Page 20 of The Viper's Wife

Roman doesn’t even try to escape as I step into his guard and drag him to the ground, winding my arms around his neck. When his instincts override logic, and he scrabbles at my arms, desperate for a gasp of air, it’s already too late.

I leave his body on the ground and head for the exit.

People are braying around me, but I can barely hear them.

“Nicolo, well done!” Yevgeniy comes to my side.

I don’t stop walking. Fuck all of this. I grab my shirt and shoes and make my way to the elevator.

“Your father would be proud,” Yevgeniy says as I reach the elevator doors.

It’s a slap to the face.

I turn toward him. Giovanni stands to the side, watching us.

I smile at Yevgeniy. “Thank you.”

If his instincts tell him my attitude is off, he ignores them. “We are brothers now. Please, stay. Anything in the hotel is yours. They know to offer a Matassa whatever he wants.”

“So generous.” I lift my arms and pull Yevgeniy into a rough hug. He laughs and tightens his arms against mine.

As Giovanni and I step into the elevator, the last thing I see is a slice of Yevgeniy’s smiling face.

“You did not have to do it,” Giovanni says in the harsh silence of the elevator as I pull my clothes back on.

“They would’ve kept torturing him otherwise.”

“You did a good thing. And your father and the pakhan will be pleased.”

The elevator doors beep. The upstairs world is the same—bright, flashing lights, and scores of people hunched over their machines.

When Giovanni heads toward the entrance, I stay.

He gives me a measured look. “You don’t gamble.”

I shrug, looking around at the machines. “I do now.” I turn toward the nearest one and sit on a stool. “You go. I’ll call a ride.”

Giovanni waits a few moments longer, calculating the weight of his decision. I’ve met the expectations of the pakhan, Don Salvatore, and my father. I should celebrate.

“Call me if you get into trouble,” he says and leaves.

A waitress comes by with a bowl of pennies. I play idly for a long time, pulling the lever and watching the numbers spin.

After some time—not that I know how much, given the madness of this place—I stand and walk out the entrance.

Cold winter air whips at my face as I pull out the keys that I picked from the pakhan’s back pocket.

When his car beeps at me from all the others—a red Ferrari—some of that trapped-rat feeling in my chest fades away. I get into my new car and drive off.

5

VALERIA

“Bored yet, Val?”

Trey flashes a friendly grin from across the lab bench as I look up from the row of centrifuge tubes I’ve loaded for analysis. The lab is nearly silent, save for the equipment whirring softly around us and Connor typing at his computer.

I’m moving too slowly, I realize belatedly. I should’ve finished this module twenty minutes ago, and I’ve been stuck in my head instead.