Page 23 of Rubies and Revenge

In the row ahead of him sits a man with a head of hair the same color and curl as Zarina’s—Riccardo Gallo. But where his shoulders are high around his ears, his neck reddening, Zarina stands tall and powerful. Every inch a princess.

At the altar, I release Zarina’s hand to slip it around her waist, stroking my thumb across the bare skin of her back. The smallest gasp breaches her lips. I lean in to kiss her temple, offering my other hand to help her keep balance as she kneels before God.

I lower myself beside her. We draw the same cross before us and bow our heads toward the crucifix suspended above. I rise immediately, but Zarina stays for a breath longer. Her fingers trace the gold chain of her necklace, the ruby hung by a noose, as her eyes remain closed. She pulls in one, two, three steadying breaths before she lifts her hand. I take it and help her stand.

She turns without a glance to me, shoulders back and chin high, to address the four patriarchs of the Cardinal Families and the most powerful men in Louredo. “Zarina Gallo, daughter ofAlessandra and Riccardo Gallo, appearing before the Council of her own volition.”

“Welcome, Zarina Gallo.” David Capone, don of the North, sits in the front-most pew as the eldest Council member, hair streaked gray and a glorious mustache atop his lip. He wears an ill-tailored suit, the jacket too big for his skinny frame.

I step forward, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Zarina. “Andrea Tamayo, appearing before the Council at their request.”

David Capone, who just addressed Zarina with something like affection, hitches his lip at me with affronted disgust. Zarina’s knuckles whiten on her clutch, but mine remain relaxed in my pockets, my face unbothered, if not slightly amused. David rakes his blue eyes up and down my body in a way that takes stock of its capital-worth rather than of its patriarchal-pleasantry.

He dismisses me without a word. “Zarina, your family worries for you.”

My gaze shifts to Riccardo Gallo and the Accardis in the pew behind him—Marcus and his father Alonso.

Zarina bows her head deferentially. “Thank you. But these worries are unfounded. As you can see, I am safe and healthy.”

David continues to lead the meeting despite the quiet scoff falling out of Alonso’s mouth. “And yet you arrived escorted by Andrea Tamayo.”

“Yes,” Zarina answers.

David’s eye twitches, like he wants to squint a scowl at her for impertinence. “Did Andrea compel your attendance tonight?”

Two minutes into the meeting, and Alonso’s face is purpling with unsaid words, teeth clenched and bared as if he’s physically stopping them from spilling out. Marcus is more collected, waiting and watching.

“Tamayo,”Zarina corrects, triggering a burst of warmth inmy chest, “did no such thing. We are here together to present to the Council.”

And they called us both.

“Perhaps Andrea should leave.” David ignores Zarina’s correction. “So that you can speak freely.”

If it weren’t for the circumstances leading Zarina to my club and us to this meeting on cursed ground, I might think David Capone was being kind. That he was asking the correct questions to be certain Zarina is unharmed and safe. But Marcus Accardi sits behind David, his eyes narrowed and posture relaxed, assured in the knowledge that he’ll never be asked to stand here, before the Council, and answer for his sins despite his bloodied hands.

And Zarina’s parents mean to marry her off to him, the city’s most cruel prince. No one asked her then if she was compelled. No one pulled her aside to be sure she was safe.

I clench my jaw at the same time Zarina forces hers open. “I speak freely now,” she says. “Tamayo stays.”

A prickle shivers over my scalp at her words. They offer no space for dissenting opinion or contradiction, wielding subtle power over the Council. Over me.

Jimmy Falcone leans forward, elbows on the pew in front of him and one hand gentle on David’s shoulder. His black hair is long enough to brush his shoulders, and his eyes are a striking hazel-green that bore into me then Zarina. “Before yesterday, you had never visited the Tamayo Family.”

“Not in Tamayo territory,” she says. Just as Juliet never left her tower to visit Romeo until they married.

“Explain,” he demands.

Zarina returns his stare with her own. “I’m a woman, Mr. Falcone. And a lesbian woman at that.”

Every single man shifts in his seat. The rage on Alonso’s face contorts into disgust. Marcus’s eyes alight as if this is the source of all his fantasies. And Riccardo Gallo can’t even look at hisdaughter, like he’s either ashamed of her or himself. I can’t tell which. The other two, David and Jimmy, fidget as if she’s just spoken about vaginal discharge, God forbid. I shift my weight back half a step and allow Zarina the spotlight she deserves. Let them choke on their hypocrisy.

“And as a queer woman”—her gaze settles on her father—“I am not afforded the same liberties to meet with lovers as you and your sons are.”

David Capone scoffs in offense at the insinuation that every man in this room, including him, has a lover other than his wife. Despite its veracity.

Jimmy, though, only smirks in amusement. “So you’ve been meeting in secret.”

“For months, yes,” she lies. We agreed to keep it mostly vague.

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