamayo taps her fingers against my upper thigh, and Pat catches my gaze. I unfreeze on Tamayo’s lap and flick my hair. Pat glances to the Birdwatcher and back to me with a nod.
Jimmy sighs and settles further into his chair. “Thank god for the basement.”
“And even more for the second floor.” Logan raises his glass to the infamous bedrooms on the upper floor of Casa Nostra.
“Not that Tamayo will make use of it.” Jimmy’s grin is wide and teasing, his brows raised.
The district attorney looks us up and down as if we’re the beginning of a very interesting porn storyline he wishes would unfold more quickly. “Unless Miss Gallo were interested?—”
“I have a bedroom at home, thank you.” I wrinkle my nose in disgust.
Logan’s grin adapts a lascivious slope. “Not like this.”
I frown, leaning back into Tamayo in discomfort.
She turns an unimpressed gaze onto Logan. “We have dungeons at the Den.”
“The Den?” Jimmy asks.
“My club, Den of Inequity.” She presses a kiss to my shoulder as Jimmy and Logan exchange a loaded look.
“Baby.” I relax further against Tamayo and pout, blocking her view of the lounge. Without looking, I know Pat is picking their way through the lounge toward the Birdwatcher while I do my part. “I need to use the lady’s room.”
Tamayo’s fingers crawl further up my thigh to graze the edge of my ass. “I’ll come with.”
“Can’t be separated for even a second, hm?” Logan taunts. “My assistant informs me that’s called ‘simping.’ Is that right?”
“Fuck if I know.” Jimmy pins Tamayo with a calculating stare. “I have business to discuss with you, but if you need to go…” The implication is heavy in his silence, in the shrug of his shoulders, in the judgment clouding his gaze.
Even if I truly had to use the toilet, I would insist Tamayo stay here. She came here for a reason—multiple reasons, if Pat’s reports about the escalating assaults on Tamayo businesses are true. She needs alliances and deals. She needs to stay.
It just works in my favor this time.
I drag my hand down her arm, to her wrist at the edge of my skirt. “Stay, baby. Order another drink, talk business.” I wrinkle my nose like the idea of it bores me. I’m a princess, after all. This is what they expect of me—beauty, no brains. Violence, no business acumen .
I kiss Tamayo’s cheek, dragging my lips over to her ear. “I won’t be long, I promise.”
Logan cracks an imaginary whip, the sound effect snapping out of his mouth.
Tamayo’s jaw ticks, but her gaze doesn’t leave mine. “Take Dar?—”
“He’s busy with what’s-his-face.” I wave my hand toward the hallway where the guard stands outside the stairwell.
She grumbles. “Pat, then.”
“Thanks, baby,” I say as if I wasn’t already planning to take Pat with me.
“Five minutes, princess,” she growls.
I adjust her collar, which isn’t crooked at all. “And if I’m longer?”
She grabs my wrist in one hand and raises it to her lips, pressing a kiss to the pulse point there. A promise. “I’ll come get you myself.”
I chuckle as I rise from her lap, her hand still holding my wrist like I need balance because she’s left me off-kilter. I refuse to acknowledge the too-wet feeling between my legs as I adjust the hem of my dress and nod to Jimmy and the district attorney with a wink. “Have fun, boys.”
I can feel Logan watching my ass until I’m out of sight. Disgust coats my skin like slime. I want to turn back, grab the man by the taint, and twist until he screams. But I can’t. So I walk through the lounge, past the poker table without so much as a twitch toward it and the Birdwatcher sitting there, and into the dimly lit hallway. The burly guard protects the staircase, which leads down to the bloody basement and up to the sinful second floor. I ignore him, aiming for the powder room with gilded mirrors and tufted chairs that precedes the restroom. And I wait.
Thankfully, the Birdwatcher is prompt.
They stride past us and directly into the restroom. And I follow straight after. The room is ornate, the surfaces shining, the lamps glowing gold, the mirrors unmarred. As if a wealthy man’s shit deserves better treatment than a poor man’s life.
They stand at the vanity, arms crossed and dreads tied back loosely. “Miss Gallo.”
I stand with my back to the door and wrinkle my nose at the name—it’s diminutive. Like I’m a little girl without twenty-six years of violence and crime staining my manicured hands.
They either don’t notice or don’t care. “You secured yourself an invitation to Casa Nostra. How conniving of you.”
I wave away their words. “I don’t have much time.”
“No, you don’t.” The way they say this implies far more than the promise of Tamayo coming to find me. “Everyone’s all atwitter with the news of your…impending nuptials.”
“To whom?” I tilt my head.
They mirror my movement. “That remains to be seen.”
I don’t have time for riddles. “My family—we’re in trouble.”
They don’t speak, head still tilted and eyes trained on me. I’m not sure who gave them the moniker, the Birdwatcher. Maybe it was them, maybe it was a client or a victim. Whoever it was, they chose well. The Birdwatcher doesn’t get involved in the muck of gaining and losing power, the violence of crime and punishment. They watch. They wait. They remember.
I take in a steeling breath. “I need to know the trouble.”
They twirl their wrist. “I believe your mother would know far better than I.”
“She would,” I agree.
They tuck their hand back into the crook of their arm. “I assume she’s not speaking to you.”
“Why assume when you already know,” I deadpan.
They flash a cheshire grin.
“What’s your price?” I ask.
They stare at me with wide, unblinking eyes, and I wait on pins and needles, apprehension growing with each breath I take. I know they don’t deal in money, but rather in a currency more sinister and dangerous to a mafia don’s daughter—secrets and favors. I already promised Tamayo a favor, something that weighs heavier than the ruby at my throat. What will the Birdwatcher deem worthy enough to spill the information I need?
They push off the vanity and drop their hands, stuffing them into their trouser pockets. “I require three secrets.”
I suck in another fortifying breath. “From the Gallo Family?”
They stare at me and their grin grows a millimeter at a time, each sharp tooth revealed stirring ominous dread inside my gut. Finally, they shake their head. “No, Miss Gallo. From the Tamayo Family.”