Page 12 of Rubies and Revenge

She throws up her hands and stalks over to the windows, grumbling under her breath.

“Why would you want only three months, princess?” I rest my elbows on my knees, voice low and rumbling. “What could change in such a short time?”

“The Accardis will give up by then.”

“No, they won’t.” I push out of my chair, grabbing her empty glass from the side table by the sofa and ignoring Pat’s narrowed glare as I carry it back to the bar. Darius slides fresh drinks over—two more vodka Collinses. “The Accardis have the chance to double their power, rule the South and the West. They won’t let go so easily.”

“What’s your point?” she snaps.

“You want time.” I stride over to Zarina, where she stands at the wall of windows watching the revelers below, and hand her the new drink. “Time to find a way out of this that doesn’t end with you married to a man. Time to find a way to bring the Gallo Family under your command.”

She doesn’t turn from the view despite my outstretched hand. I wait. She chews her lip. It’s like she’s about to kneel again. If she agrees, she admits I’m right and yields the higher ground. And when she does, I’ll have more leverage.

“Three months isn’t long enough, if you ask me,” I purr. “But I’m just a gang leader. What do I know?”

Zarina snatches the drink from me, and I smirk as I sip mine. She holds hers without tasting it, staring at me with narrowed eyes. “Ten percent.”

Finally.“Twenty-five.”

“Ten percent and a favor,” she counters.

That gives me pause. Essentially limitless in scope and to be defined by me later, a favor from a Cardinal Family is more valuable than gold in Louredo. I could ask for just about anything and she’d be required to agree.

“That’s my final offer.” She downs her entire drink in three gulps, a trickle of citrus slipping down her chin until she catches it with her finger. She presses it back into her mouth as she shoves her glass back into my hand. “You have until midnight to decide.”

And then Zarina Gallo strides out the door, surrounded in as much chaos as when she entered.

TAMAYO

It clangs shut behind her and Pat like the chime of a bell keeping time. Midnight. As if this is some Cinderella bullshit and I’m not her best chance at getting what she wants—freedom and power.

“What the fuck just happened?” Darius asks the empty room.

I turn away from the window, my knee twinging again, and stride to the bar to deposit her empty glass and chug my own drink. I try not to think about the line of her throat, or the liquor shining over her chin, as she gulped the last of hers. The hem of her orange dress where it brushed her thighs. The pink tint of her lip gloss that glimmered in the light. My fingers slip on my glass, and I almost drop it.Smooth.

“Andy.” Darius says my nickname the same way a mom says their child’s full name. It’s not Andrea Tamayo, it’s Andy.

I drop an orange twist into the glass and take a sip. Citrus bursts along my tongue, and all I can wonder is if Zarina tastes the same. I relish another sip.

“You can’t be serious,” he mutters, leaning over the bar and grabbing a beer and a lime wedge to stuff down its neck with more force than necessary.

“Which part?” I ask. Before I even asked Zarina to define her terms, the moment she lowered herself to her knees before me, I knew my answer. And so did Darius. He always knows.

He shoots me his most unamused look, jaw clenched and lips tight. I can’t help but grin at him, my canines catching on my lip. He levels a deadpan glower. “We cannot take on the Gallos and the Accardis and the Council while also negotiating with the Falcones.”

I wave away his concerns. “The Council will honor my claim if I make it. They’ll be required to.”

“At what cost?” he gripes.

“You mean reward.”

“I don’t.” He picks at the label of his beer, the same way he always does when he’s worried. “We don’t need to be a Cardinal Family. We’re powerful enough to protect ourselves so long as we don’t step on their toes?—”

“And who decides if we step on their toes?” I ask.

“Andy—”

“They’re proud men with more power than sense, and whatever they say goes. I can’t abide that. They don’t want us here, don’t respect us, don’t think we’re worth a damn.” I drag the toe of my sullied boot across the floor as if still trying to wipe it clean of muck. “We’ll always be expendable, nothing but a gang playing around in their sandbox, allowed to exist by their good grace.

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