Chapter 32 Zarina
ZARINA
Iherald in the new year at Father’s bedside.
He’s recovering well, but can’t lift anything yet, including himself.
The family is worse off. A chunk of our ranks deserted after our fall from grace.
I offered to house whoever stayed loyal in our home, unwilling to lose more of our number to Accardi retaliation.
Of which there has been plenty.
With us holed up on the estate, most of their ire has been aimed at our patrons, the people and businesses we’re meant to keep safe. Unfortunately, we can’t. So whoever refused to align with the Accardis received a beating as a warning and one more chance to switch loyalties.
Until Tamayo swooped in. Time and again, she’s shown up to protect the patrons we no longer can without demanding anything in return from them or us.
The proud part of me is pissed—nobody asked for her help—but another, softer part of me that I refuse to give voice to is pleased.
Like she’s stepping up for me in my absence.
Which is kind of true, seeing as I’m the boss now.
It happened the day after New Year’s. I’d spent the week prior doing everything my parents refused to do for so long—I shored up our defenses (Christmas Day should never have happened), set meetings with the other dons (not the Accardis) to renegotiate our agreements, and focused efforts toward profit streams that are already performing well.
Add in the absolutely ridiculous rumors of what happened that day flying through the ranks—a soldier asked me point-blank if I ripped Danny’s tongue out of his mouth with my bare hands; I almost said yes—and it became a perfect storm of opportunity to call a vote of no confidence. Father’s consigliere, Jerry, agreed.
I might have pushed him to do it, but it didn’t take much convincing. Especially with Father backing my play. I’ve kept them both on as advisors. Though I won’t be keeping Jerry around longer than I have to. He’s a stodgy, traditional asshole and smells like tobacco. Ew.
Mother, on the other hand, has been frozen out.
She wanders the halls, talking to the men.
They all bow their heads in respect and then try to escape at the earliest convenience.
I’ve issued strict orders not to speak to her lest they’d like to be thrown out of the house to face the Accardis’ wrath alone. So far, it’s been threat enough.
I lean back in the desk chair in the library and rub my eyes. The blood has been cleaned out of the rug and the armchair; the foyer is in the midst of being restored despite our diminishing funds. I couldn’t let it stand in disrepair, not with the Gallo name as wrecked as that damned room.
A knock sounds a moment before Pat steps inside. They close the door with one hand, the other holding a large, blue box. A very specific blue that is synonymous with diamonds and luxury.
“Happy birthday!” Pat grins like there’s something to celebrate.
I scowl at them. “I told you we’re not acknowledging the passage of time this year.”
“And I told you that’s stupid.”
It’s not about age. I’m honestly happy to be older, to be alive and free. It’s about the state of affairs right now. We don’t have time to celebrate or lose focus. Every move and moment matters as we go through so many changes in such a short time. If I make even one mistake, we’re fucked.
And I can’t be the mafia princess that messed up her shot at queen.
Pat closes my laptop for me, setting the box down atop it. “Plus, there are gifts.”
“From who?” I eye the silver Tiffany logo with trepidation. I don’t think Pat would be as eager if this gift was a taunt from Marcus Accardi. Which means—
“Angie dropped it off.” They push the box toward me, the thing about to topple into my lap.
“Tamayo.” I don’t move to touch it. We haven’t spoken since Christmas, since everything upended into chaotic disarray. I’ve barely had time to breathe, let alone think.
But that’s a lie. Because most nights, when I’m trying to sleep, my mind doesn’t go over the decisions I made for my family that day.
It sneaks into a back room where I’ve placed Tamayo and our memories, our conversations, our connection.
And rather than reliving her betrayal and the subsequent pain, my subconscious cozies up into the comfort of her presence on Christmas Day and every other day when things were good between us.
Without being present, she’s the rock I’ve leaned upon to keep myself sane, the song that’s lulled me to sleep most nights.
It’s terrifying how deep her hold on me has sunk under my skin.
And part of me wants to root it out and raze it to the ground.
But if I do, I don’t think I’d be anywhere near okay.
And I’m already too far from it to let go of the one thing that’s helping.
So I stare at the box in front of me like it’s the Schrodinger experiment.
Either it contains the pain of a venomous snake ready to lunge at my throat the moment I open it, or the comfort of a dozing cat lying in a ray of sunshine. And I won’t know until I raise the lid.
“Have you called her?” Pat sits with one leg on the desk, the other on the floor, and their arms crossed. I imagine they’re holding themself back from opening the gift for me.
I chew on my lip. “No.”
“Do you want to?” they ask.
Yes. No. I don’t know.
It’s been three weeks since Christmas, when Tamayo stormed the castle to save me only to realize I didn’t need saving.
I’ve thought about calling her every day.
Thought about her even more often. So much so that my orders to shun Mother were for me and the family, but also for Tamayo and the role Mother played in her violent expulsion from the Gallos.
Pat taps the box. “It’s a gift. It doesn’t have to be anything more than that.”
“Right.” Like that’s remotely true. “Ugh.” I huff and lay my hands on either side of the lid. The box is soft against my fingers, the blue as cold as the view outside the windows behind me. Whatever’s inside won’t bite me, I tell myself. It won’t.
So I suck in a breath and tear it open.
“Holy shit,” Pat breathes.
Inside, on a bed of silk, lies a crown wrought of gold. Its spires swirl into sharpened spikes, rubies dripping down them like blood. The band is shaped into ivy with black diamonds set as the leaves, as if the spires are thorns grown out of the foliage.
I stare at it. The clarity of the gems, the specificity of the shape. This was made for me. For the new Gallo queen. Which means it must have cost a fortune.
In the middle of the circlet sits a note. The front says Happy Birthday in her scrawl. I almost don’t want to open it, a sliver of apprehension raking down my spine. She didn’t commission an outrageous piece of treasure for nothing. And I’m not sure if I want more than nothing from her yet.
Naturally, Pat has no such qualms. They pluck the note out of the box and open it with a flourish while I stare at the rubies glinting in the muted daylight.
“A crown fit for a queen,” Pat reads. “I’d like to call in my favor. Eight tonight at mine. See you there, princess.”
My lip hitches in annoyance at the contradictory titles. And the commanding tone. I glare at the crown as if it’s the woman who gave it to me.
“You gonna go?” Pat drops the note onto the desk. It lies open, Tamayo’s words barely legible inside.
I push back from the desk and stand, stretching my hands over my head and cracking my neck. “I can’t.”
“Why?”
“I have the Capone meeting to prep for.” I pour myself a cup of honey lemon tea, the set sitting on the sideboard, and grab a bottle of whisky to add a dollop for a hot toddy. “It’s tomorrow, remember?”
“You’re plenty prepped.” Pat slides off the desk to stand.
They’re wearing suspenders over a starched white shirt tucked into trousers, looking far more dapper than their usual suit-worn-like-a-straitjacket.
I shake my head, knowing they dressed up because Angie stopped by.
She probably didn’t even stay for longer than five minutes, but Pat likely spent an hour ironing their shirt and styling their perfect slicked-back hair. What a simp.
“Come on,” they say, “you’ve swum in these waters your whole life. You know exactly how to charm these little men with their fragile egos.”
While that’s true, it’s also not. I’ve never been the boss before, never been the one negotiating the deals and commanding respect beyond being Riccardo Gallo’s daughter.
It’s different now. I’m not an object owned by a man anymore.
I’m not a masculine woman who can pass as one of the guys like Tamayo.
I don’t know how they’ll receive me—if they’ll receive me.
“It feels different now. Like I can’t simply charm my way through this. ”
“You can if it gets you what you need.”
“What I and the family need is to get out of this house. The ability to go back to work, to make moves without fearing an Accardi around every corner. None of the dons can give us that. Not alone, at least.” I blow on my tea, pressing my fingers to the warm porcelain.
Tamayo’s note cycles through my head again.
“What does she even mean, call in her favor? She didn’t even keep up her end of the bargain. I owe her nothing.”
Pat rolls their head with a grimace. “I mean, technically—”
“No.” I hold out a hand to stop them. “Not even technically. And she knows it.”
“Maybe that’s the point.”
“What?” I frown at them.
Path rolls their eyes like I’m being dense. “You two need to talk, Zarina.”
Okay, maybe I am being dense. They’re not wrong. I know that. “But now? Tonight?”
Pat doesn’t press this time. They help themself to a mug of tea, skipping the liquor, and lean against the sideboard beside me in quiet support.
Their shoulder brushes mine, and I lean against them.
Everything is so new, it makes me incredibly grateful that Pat, our friendship, our dynamic, remains unchanged.
My gaze falls on the crown again. Its spires peak out from the box, rubies shining in the stark sunlight. Then my gaze catches on the corner of the note beside it, and I scoff again. “Calls me a queen and a princess in the same breath. Fuckin’ ridiculous.”
Beside me, Pat coughs, but I know it’s to hide a laugh.
“We don’t have the security,” I reason. With Pat.
With myself. With the room. “How would we even get there safely?” The last time I left the house, three Accardi SUVs followed us through the city, boxed us in on a deserted side street, and almost ran us off the road into an office building.
The only reason they didn’t is Pat’s quick thinking and stellar getaway driving skills.
Pat sucks in a breath and scrunches their face. “Angie’s still here. She came with an escort, which—”
“You’re kidding me.” I pull away from them, mouth gaping.
“No. I’m not.”
“Tamayo sent an escort?” I snap.
Pat grins, sipping their tea. “It’s almost like she cares, huh?”
“Oh, shut up.” I shoot them a glower meant to cool their tea and the blood in their veins.
All they do is keep grinning back at me, unaffected.
I huff, striding over to the box and slamming the lid back down atop it.
The note flutters with the force of it, and I snatch it up.
Tamayo’s handwriting is horrendous, her words barely legible.
I scowl down at it, a line of the note unread by Pat.
I miss you, she wrote. Your knave, Tamayo.
Goddamnit.