Page 2 of Sapphires and Snakes
TAMAYO
The party distorts as if the whole place is under Wonderland’s spell, too small and too big at the same time. People simper and schmooze and sip in costumes larger than life, crowding into each other like toy soldiers advancing behind their shields. I scan the crowd, but I can’t see past the extravagant hair pieces with real peacock feathers and the high collars hiding dangerous smirks.
The Accardis are making a move, and I can’t find Zarina.
“She was with the kids,” I mutter.
Mateo has already slunk back into the crowd, willing to warn me but unwilling to offer help. If I wasn’t on the edge of panic, I’d snort at the predictability of it.
“By the orchestra, at your two.” Darius’s words no sooner reach my ears than I’m walking. A peacock and an ace of spades part ahead of me, and I finally see what Darius did—Riccardo and Alessandra Gallo. They’re speaking under their breath, jaws stern and gazes scowling. Alessandra’s claws are on Riccardo’s shoulder, the tips of her nails digging into the fabric of his suit.
“Where’s Zarina?” I burst into their private moment without a care for decorum.
“Lost your fiancée already?” Alessandra asks with a smug smirk, cutting off Riccardo before he can speak. She did that when I was a kid, too. “Hopefully this doesn’t become a pattern, hm.”
I want to pry each nail off her finger. I want to watch her gasp with pain. I want to shove each acrylic down her throat as she gags and splutters, wishing she could kill me.
Instead, I bare my teeth.
“Northern hall,” Riccardo says, voice barely audible. A coward to the end.
Alessandra shoots him a withering glare.
I turn on my heel and sweep away without another word. Let the two idiots tear each other apart for all I care. The northern hall is across the ballroom, through an ocean of dangerous criminals disguised as well-wishers. Darius takes the lead, spurning any advances to block us from our goal.
There’s only a few minutes before the sun sets tonight.
I don’t listen to the excuses Darius spins as people try to flag us down or step in our path. I press forward without pausing. My gut is churning, waves of anxious desperation tossing to and fro. Either Zarina is on the other side of that door, or she’s gone. There’s no in-between. And if she’s gone, I’ll rip this city apart to find her.
If I had a millisecond to spare, that thought might halt me in my tracks.
We gather capos like debris in the tide as we go. The party continues as if Zarina and I—the guests of honor—are amongst them, celebrating our engagement. As if one of us, the gang leader without a title to trade on, isn’t striding with purpose through the room with murder on her face. Not one person here would care if Zarina was kidnapped by one of their own. Not one would blink an eye if Marcus Accardi shot me at point-blank range in the middle of the dance floor.
As we approach the northern hall’s door, Pat materializes from behind a drape, hand up. I walk directly into them, their body blocking my path to the door. Their hand shoves my chest, and I smack it away. They grab my arm and reach for my throat, but Darius snatches their wrist before they can make contact.
I twist out of their grip, not bothering to explain as I grab the door handle.
Darius does. “Zarina’s in danger.”
I shove through the door, three capos, Darius, and Pat on my heels. The scene on the other side threatens to cut me off at the knees.
Ten men with guns whirl around the moment the sound of the party tumbles into the hall. And behind them, in the archway of the open exit door, stand Marcus and Zarina.
“Where the fuck are you going?” My voice is deceptively calm. My body itches as if I’ve broken out in hives, palms sweating and fingers twitching.
The hall door falls shut behind us, like a casket closing before it’s buried six feet deep. My capos stand with their hands on their guns, whereas I stand straight and still. Darius and Pat mirror me, standing on my either side like two gargoyles ready to pounce the moment they’re released from their stony prisons.
I register all of this in my peripheral, because my gaze is glued to Zarina and Marcus. To his hand wrapping around the back of her neck, fingers white with the force of his grip on her skin. Another bruise will flower purple and blue where he touches her. Another reminder that I keep failing at the one thing I promised Zarina—protecting her.
Marcus grins like he’s reveling in his upper hand. “We’re late for an important date.”
“Halloween is hardly important.” I try to be flippant, try to hide the way my eyes flick over the ten men between me andZarina, the narrow hallway that doesn’t allow for large-scale maneuvers. I try to keep the fear hidden behind a smirk.
Marcus snorts. “It will be, when it’s our anniversary.”
So he means to kidnap and forcibly marry her. And no one else at this hoax of a party gives a singular fuck about it.
“The anniversary of your castration, maybe,” Zarina snaps.
