32. Zarina
ZARINA
I admit it—I’ve been avoiding Tamayo all week.
I was busy. Making Wonderland come to life, sourcing outfits that were on-theme for a dozen people, trying to fit in researching my family’s financial straits. It took up most of my time. And I used it as an excuse. I wanted to see Tamayo, wanted to ask her to touch me again, to fuck me again, but maybe I shouldn’t.
So I didn’t.
But now we’re here. The party is in full swing, and while some of the compliments are polite, the majority are glowing. I don’t have to think about performing for the public unless I choose to after tonight. My last obligation.
And there Tamayo is, wearing that suit that hugs her ass, the cape hanging just so from her tall shoulders, smiling fondly at kids and letting them take the mickey out of her. She’s hot. Annoyingly, stupidly, damningly hot . The thought makes my mind sink to dangerous places, to alcoves too dark to see wandering hands. Like the one behind the open bar, with all the flowers hanging in front of it.
“Zarina, dear, are you okay?” Sally Vator slips her hand around my back and pinches the skin above my dress, which she designed. Her jumpsuit—another design of hers—is teal trimmed in gold brocade with a buckle shaped like a handle along at her waist. A small note hangs from the belt that says Eat Me in the most tasteful calligraphy. She offers Mais and Jaime an appeasing smile, speaking to me through her teeth. “You look…constipated.”
I know she absolutely does not think I look constipated. I look like a cat in heat.
I clear my throat. “I’m fine, just warm.”
“Hm, I find it quite cold, actually.” Sally squints at me, over at Tamayo, back at me. She’s fully made up in her drag persona, makeup bright and dramatic, pink wig jacked up to Jesus. A gem amongst rocks. “Wait—did you?”
I scrunch my nose and drink the last of my champagne. The bubbles sit in my gut, glomming together to become one, big, uncomfortable super-bubble.
“Oh my god. I need to know everything .” She pauses and glances to Mais and Jaime, who are whispering to each other and probably not paying attention to us. Still, she raises her full glass of tequila soda to talk behind it. “Spill, bitch.”
“Not here.” I crane my neck for a passing server. I need something other than champagne or I might fill up with air and float away.
Sally clucks her tongue, disappointed. “At least tell me it was good.”
I raise a finger to a server, and they nod, making their way through the crowd toward us. The kids are still not paying attention as I meet Sally’s expectant gaze and hold it. “Better than good.”
A knowing grin slinks across her face. “I’d expect nothing less of a kinky sadist like her.”
“Sally,” I playfully scold her.
“So, why are you staring longingly? Why aren’t you getting—” She stops herself, glancing to Jaime and Mais. “Having a private party?”
I order a drink with the server—vodka Collins, because Tamayo got me hooked on it—and avoid answering Sally’s question. She knows more than she should already, which is almost everything. Over the past few years, I’ve spent too many nights lying on her couch while she sews or sketches or drinks with me, sharing deep thoughts about ourselves, our queerness, our gender expression. We talked about things that I could only trust with Pat before I met Sally. She’s always been one of the few people in my life who was so authentic, it demanded authenticity in return. Something I have always been happy to give to her.
When I came to her for our engagement party, it took all of three probing questions for me to spill part of the truth—my parents tried to force me to marry a man, so I got engaged to a woman. Tamayo. But Sally doesn’t know about the mafia politics, about the violence Marcus threatens with his very existence, about my family’s precarious position on the edge of extinction. And I don’t want her to know.
“You’re engaged.” Sally nudges me with her hip. “Eat the cake.”
I nudge her back. “Trust me, I did.”
“So, why not again?”
I pull in a deep breath. Why not again? Because I didn’t strike a deal to fuck around. I did it to buy time enough to figure out why my parents wanted to sell me to the Accardi prince in the first place. And all the information I’ve gotten is thanks to the Birdwatcher more than myself. Fucking waste of a mafia princess, I am.
“There’s a really nice spot behind the bar.” Sally’s voice drips with sensual suggestion. “If I orchestrate a distraction, you could…eat a snack.”
I shake my head, accepting my drink from the server and thanking them. I speak out of the corner of my mouth. “You’re such a slut.”
She winks, the movement exaggerated by her makeup. “I’ve got a plan?—”
“A plan for what?” Jaime asks, all cute na?veté and boisterous excitement. Like a puppy.
Sally leans forward like she’s telling a secret, her voice a stage whisper. “Zarina wants to surprise her betrothed with a gift.”
“That’s so sweet!” Jaime claps.
Mais nods along. “We want to help!”
I shoot daggers at her. That is not what I want. Not now, not later. In fact, I don’t know what I would do if I had five minutes alone with Tamayo.
Images of my skirt thrown up, out of the way; of my lipstick smeared across my cheek; of Tamayo’s breath hot on my ear as she says the dirtiest truths in that low growl she has flash through my mind.
Okay, yeah, I absolutely know what I’d do, and it makes anticipation and guilt blow the already-too-big bubble in my gut even larger.
Sally completely ignores me and my inner battle as she speaks to the kids. “We need a distraction, dears. To help them sneak away for their private moment.”
“When?” Jaime’s brows are furrowed, like this is of the utmost seriousness and they intend to do their absolute best to create the most effective distraction. Which I can imagine includes them making an unruly fool of themself.
Sally arches a brow at me, basically asking how much longer I can wait before I’m railed in a back room. Like I’m so thirsty I can’t wait until we get home tonight. I glance over Sally’s shoulder to Tamayo speaking with Darius, the two of them facing opposite directions. Her jaw is tight as she sips an old fashioned, and why the fuck does that send a trickle of heat directly to my core?
“Five minutes,” I say. Damnit, I am that thirsty.
“What should we do?” Mais asks.
Sally rubs his shoulder with a smile, already endeared by him and his adoration for her. He was a gooey, mumbling mess when I brought him over to meet her. Behind the three of them, Alonso Accardi pushes through the crowd, making a beeline for me. His high collar makes him look like Dracula, and his disgusted face like he just drank poisoned blood.
“Gemma—” I turn to Tamayo’s capo as I straighten and steel myself for the impending confrontation. “I think the hour is up.”
Gemma follows my gaze and throws me a nod of understanding. “Jaime, Mais—how do you feel about Taco Bell?”
“It’s my religion.” Jaime clasps their chest.
“Let’s spend Tamayo’s money, eh?” Gemma waggles her brows.
Mais’s eyes bounce between me and Gemma, reading far too well that something is amiss. He searches the room, finally finding Alonso headed our way, and mirroring the man’s disgust on his own face. Mais threads his hand around Jaime’s arm and pushes them to follow Gemma as they both call goodbye.
“What about the—” Sally starts.
I shoot her a laden look. “Maybe later.”
“Miss Gallo.” Alonso stops too close, not an inch of him offering a greeting in the shape of an inclined chin or handshake or warm smile. His spine is rigid, his shoulders high, his jaw grinding, and he doesn’t spare a glance for anyone besides me.
Sally looks him up and down with a harsh, judgmental eye. “Find a new tailor, dear, your pants could fit an elephant.”
Alonso tries to appear unflappable, but his mouth tightens into a thin line .
She smirks, leaning in to kiss my cheek. “Find me later.”
I squeeze her shoulder. “I will.” I turn to face Alonso, returning his same energy, holding myself straight and still without a single twitch of greeting. “Mr. Accardi.”
“What do you think you’re doing?” he growls.
I guess we’re skipping formalities and jumping straight into fuckery.
“This entire party is a fucking masquerade.” His voice is quiet enough to stay out of the ears of passersby but still harsh. “There’s no way the Families will accept this.”
I affect boredom. “It’s already happening, Alonso.”
“Not if you don’t want to leave your family in ruin.”
My mask stays in place. I search the room like anyone else would be more welcome and more interesting than this man before me. But inside, my whole being stills with focus. I know this basic truth—my family is in trouble—but I have no idea of the details. Does Alonso?
Unfortunately, spelling it out for me is not his goal.
“You threw your fit, had your tantrum.” His collar casts shadows over his jowls, twisting his face into a sinister portrait of distaste. “Want to be treated as heir to the South and not just a spoiled princess? Do your duty. Save your family and marry my son.”
I cock my head. “How does that save my family rather than ruin it?”
Alonso adjusts his jacket, and the movement makes the collar catch on his chin. Sally was right—his suit is too big. “You want to be treated as a queen, yet you know nothing of the state of your kingdom.”
I peer at him, eyes traveling up and down his frame in my best impersonation of Sally’s most razing glare. Alonso Accardi has no idea what I know and don’t know. He assumes, like most men, that I’m a spoiled girl given everything she’s ever wanted. Ironic, really .
Only men assume women do nothing and get everything.
“And you”—I don’t lower my voice, don’t pull the punch—“hope to be an emperor, yet know nothing of what it means to rule.”
“I only need to know what it means to conquer,” he sneers.
“Alonso!” Mother calls across the crowd like she’s greeting an old friend rather than clawing her nails over a metaphorical blackboard. “How lovely to see you two chatting.” Her hand grips Alonso’s arm the same way it always does mine. The ghost of its pressure digs under my skin, the memory of her nails pressing half-moon marks into my muscles.
Alonso offers Mother the tiniest twitch of a nod in greeting. Bastard. “Alessandra, you look lovely tonight.”
“Thank you.” Mother affects a blush that is absolutely put-on. “Your son said the same.”
Here we go.
“He has impeccable taste.” Alonso pats Mother’s hand like she isn’t trying to gouge out a pound of flesh from his arm.
She beams up at him, her profile the perfect picture of a doting parent. “I absolutely agree—he chose Zarina, after all.”
I will not be forced to endure more passive aggressive guilt-tripping, verbal sparring, nor continued praise of a boy who processes his bad feelings with violence and aggression. “Mother”—I turn away from Alonso, acting as if he’s not there—“I’ve been hoping to get your opinion on possible wedding venues.”
Alonso’s face flushes red so fast I feel like I performed a magic trick.
Mother keeps her mask up, but after twenty-six years spent reading the infinitesimal twitches of her face, the tightness of her shoulders, the timbres of her voice hiding the truth of herself, I can see her frustration as clear as the brown of her eyes. To Alonso, she looks affable. To me, she looks murderous.
“Don’t be rude, Zarina,” she scolds with a fake smile that promises ill intent. “Your guests deserve attention. We can discuss details at a later date.”
But I’m already done. I don’t live in her house, where she can make good on her silently promised consequences. She doesn’t have unfettered access to my body, my space, anymore. And I refuse to continue entertaining their conversation about my future as if I’m not here. I plaster the fakest polite smile over my lips. “Then perhaps I could instead pick your brain as to why Mr. Accardi said marrying Tamayo would lead to the Gallo Family’s ruin?”
Mother freezes. Alonso glares. And I blink in faux polite inquiry, as if I’m talking about the state of Mother’s lawn rather than our impending doom at the hands of my parents and the man standing between us.
She snatches my arm with far less decorum than when she grabbed Alonso’s. “Please excuse us, Alonso. I hope to see you on the dance floor later.”
He barely adjusts his voice to be more genial than rude. “You have a slot on my dance card.”
“Lovely.” Mother shoves me to walk ahead of her until we exit the ballroom into a side hall, where I rip my arm out of her grip. I wave Pat off. They step back through the door to presumably wait on the other side. The hallway is empty, and I want Mother to think we have a semblance of privacy in the hopes she’ll finally tell me what the fuck is going on.
“I must know your nail technician. Your claws are sharper than I remember.” I rub my arm where she scratched four angry, red marks across my skin.
“Can’t you ever keep your tongue?” She checks the hall, like we might not be alone. As if Mother doesn’t always know exactly where to drag me for a verbal lashing in the middle of a party. “Don’t you know what’s at stake here? What we are losing each day you don’t marry Marcus? ”
“No! I don’t!” I snap. “Because you won’t tell me. That’s the whole fucking point!”
She considers me, body full of disappointment, lip hitched in repulsion. “You’re meant to trust us, to do your best by the family.”
I did. For years. I did my best to show them—Mother, Father, the family—that I can do more than look pretty and play seductress. I flirted with boys and let them drop secrets into my lap, automatically trusting me because I had boobs and a vagina. And that’s all that I was ever allowed to do. To be desirable rather than powerful.
At least with Tamayo, I’m both.
I don’t let Mother’s disappointment deflate me. “I’m worth more than a half-assed bargaining chip in a deal with the most evil brute in Louredo.”
“We are not worth—” Her mouth clamps shut like she said something she shouldn’t.
I stare at her. We are not worth what? Not worth more than this deal? It’s the only thing that makes sense. And even then, she said we . I furrow my brow. “What do you mean, ‘ we ’?”
Mother glances around like we might be overheard in this empty hallway, where I can barely hear the party on the other side of the door.
“Mother.” I lick my lips. “What do you mean, ‘ we’ ?”
“Not here, Zarina,” she hisses.
“You brought it up.”
“ Not here ,” she insists.
But this is the closest we’ve come to the heart of the issue. The thing her and Father refuse to utter a word about like I don’t deserve to know why they’re selling me off like cattle. Here, there, wherever it is, I refuse to drop the subject. “Does this have to do with the Gachico properties?”
Mother freezes. “How do you know about those?”
“So it does,” I surmise .
She tries to grab my arm again, but I smack it away. Her fist clenches instead. “Zarina, how do you know about those?”
“I’ve had access to the ledgers for a while.” I don’t care that she knows.
She chokes, hand on her throat. “Oh no.”
“We can recoup our losses there, though. I don’t understand how it’s enough to?—”
“Shut up,” Mother snaps. Her fingers tense, as if she’s keeping herself from slapping her palm over my mouth. “We cannot discuss this here.”
“What else is going on?” Because it’s not just a bad investment. It can’t be.
“For the love of god, Zarina, not here .”
“Then where!?” I throw up my hands.
Behind Mother, Marcus rounds the corner at the end of the hall. My arm drops, and every instinct inside me screams danger . I search the long corridor, paying attention for the first time. It’s lined in doors, none of them marked as a restroom, which means no one will be coming here from the party.
Knowledge settles into my bones, heavy as lead. Mother brought me here for him. And I followed without a second thought. Na?ve trust. Stupidity. Wishful thinking. Whatever it was, it doesn’t matter now. Marcus is here, standing behind Mother with an empty hallway closing in all around us.
A smug grin stretches his lips. “Hello, ladies.”