Page 42 of Sapphires and Snakes
“She’s circumventing the spyware somehow.”
“She’s a mafia princess, not a hacker.” He stuffs his phone back in his pocket.
I tilt my head at him, a bit surprised. “Two months living with her and you still think that?” This is the woman who held a knife to my throat and demanded I take her to Casa Nostra. The woman who thwarted an attempted kidnapping without firing a shot. I might call her princess, but I understood long ago that she’s much more. Darius is a proud fool if he can’t see that.
I shake my head in disappointment. “We need her computer.”
“What does it matter if she’s doing something else?” The question is full of disdain. “She’s got nowhere else to go.”
I stare at Darius. “Are you being purposefully dense?”
The easy humor left behind after his razzing falls from his face. “I don’t understand why it matters. Either she stays here and out of Accardi hands or she, what? Runs until Marcus hunts her down and either drags her back here or kills her?”
“That’s only true if she doesn’t find a way out of the merger that doesn’t involve marrying Marcus Accardi.”
“So she goes back home, so what?” he challenges.
There’s a reason I’m the boss and not Darius. Multiple reasons. And they’re not simple ones, like Darius didn’t want to lead. They’re deep-seated scars that run the length of my life, pushing me forward with relentless drive and a sometimes terrifying understanding of those around me. Darius can crack open a person’s skull with his bare fists—has done so—and manage our capos with a deftness I sometimes lack.
But I carry the weight of our success and failure, the safety of our entire family, and the deep-rooted empathy required to understand our friends and our enemies. I make moves that lead us toward a distant future and cut down anyone in our way with vicious precision.
And that includes my own family.
“Be very fucking careful how you proceed,” I growl.
Darius pulls up to his full height, squaring his shoulders and grounding his weight down through his toes. He doesn’t balk. Because as many reasons as there are that I’m the boss, there are just as many reasons why he’s my underboss. Chief among them being that he doesn’t balk, even when I bite.
“You want to stop her finding out.” His voice is even, unruffled by the violence stirring inside me. “But there’s no way for you to finish what you started without her and her whole family finding out.” He studies my face, the barely contained rage. “And isn’t that the whole point?”
“Of course it is,” I spit.
Darius levels a look at me.
The need to claw and tear buzzes in my muscles, rings in my ears. But I know it’s not for Darius or the truth he lays at my feet. It’s for myself, for the men in that alley so many years ago, for the family that forgot about me and left me for dead.
I force myself to inhale a long, cleansing breath, and release the tension on the exhale. My voice is still clipped as I tell Darius, “Just grab her computer the next time she leaves it in her room.”
“You got it, boss.” The last word is dripping with taunt, and I make myself ignore it. Maybe I can make a personal visit to our top debtors and unleash this sawing need to ravage skin and bone.
Darius unlocks and opens the office door, stopping short in the doorway. “Eavesdropping?” he asks with roiling disdain.
“You know full well this room is soundproofed.” Zarina’s answering tone matches his own.
I rub my temples, internally begging the universe for patience.
“Then why linger outside it?” he asks.
“I think you know that answer, too,” she answers, sickly sweet.
“Tamayo,” Darius calls over his shoulder. “Your fiancée is waiting for you.”.
I jab him in his kidney to make him move out of the way. “Hi, princess.”
Her hair is slicked back into a high, smooth pony. I want to pull it until her back arches with it. Instead, I land a peck on her cheek as I slip the office key into the front pocket of my trousers.
“Hi.” Pink flushes her cheeks, a pretty contrast to the cropped cream sweater and wide-leg pants.
“How was your day?” I ask as I lead her down the hall, away from Darius and the office and all the bullshit that happened within it. “Do anything fun?”
