Page 82 of Rubies and Revenge

“He has impeccable taste.” Alonso pats Mother’s hand like she isn’t trying to gouge out a pound of flesh from his arm.

She beams up at him, her profile the perfect picture of a doting parent. “I absolutely agree—he chose Zarina, after all.”

I will not be forced to endure more passive aggressive guilt-tripping, verbal sparring, nor continued praise of a boy who processes his bad feelings with violence and aggression. “Mother”—I turn away from Alonso, acting as if he’s not there—“I’ve been hoping to get your opinion on possible wedding venues.”

Alonso’s face flushes red so fast I feel like I performed a magic trick.

Mother keeps her mask up, but after twenty-six years spent reading the infinitesimal twitches of her face, the tightness of her shoulders, the timbres of her voice hiding the truth of herself, I can see her frustration as clear as the brown of her eyes. To Alonso, she looks affable. To me, she looks murderous.

“Don’t be rude, Zarina,” she scolds with a fake smile thatpromises ill intent. “Your guests deserve attention. We can discuss details at a later date.”

But I’m already done. I don’t live in her house, where she can make good on her silently promised consequences. She doesn’t have unfettered access to my body, my space, anymore. And I refuse to continue entertaining their conversation about my future as if I’m not here. I plaster the fakest polite smile over my lips. “Then perhaps I could instead pick your brain as to why Mr. Accardi said marrying Tamayo would lead to the Gallo Family’s ruin?”

Mother freezes. Alonso glares. And I blink in faux polite inquiry, as if I’m talking about the state of Mother’s lawn rather than our impending doom at the hands of my parents and the man standing between us.

She snatches my arm with far less decorum than when she grabbed Alonso’s. “Please excuse us, Alonso. I hope to see you on the dance floor later.”

He barely adjusts his voice to be more genial than rude. “You have a slot on my dance card.”

“Lovely.” Mother shoves me to walk ahead of her until we exit the ballroom into a side hall, where I rip my arm out of her grip. I wave Pat off. They step back through the door to presumably wait on the other side. The hallway is empty, and I want Mother to think we have a semblance of privacy in the hopes she’ll finally tell me what the fuck is going on.

“I must know your nail technician. Your claws are sharper than I remember.” I rub my arm where she scratched four angry, red marks across my skin.

“Can’t you ever keep your tongue?” She checks the hall, like we might not be alone. As if Mother doesn’t always know exactly where to drag me for a verbal lashing in the middle of a party. “Don’t you know what’s at stake here? What we are losing each day you don’t marry Marcus?”

“No! I don’t!” I snap. “Because you won’t tell me. That’s the whole fucking point!”

She considers me, body full of disappointment, lip hitched in repulsion. “You’re meant to trust us, to do your best by the family.”

I did. For years. I did my best to show them—Mother, Father, the family—that I can do more than look pretty and play seductress. I flirted with boys and let them drop secrets into my lap, automatically trusting me because I had boobs and a vagina. And that’s all that I was ever allowed to do. To be desirable rather than powerful.

At least with Tamayo, I’m both.

I don’t let Mother’s disappointment deflate me. “I’m worth more than a half-assed bargaining chip in a deal with the most evil brute in Louredo.”

“We are not worth—” Her mouth clamps shut like she said something she shouldn’t.

I stare at her. We are not worth what? Not worth more than this deal? It’s the only thing that makes sense. And even then, she saidwe. I furrow my brow. “What do you mean, ‘we’?”

Mother glances around like we might be overheard in this empty hallway, where I can barely hear the party on the other side of the door.

“Mother.” I lick my lips. “What do you mean, ‘we’?”

“Not here, Zarina,” she hisses.

“You brought it up.”

“Not here,” she insists.

But this is the closest we’ve come to the heart of the issue. The thing her and Father refuse to utter a word about like I don’t deserve to know why they’re selling me off like cattle. Here, there, wherever it is, I refuse to drop the subject. “Does this have to do with the Gachico properties?”

Mother freezes. “How do you know about those?”

“So it does,” I surmise.

She tries to grab my arm again, but I smack it away. Her fist clenches instead. “Zarina, how do you know about those?”

“I’ve had access to the ledgers for a while.” I don’t care that she knows.

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