Page 9 of Rubies and Revenge

It feels like the Upside Down, but it isn’t scary. It’s exhilarating.

Darius leads us up a winding staircase, and my feet hesitate to follow. What if this is the last time I step foot in Den of Inequity? What if Andrea Tamayo laughs me out of her club and I never get to experience this again?

Pat clears their throat, and I sigh, steeling myself. I know what I want. I will get it.

ZARINA

Andrea Tamayo is hotter than I expected. Much hotter. Like distractingly hot.

She pours vodka into two glasses, dressed in tailored, gray bird’s-eye slacks with a pressed, white dress shirt tucked in and left unbuttoned to just above her navel. I suck my bottom lip between my teeth, tracing the line of her suspenders from her hip up to her neckline. Her fade reveals the tattoos scrolling from behind her ear down the back of her neck to disappear under her collar.

Pat tugs on my skirt, and I release my lip from between my teeth, standing straight-backed, chin high, face blank. Mostly. Andrea turns, fully facing me for the first time since I entered her private room with the wall of mirrored windows looking down over the club and soundproofing foam muffling the club’s blaring music. Her black hair brushes her forehead, her brown eyes like palm tree bark against the sandy tan of her skin. Freckles dot her cheeks, like pebbles on the shore. Fuck.

She hands me a sweating glass of ice and vodka and whatever else she poured in there. An orange peel floats amongst theice. I accept it, careful to avoid her finger, because I’m pretty sure if we touched, I’d drop the goddamn drink.

“Zarina Gallo.” She says my name like it’s a hard candy melting on her tongue.

Fuck. My mouth goes dry. I take a sip, wetting my throat with the lemon-orange-vodka cocktail, which is delicious. And that just makes me more annoyed. I am Zarina fucking Gallo. I make men crawl and women pant, not the other way around.

I shake out my hair to cover the deep breath I take to gather myself. “Andrea Tamayo.”

“Tamayo, please.” She sits in the only armchair in the room, ankle on her knee, relaxed as she savors her drink. The picture of a queen on her throne. She gestures to the couch, inviting me to sit, but I stay standing.

“I don’t bend the knee.” Especially not to gang leaders.

“A princess through-and-through.” She smirks. I shoot her a scowl, and she only smiles wider. “Tell me, has anyone ever bent youovertheir knee? Might do you some good.”

Heat pulses under my skirt, but I only allow myself a single, arched brow. “Do you wish you could?”

She runs a finger over her bottom lip then lets the hand drop. Her face remains impassive, but the brown of her eyes darkens toward black. “I don’t.”

I scoff. “And the Earth is flat.”

“I’m sure you can find a willing someone out there.” She nods toward the windows, the club beyond.

I glance over at the DJ suspended over the dance floor, the black lights painting the crowd purples and neons. I lick my lips, slow and purposeful, watching Tamayo out of the corner of my eye. “I just might.”

She tongues her cheek and squeezes her glass where it rests on her knee. “Why are you here?”

A trickle of relief rolls down my back—I haven’t lost my touch. I turn back around to face her where she sits on herveritable throne and do my absolute best not to stare at the soft skin of her cleavage.

“I’m gay,” I start.

Pat barely covers a snort-laugh behind me, and I barely hold my elbow back from jabbing their gut.

Tamayo blinks but doesn’t say anything. She should know already; it’s not a secret. Though when the fact of my sexuality is presented to men—specifically straight, cis men—it’s usually met either as a challenge to convince me I’m simply missing the right dick, which is obviously theirs, or as a promise of a future performance for them, as if lesbians are only meant for their consumption.

This is the first time those words haven’t caused a reaction.

I set my drink on the gold side table. No one else is in this room but the four of us—Pat standing behind the velvet sofa, Darius leaning against the untended bar—and yet it feels like I’m presenting to the entire club. My skin itches and my cheeks burn, but I don’t slouch. This is my one shot, and I can’t waste it. Not if I want to keep my freedom. Not if I want a chance to inherit my birthright.

“My parents have known I’m gay since I was fourteen. They accepted me, loved me, never pushed me to be anything else.” To flirt and lead on, sure. But feminine wiles are a weapon in the social arsenal, another way to get what we want and protect ourselves from what we don’t. But never before now have they asked me to change, to ignore myself so completely. “Tonight, they told me I’m to marry Marcus Accardi.”

Tamayo doesn’t move, face still curious yet impassive, but I catch the tension. Her eyes darken with something that echoes in the tightness of her jaw, gaze traveling from my face to my collarbones, to my fingers, where I play with the chain of my purse hanging at my hip.

I focus on the mole under her left eye, unable to watch herwatch me. “Anyway, that can’t happen. And I need your help to make sure it doesn’t.”

“My help?” she asks.

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