Chapter 2
TAMAYO
The party distorts as if the whole place is under Wonderland’s spell, too small and too big at the same time.
People simper and schmooze and sip in costumes larger than life, crowding into each other like toy soldiers advancing behind their shields.
I scan the crowd, but I can’t see past the extravagant hair pieces with real peacock feathers and the high collars hiding dangerous smirks.
The Accardis are making a move, and I can’t find Zarina.
“She was with the kids,” I mutter.
Mateo has already slunk back into the crowd, willing to warn me but unwilling to offer help. If I wasn’t on the edge of panic, I’d snort at the predictability of it.
“By the orchestra, at your two.” Darius’s words no sooner reach my ears than I’m walking.
A peacock and an ace of spades part ahead of me, and I finally see what Darius did—Riccardo and Alessandra Gallo.
They’re speaking under their breath, jaws stern and gazes scowling.
Alessandra’s claws are on Riccardo’s shoulder, the tips of her nails digging into the fabric of his suit.
“Where’s Zarina?” I burst into their private moment without a care for decorum.
“Lost your fiancée already?” Alessandra asks with a smug smirk, cutting off Riccardo before he can speak. She did that when I was a kid, too. “Hopefully this doesn’t become a pattern, hm.”
I want to pry each nail off her finger. I want to watch her gasp with pain. I want to shove each acrylic down her throat as she gags and splutters, wishing she could kill me.
Instead, I bare my teeth.
“Northern hall,” Riccardo says, voice barely audible. A coward to the end.
Alessandra shoots him a withering glare.
I turn on my heel and sweep away without another word. Let the two idiots tear each other apart for all I care. The northern hall is across the ballroom, through an ocean of dangerous criminals disguised as well-wishers. Darius takes the lead, spurning any advances to block us from our goal.
There’s only a few minutes before the sun sets tonight.
I don’t listen to the excuses Darius spins as people try to flag us down or step in our path.
I press forward without pausing. My gut is churning, waves of anxious desperation tossing to and fro.
Either Zarina is on the other side of that door, or she’s gone.
There’s no in-between. And if she’s gone, I’ll rip this city apart to find her.
If I had a millisecond to spare, that thought might halt me in my tracks.
We gather capos like debris in the tide as we go.
The party continues as if Zarina and I—the guests of honor—are amongst them, celebrating our engagement.
As if one of us, the gang leader without a title to trade on, isn’t striding with purpose through the room with murder on her face.
Not one person here would care if Zarina was kidnapped by one of their own.
Not one would blink an eye if Marcus Accardi shot me at point-blank range in the middle of the dance floor.
As we approach the northern hall’s door, Pat materializes from behind a drape, hand up.
I walk directly into them, their body blocking my path to the door.
Their hand shoves my chest, and I smack it away.
They grab my arm and reach for my throat, but Darius snatches their wrist before they can make contact.
I twist out of their grip, not bothering to explain as I grab the door handle.
Darius does. “Zarina’s in danger.”
I shove through the door, three capos, Darius, and Pat on my heels. The scene on the other side threatens to cut me off at the knees.
Ten men with guns whirl around the moment the sound of the party tumbles into the hall. And behind them, in the archway of the open exit door, stand Marcus and Zarina.
“Where the fuck are you going?” My voice is deceptively calm. My body itches as if I’ve broken out in hives, palms sweating and fingers twitching.
The hall door falls shut behind us, like a casket closing before it’s buried six feet deep.
My capos stand with their hands on their guns, whereas I stand straight and still.
Darius and Pat mirror me, standing on my either side like two gargoyles ready to pounce the moment they’re released from their stony prisons.
I register all of this in my peripheral, because my gaze is glued to Zarina and Marcus.
To his hand wrapping around the back of her neck, fingers white with the force of his grip on her skin.
Another bruise will flower purple and blue where he touches her.
Another reminder that I keep failing at the one thing I promised Zarina—protecting her.
Marcus grins like he’s reveling in his upper hand. “We’re late for an important date.”
“Halloween is hardly important.” I try to be flippant, try to hide the way my eyes flick over the ten men between me and Zarina, the narrow hallway that doesn’t allow for large-scale maneuvers. I try to keep the fear hidden behind a smirk.
Marcus snorts. “It will be, when it’s our anniversary.”
So he means to kidnap and forcibly marry her. And no one else at this hoax of a party gives a singular fuck about it.
“The anniversary of your castration, maybe,” Zarina snaps.
Marcus’s hand squeezes harder with a forced chuckle. Zarina winces in pain, and my fingers twitch so violently, one of his men adjusts their gun like I reached for my own still holstered at my waist. The air from the wide-open exit door licks at their backs. We have to keep them here.
“All this manpower to transport one little girl,” Pat calls with a scoff. “Says a lot about your”—they look pointedly at Marcus’s crotch—“power.”
“We expected more trouble.” Marcus shrugs, performing nonchalance, but Zarina flinches again and belies his facade. “Not this puny gang.”
As if he summoned them, a handful of my soldiers swarm the back alley exit behind him. Half the guns whirl to meet the new threat, advancing to guard Marcus’s back. A small exhale of relief shakes through me, but it’s short-lived.
Marcus still has a chokehold on the queen in this chess match. My queen.
“You were saying?” Pat sneers.
“Attaccati a sto cazzo!” Dan the Snake yells. The man won’t even tell us to suck his dick in English. Coward.
“Mind your business,” Pat snaps. They don’t bother to spare the Snake a glance, eyes only for Marcus. “Since when does the big bad mafia prince hide behind boys and guns to steal himself a wife?” they taunt.
Marcus’s nails dig into Zarina’s neck, and I tighten my core to keep from lunging forward.
Pat shakes their head with derision. “Can’t wait to tell the Cardinal dons all about this. We’ll have a good laugh, I’m sure.”
Marcus yanks Zarina closer. Her back is pressed to his chest, his hand twisting to sit under her chin, making her crane her neck.
“Pat,” I whisper-growl in warning. Every word they utter hurts Zarina. What the fuck are they doing?
“I know what you’re doing,” Marcus growls.
Pat snorts, ignoring me and the cruel grip around Zarina’s throat. “Calling you out for the pathetic coward you are?”
Marcus grits his teeth and uses his second hand to grab hold of Zarina’s jaw so hard, her eyes water. “Baiting me.”
“Pat.” I want to snatch Pat’s elbow and shove my fist in their mouth, make them shut the fuck up. But if I move too suddenly, the ten men and their jumpy trigger fingers will react. They’ll shoot. And I can’t fail Zarina, not when she’s in danger of the one thing I promised to prevent.
“It’s not hard with someone as emotional as you,” Pat jeers.
Darius whispers so low beside me, I almost miss the words. “Her hands.”
Marcus’s whole face reddens with anger. It takes every ounce of self-control I possess to keep my gaze where it is, watching Marcus practically strangle Zarina, rather than darting down.
I hold the fear and helplessness in my expression as I let my gaze slowly travel from Marcus’s hands to Zarina’s—one of which is slowly creeping toward Marcus’s gun at his hip.
Pat continues taunting, having caught on to the game far quicker than myself. “Poor little Marky, too many emotions for his body to handle—”
Marcus snaps, “Wipe this gang off—”
Before he can finish the order, Zarina snatches his gun out of its holster. She digs the muzzle into the soft skin under his chin and flicks off the safety. “Take your hands off me and walk me to Tamayo, or I pull the fucking trigger.”
Marcus’s men don’t know what to do. A few half-turn to meet the new threat, while the rest hold us back in front and behind. Marcus himself doesn’t move or speak for a full ten seconds, which I count in my head. Zarina holds steady, not a hint of shaky hesitation in her body or her face.
She’d kill him, even if it meant her own death.
“I could break your neck,” Marcus threatens. His fingers dig into her skin impossibly harder.
Zarina doesn’t even flinch. “Not before I pull the trigger.”
Dan the Snake steps toward them, and she digs the gun in deep enough to force Marcus’s head back.
“I will kill him,” she snarls.
Dan pauses. “Marky?”
“Back up, Danny.” Marcus says it like the words are being wrenched out of him.
Dan falls back with a huff.
“Further,” Zarina says.
Marcus nods, and Dan growls, putting more space between them. Marcus keeps hold of Zarina’s neck, as if he doesn’t have ten men ready to bury a bullet in her chest the moment she so much as twitches her finger on the trigger.
“Walk me to Tamayo,” she says.
Marcus stands frozen, face flushing and jaw grinding. I’d laugh if my whole body didn’t feel like it was being tossed about in a storm, helpless to find my footing. I cannot do anything to help. If we attack, we die. If Zarina attacks, she dies.
Only she can save herself. And I hate it.
Zarina steps forward without waiting for Marcus to confirm or deny her instructions.
He’s forced to follow if he wants to keep his hands on her neck.
They walk together through the throng of armed soldiers.
My focus narrows to the two of them. The floor is carpeted, and yet each footfall is as loud as booming thunder, vibrating up through my shoes and into my chest.
Without discussion, we stand rooted to the spot.
Everybody in the narrow hall is coiled so tight, a single wrong breath will spring them into action.
No one speaks. No one twitches. Air roars in my ears as Zarina traverses the endless distance toward me, like a gruesome facsimile of our future fake wedding march.
And all I can do is watch.
Watch as Marcus half-chokes my bride before he gives her away. Watch as guns follow my beloved down the aisle. Watch as I am rendered impotent.
And then they stop.
They stand in the no man’s land between his soldiers and me. Zarina presses the gun harder into Marcus’s chin. He grunts and squeezes his hand tighter on her jaw.
“Tamayo.” Zarina says my name like it’s a lifeline. “Accompany me to the door.”
I lift both hands outward, showing them empty to Marcus and his men, and step forward slow and steady. Zarina might think I’m a lifeline, but I’m just the shore. I did nothing to pull her into safety but exist.
Dan the Snake scoffs in the background. “You fucking kidding me, Marky? We’re just gonna let ’em leave?”
“Shut the fuck up, Danny,” Marcus snaps.
Zarina turns to face him, gun still pressed to his chin, his hand still around her neck but allowing her movement. He glares down at her. She grins with malicious delight. “Good boy, Marky.”
His eye twitches. “It’s only a matter of time, Zarina.”
I stand so close behind her that each breath brushes my chest against her back.
“Pat, open the doors,” Zarina commands. They move immediately, at least three guns following them. “Everyone else, hands up and off your guns.”
I don’t spare my people more than a muttered, “Do it.”
“Now, Pat,” Zarina says.
They push the double doors wide open at the same moment Zarina steps out of Marcus’s hold.
His expression is dark, flush turning purple, as his arms fall to his sides.
I can’t hold myself back anymore. I grab her hip with one hand as Zarina aims her gun—Marcus’s gun—straight up and fires at the ceiling.
The party stills for a single breath before hundreds of weapons slide out of their holsters and sheaths and aim for the sound. No one gasps. No one screams.
Zarina clears the gun’s chamber, removes the magazine, and tosses the pieces to the ground. She rolls her shoulders back, takes my hand from her hip and speaks loudly, clearly, to the entire ballroom. “Marcus Accardi attempted to kidnap and forcibly marry me, Zarina Gallo, moments ago.”
She turns, guiding us into the party. Pat follows close on her heels while Darius waits until every single one of our people is safely away from the scene. We wind our way through the crowd, Zarina leading us on a circuitous route that takes us past each of the Cardinal dons.
“This is in breach of the Council, of sacred hospitality, and of my own personhood, and will be seen as an act of war lest the Accardis make amends,” she continues.
Jimmy Falcone offers me a look of impressed surprise; Alonso one of apoplectic rage that echoes Marcus’s; David appears annoyed more than anything; and Riccardo Gallo attempts to catch his daughter’s eye, as if he wants to make sure she’s okay.
As if he didn’t condemn her to this the moment he agreed to marry her to a man with violence in his veins.
Zarina stops us at the front door, turning to survey the room with murder on her face. “You have forty-eight hours to respond.”