Chapter 14 Zarina
ZARINA
When I step into the recreation room, Pat is sitting on a large bean bag chair with a controller in hand and a smirk on their face.
A small crowd of kids is around them and their current opponent, yelling combos or talking shit or both.
I enjoy the scene for a moment, unwilling to pop the bubble, and maybe kind of hoping to make my father wait longer than necessary.
But Pat spots me and immediately frowns, like they can tell from fifty feet away that something is wrong. Maybe they can, I don’t know. Either way, they pause the game, the kids groaning.
“Someone else deserves a chance to win.” They stand, waving the controller. “Who wants it?”
One kid—Harriet—plops down in Pat’s place and yanks the controller out of their hand. “Rematch when you get back. Gotta redeem myself.” And then they kick Pat out of the way.
Pat flicks their ear. “Manners, missy.”
Harriet glares at them. “Call me missy again, and I’ll kick harder.”
“What’s the gender neutral term, then?” Pat cocks their head, considering. “Punk?”
I half-smile as I watch them.
Harriet rolls their eyes. “Whatever.”
“You’re such a teen.” Pat shakes their head.
Harriet snorts, the fight on the screen resumed already and their fingers flying over the controls. “And you’re such a boring adult.”
“Excuse you.” Pat gasps dramatically. “I whooped your ass earlier.”
“A fluke.”
“We’ll see!” Pat strides across the room, the other kids laughing at the exchange as Harriet trounces the other kid in Mortal Kombat. Pat’s face is bright with happiness, and I almost feel bad interrupting.
“Having fun?” I ask.
They arch a brow. “More than you. What’s up?”
God, I love them. They always know, to an extent that feels like it should be impossible to achieve. A look and they’re drawing weapons. A lip twitch and they’re standing at my shoulder. They’re better than a best friend.
I lower my voice. “Father’s here.”
Pat’s blue eyes harden like ice. They glance back to the kids in the recreation room then gesture me into the hall, away from innocent ears. “Where?”
“Atrium.”
They glance in that general direction. “How many?”
“Him and G—or that’s what Rita said.”
Pat chews on that. Father supposedly only brought his perpetual shadow, and I’m not sure if that means he’s insulting Tamayo by assuming she poses little threat or if he’s trying to counter any assumptions that he’s here to finish what was started at the engagement party.
“And Tamayo?” Pat asks.
“She and Darius will be in the hallway, just in case.”
They nod. “Perimeter?”
“Ask Darius.”
“Fine.” Pat shakes their head, like I should bother myself with the details of security when I have them for that. They turn, heading for the atrium.
“Pat?” My voice is soft, barely heard over their footsteps.
They stop, frowning in concern. I scrunch my nose at the words stuck in my throat. They make me feel small. I’m a mafia princess, a threat in my own right, and yet…
“Do you—” I almost swallow the question back down, but instead it spills out in a rush. “Do you think he’s here to hurt me?”
Pat closes the gap between us and takes my arms in their hands. Their blue eyes melt, a glacier cracking in the sun. “I don’t know.”
“I know he fucked up. A lot.” Each transgression rolls through me like a waterfall of poison—investing poorly, arranging the marriage, aligning with the Accardis, conspiring to kidnap me—and yet that girl sitting in the depths of the black hole of my soul still yearns.
She wishes for the moments when he’d smile at me wide, when his eyes would crinkle with fondness, when he’d take care of me. “But we—he—”
“He’s your father,” they finish for me.
The word doesn’t feel like it’s enough, like it’s a paltry descriptor of what I’m trying to say.
Pat rubs their hands up and down my arms. “The only way to know is to find out.”
“Yeah.” I know that’s true, but it doesn’t make the wish any lighter in my chest. I suck in a steeling breath and let it out slowly. “You’re right. Let’s go.”
They turn to walk beside me. “I’ll be in the atrium with you.”
I nod, understanding their need to make up for the last time I was alone with a parent. Pat had guarded the door rather than me and had almost let the worst happen. And it’s not only them—I want them near, too.
Tamayo and Darius stand at the end of the hall, speaking in murmurs while they wait. Pat goes to Darius immediately, likely to ask about the perimeter and other security things. I grab Tamayo’s hand and peek through one of the small windows of the double, metal doors.
Father’s studying the bulletin board of news, flyers, accomplishments, and events.
Photos of the youths who were once here and are here now litter the corkboard, protected by a glass cabinet.
His hands are in his pockets, his suit a muted gray, like the clouds hanging low in the sky over Louredo.
His bodyguard, G, stands at the door leading outside, eyes scanning everywhere, all the time.
He spots me in the window and whispers a word of warning to Father. I step back before he can turn.
Tamayo squeezes my hand. “You got this.”
“I know.” And I do know. Whether our encounter is painted with disappointment, unexpected amity, betrayal, or something else entirely, I know that I will be able to walk back through these doors and be okay.
That I can ask Tamayo to wrap me up in comfort, Pat to make me laugh with my whole belly.
I have them. Rita and Darius, too, in their own ways. And I will be okay.
I release Tamayo’s hand and pull on my armor—chin high, spine straight, face bored. “Pat.”
They stand on my right, one step behind, as we step into the atrium. Father watches me enter, brown eyes darker than mine scanning me from head to toe as if he expected injuries. The door clanks shut behind us, the sound echoing through the tiled hall.
I stop about ten feet away from him, unwilling to close the distance. “Father.”
“Zarina.” He says my name like a sigh of relief. “Thank you for seeing me.”
I don’t say anything. We’re in Tamayo’s territory, and while I may not be its queen, it means I owe him very little in the way of deference here.
It must bother him, or maybe everything about our current situation bothers him, because he immediately begins to guilt me. “Have we really come to this? Having to chase you down for a conversation?”
“It’s not so unreasonable considering the last time I talked to you.” I do my best to ignore the images and subsequent echoed emotions that roil through me. Last time I was alone with a parent, it was the lowest betrayal.
He shifts his weight, and I read it for the fidgeting it is. “That’s one reason I’m here—to apologize.”
“For which part?” I challenge. Because this shouldn’t be easy, not for either of them.
“I should have never let your mother go ahead with it.” His face softens, and it reminds me of when I was a child, when he’d comfort me after a skinned knee or bad cut.
But that’s not enough for me. Soft eyes and non-apologies won’t close the distance between us. Too much has happened over the last two months. I don’t allow a single muscle to shift on my face, in my posture. “Again, I ask, which part?”
And that softness disappears.
His jaw ticks. Maybe he thinks I’m being obstinate or that I’m a spoiled-rotten princess of his own making. Either way, hurt lances my heart. Did he even mean those words, that small concession? Or is he manipulating me again?
I release a resigned sigh, and with it, the hope that a genuine, honest apology might fall from his lips. “Why are you here, Father?”
“Come back home, Zarina.” He tries to soften his face again, but I can’t read it as anything other than a mask. His plea rings empty to me, a script rehearsed and performed without any emotional connection to the character.
He throws out a hand. “I can’t believe I’m about to eat Thanksgiving dinner without your pie—”
“Nona’s pie,” I correct.
He ignores me. He always ignores me. “I can’t believe you’re a month away from marrying that—”
“Watch it.” My voice is a low growl that rips out of my throat. “I’m not in a very merciful mood.”
“Woman.” He sidesteps my wrath just barely. “She’s a gangster, for Christ’s sake.”
“Do you have a point that you’ll be getting to?
Or are you just here to insult me and my fiancée?
Because I’m not hearing the word sorry, nor any accountability for the mess we’re all in, nor any solutions to that mess, Father.
So, if you’re only here to waste my time, I’d rather end this earlier than later. Dinner’s waiting.”
Dangerous cold washes over him. The same look I remember seeing before he ordered a snitch’s tongue carved out of his mouth and delivered to the police. It should inspire fear in me, but all I feel is a deep well of disappointment that threatens to swallow me.
“This mess is not my fault. Your mother—” He cuts himself off.
I force my expression to remain bland, but internally I’m frowning.
Growing up, I watched the multitude of times Father made the wrong decision, invested in the wrong business, struck poor deals that barely benefitted the family.
Always, Mother had to swoop in to fix it or offer better terms. And then Father would take her suggestion, claiming it as his own. Over and over again.
What are they hiding?
Father ventures a step forward, shortening the distance between us but not closing it. He glances to the door I walked through, where Tamayo and Darius wait, and back to me. “Tamayo isn’t trustworthy, Zarina.”
The well of disappointment rises further. I shake my head. “Waste of my time.”
“She has a past, too,” he pushes. I blink at him, indifferent. He steps closer again, each step tantamount to begging me to listen. “Have you ever asked her how she became a boss at age, what—twenty-six?”