Page 33 of Sapphires and Snakes

Tamayo chuckles, hands in her pockets. “And you interrupted us for what, exactly?”

Rita spreads her fingers to peek through. “Oh good, you’re decent.”

“Rita,” Tamayo sighs.

“Zarina”—Rita ignores her—“your father’s here.”

Both Tamayo and I tense. I’m standing with half my sweater re-tucked and the other half still hanging free and all the muscles in my body flooding with fight-or-flight. Only I’m frozen. Unable to move.

“Riccardo Gallo is here.” It sounds like Tamayo grinds the words between her teeth as she says them.

“Yes, in the atrium,” Rita confirms.

“And he knows we’re here,” I say.

“It seems so.”

“How?” I mutter, not expecting an answer.

Tamayo scrapes the back of her neck in a sheepish gesture. “The mediation—I mentioned our plans. Jimmy or…” She doesn’t saytheirnames, but she doesn’t have to. “They could have told him.”

The meeting I skipped. And good thing, considering Tamayo’s summary of it—long and pointless. Either way, Father’s here, asking to see me. The last time I saw him was the engagement party, when I was walking away from an attempted kidnapping he helped facilitate. He might have looked at me with regret and a tinge of fear, but he didn’t stop it. He hasn’t stopped any of this.

“Is anyone with him?” I ask.

Rita’s gaze volleys between me and Tamayo, like she’s trying to put the pieces of our reaction together. “He has security—white, bald guy with glasses.”

His personal guard, G. I frown at Tamayo’s back, seeing the threads of her sweater in microscopic detail until she turns. She cups my chin and raises my gaze to meet hers.

“I can grab Darius, we can ask him to leave,” Rita offers. I don’t see her face, but her voice is gentle and apologetic. She doesn’t know what’s going on, but she’s reading the room. Reading us.

“It’s up to you, princess,” Tamayo murmurs.

My brow furrows. Up to me. Is it? I don’t know. If I turn him away, I won’t know why he came here. His face as I strode out of the party flashes in front of me again. Before this merger, before our family was in danger, my father and I were more in sync. Mother pulled our strings like a master puppeteer, but we were on board with each plan, willing to execute it to her vision. Until he helped her wrap the strings around my neck and squeeze.

What could he have come here to say?

I have to find out. If it were Mother, I would turn her away. But Father, despite his fuckups and lack of a backbone, is not the one pulling the strings. Not really.

“I’ll see him.” I say it loud enough for Rita to hear, my voice steady. “Keep him in the atrium. Pat and I will meet him there.”

“It’s not very private,” Rita says.

“All the better.”

“All right, then. He’ll be there when you’re ready.”

“Thanks, Rita,” Tamayo calls without looking. Rita doesn’t say anything more as she exits the kitchen, the door swinging shut behind her. Tamayo holds my gaze, thumb stroking my jaw. “You’re sure?”

I wrap my fingers around her wrist and nod.

She nods back, leaning forward to press a kiss to my forehead. “Darius and I will be in the hallway just in case.”

“Thanks.” I let loose a long breath.

She pulls back to look at me again. “Do you need anything?”

I swallow hard, wanting to ask but not wanting to, either. A mafia don’s daughter shouldn’t need it.