Page 123 of The Viper's Wife

It looks like someone gave a toddler scissors and glue and let them run wild.

There’s no theme or composition, just a kaleidoscope splash of discordant colors. In the middle, an old man and woman kissing.

“It’s verycreative,” I finally say.

Nico laughs, and then groans, clutching his side where his rib was fractured. “It’s us—you know, how it feels to be with you.”

I hold up the brightly colored fever dream. “This is how I make you feel?”

He leans back in the chair. “Pretty good, huh?”

It’s chaos.

That’s the first night we try to have sex. It’s nothing like any of the times before. We move gently, so I don’t hurt Nico, and when we both finish, I tumble off of him and we hold hands on the bed, staring up at the ceiling.

On the seventh day, Nico gets a text from Salvatore.

That night, he dresses in the dim light of our bedroom, kisses my cheek while I sit on the edge of the mattress and clutch my hands on my lap, and leaves our apartment.

On the eighth day—in the morning, Nico still hasn’t come home.

But I wake up, and the first thing I do is go to the bathroom to throw up.

24

NICO

Tripp gnasheshis teeth as he considers my offer. He squints at me, pupils overblown. “Twenty thousand is kinda high, right?”

“Blew through your trust fund already?”

“No, it’s just the last guy?—”

“The last guy isn’t here. I’m here, and I’m telling you it’s twenty.”

Tripp is high off of something—probably the coke I’m selling him—and I can see thefuck itmoment in his eyes when he remembers money doesn’t matter half as much as keeping his high going. We make the exchange, I text Salvatore to let him know it’s done and drive to my next job.

I haven’t gotten many details on this one, only that I’ll be guarding a storefront. In the past, when I gave a shit about all of this, I never would’ve entered a job with so little information. But all I care about is getting through my tasks so I can go home and kiss Valeria until her lips curve into a wry smile.

She hasn’t been the same since I got hurt.

When she’s with me, she’s happy. She pulls me into thebedroom every chance she gets, shows me new recipes she wants me to cook, relaxes in my arms after a jump scare from one of her movies—and even with my fucked-up ribs and aching body, I hold her close.

But she barely talks to Lacey anymore, and she sleeps constantly.

And she’s been making those fucking collages of hers.

She hides them now, tucks them into a binder she keeps on the kitchen table, but every day this week I’ve flipped through them while she sleeps.

They all show a man dying. Flowers in his hand, blood spraying from his chest. Missing an eye, missing his face, missing his hand. Dark colors, reds and blacks mostly. Yesterday’s was a woman dressed in all black with a delicate spiderweb over her face like the veil of a widow.

She’s scared, I know. The one thing she wants is to be safe, and that illusion went up in flames alongside her family home and kicked in the ribs for good measure.

But I’m going to fix that. I have to.

I’ll keep my nose to the grindstone, do as I’m told, and get back to her as soon as I can each day. And if Father doesn’t answer my goddamn calls, I’ll fly up to see him and demand that he agree to keep Valeria safe. Alessia tells me she’s working on Father, but I know better than to expect anything to come of that. I disappointed him when I refused to kill Aceto, and now I need to do something big to stay in his good graces, or he’ll grind me underfoot until I do.

I pull the SUV, Salvatore’s “gift” to me, in front of a chapel. I reach for my phone to double check the address but freeze when I spot a man dressed in a long black coat, hidden in the building’s shadows.