Page 69 of Sapphires and Snakes

I study her, already dressed for the wedding in a couple hours in a ruby-red gown that rivals my own. Her hair is pulled back into classic low bun, her nails sharp enough to pierce skin if she wanted. She looks exactly like my mother, but for the first time ever, I see past her well-crafted armor to the woman who only ever wished to be good enough to hold the Gallo family power all on her own.

And even that is not enough to dredge up much sympathy from me. Not after everything that’s happened the last few months.

“Except it didn’t fail, did it?” I ask.

Mother shakes her head, placing her tumbler on the sideboard with a soft thud.

“And the Accardis?” I press. There are no more reasons for her to keep secrets, to keep me ignorant. “How were they meant to fix it?”

She shrugs. “Money. Property.”

“So it is a merger,” I mutter, mostly to myself.

Mother runs her tongue over her teeth, watching me like for the first time ever, she sees me as more than a marriageable pawn to be used at her convenience. She shakes her head. “And now they’ve lost their chance to become the most powerful family in Louredo.”

“Again.” And it only hits me right now, standing in the library with my parents and Pat, that this was the one thing I didn’t consider in all my scheming. The reaction of men who are thwarted from grasping the thing they believe they’re owed. Whether it’s the attention of women or the usurping of power in Louredo. And Alonso Accardi has just been denied the one thing he wants most in the world for the second time in his life.

I almost drop my glass before I find the desk and set it down. “We have to leave.”

Father snorts, like he can’t believe I’ve only just come to this conclusion. “And go where, Zarina?”

“I’m not dying to pay back a debt I never owed,” I snap at him.

Mother stands before the fire, rubbing her shoulders. “Our family is still loyal. They’ll protect us.”

“Did you tell anyone the wedding’s off?” I stride toward the door, ready to run. “Do they know the Accardis are no longer our allies?”

Riccardo’s eyes bug out with his own realization, and it becomes painfully obvious that he did no such thing. That everyone else in the house and the family is under the impression that in less than two hours, I will be marrying Marcus Accardi. Meaning any Accardi who arrives will beallowed onto the estate, into the house. I grab the door handle at the same moment a knock sounds on the door.

“The groom has arrived.”

ZARINA

Iyank my hand off the door and clutch it to my chest. My heart batters against my ribs. Breath rips up my throat, burns in my lungs.

The groom has arrived.

Marcus Accardi is here. On the other side of this heavy, solid wood door. Moments after Father’s returned from Saint Christopher’s Cathedral and our demotion.

We’re absolutely fucked.

I scurry back to the other side of the room, pulling my robe tight around me and double-knotting the tie. The straps of my sheathed knife scrape against my skin, hidden by the bulk of the fleece hanging past my knees. I wish I had finished my makeup. I wish I was dressed in something devastating. I wish Marcus Accardi wasn’t fucking here.

Father straightens in his chair, smoothing his hair as best he can. Mother doesn’t need a moment, as put together as always. She watches us, waits until I’m leaning against the desk again, champagne glass in hand, before she strides to the door and unlocks it. “Let him in.”

Pat, a silent observer as required by their station, posts up a few paces ahead of me, ready to throw themself in the way of anyincoming threats. We catch each other’s eyes for a second, their blue gaze hardened into thick, impenetrable ice. They nod, and I raise my chin.

Marcus enters the room.

He’s half-dressed in his tux for the ceremony, starched white button-down tucked into black slacks. His face, already permanently hitched into cruel distaste, is clouded with rage. All those pictures I laid before him last month flicker through my brain one-by-one.

All women. All beaten. Alldead.

I clench the stem of my glass tighter. Behind Marcus, Danny the Snake walks in, smiling with too many teeth. The contrast between them raises my hackles and thickens the air in the room. The fire should be dwindling with the lack of oxygen. Or exploding with the added gasoline. I don’t know which.

The door clicks shut.

“Explain,” Marcus commands.