Page 2 of The Viper's Wife

I can almost recite this speech by heart.

I need a woman to make Father happy. Someone from a powerful, respectable family who will turn me into a powerful, respectable man and give me lots and lots of Italian sons.

My focus drifts from Giovanni to the crowd of mobsters and politicians—is it low-hanging fruit to say they’re one and the same?—until it lands on a woman who looks about my age.

I’m struck first by how tall she is—nearly as tall as me, and that’s a feat. Then, by how furtively she’s weaving through the mass of people, her shiny dark waves kissing her jawline and hiding her features. She’s aimed toward the exit, maybe to give the slip to an overbearing guardian.

For one fleeting moment, the crowd parts and exposes the rest of her slender figure, wrapped in black silk and balanced on thin stilettos. She looks like a black-and-white movie starlet, all pale olive skin and pitch-black accents. Except instead of an actress’s demure smile, her small, crimson-red mouth and big, dark eyes form a look of complete and utter contempt.

She’s somebody’s spoiled, pretty princess whose every complaint gets resolved within the hour.

One of the imposter waiters bumps into her, and I wait for her venomous response, but it never comes. She places her hand on his shoulder and seems to check that he’s okay,never dropping that distasteful look from her face, before they part ways.

She skirts along the edge of the crowd, casting one last secretive glance behind her before slipping out the saloon doors.

Interesting.

“Do you have anyone in mind?” Giovanni asks, cutting through my reverie.

I shrug and point in the woman’s direction as the doors close shut on her figure.

“Who’s she?”

Giovanni hesitates, which practically makes my mouth water in Pavlovian anticipation, before admitting, “She’s Aceto’s daughter. Valeria.”

It’s like the heavens part and a choir of angels float down, singing her name.

Or, more accurately, a band of devils crawl up to hissValeria Acetointo my ear.

After tonight, Aceto will be dead and his family name will be mud. Lower than mud, really, more like a toxic industrial sludge that no one in their right mind would want to get near.

“Giorgia Pasino is a wild girl, too focused on sex,” Giovanni tries to offer, lingering onsex, “but she is interested to know you.”

His dangling of a new woman doesn’t work when I’m already hooked. “Tell me more about Valeria.”

Giovanni sighs.

1

VALERIA

One month later

He is not goingto speak for a long time.

“Are you having fun?” Lacey stumbles toward me and bounces against the counter I’m perched on. Tomorrow morning, I’ll have to remind her where her new bruise came from.

I fold over my knees, cupping my hand to my ear to hear her over the booming electro music pressing against us on all sides.

Lacey scowls at me with the ferocity of an angry toddler, wispy hairs plastered to her forehead and a happy flush to her cheeks.

“Isaid, are you having fun?” she says with exaggerated mouth movements.

I raise the jello cup I’ve been clutching for the past half hour and make a show of swallowing the slime inside. The anxious, skittering thoughts settle into a dull thrum at the back of my mind. “I’m getting there.”

She jabs my belly with a sharp acrylic nail, painted inbroken black hearts and filed down to the skin on her thumb and first two fingers. “Stop being morose. What happened to dragging the first available guy to the guest room and not leaving for the rest of the night?”

“He wouldn’t stop talking.”