Page 134 of The Viper's Wife

But those weren’t the cards I was dealt.

Valeria turns in my arms. “Nico, what if I stayed?—”

“You know you can’t.”

Her lower lip trembles.

“I know,” she says, her voice breaking. She buries her face in my chest and chokes out a sob. “But I want to. I want to stay with you, Nico. I love you.”

White-hot rage courses through me. It’s notfair. My life has never been fair, but I’ve learned to swallow the poison and the rage, because I thought there was no other way to live. Now I have a reason—two reasons—to change everything, and I have to walk away.

“I can’t risk you getting hurt.” Swallow. “Either of you.”

Whatever fantasy I had about going back for her after my father’s death bleeds away. Now that I know she’s carrying our child, I would fly her to the furthest reaches of the planet and never allow myself the smallest hope of seeing her again, if that’s what it meant to keep her safe from my father and any enemies that would follow.

Her voice is emptier than I’ve ever heard as she steps back, cheeks wet, and asks, “And your dad is going to accept that you have an heir running around?”

“He doesn’t have to know. He won’t be interested in you after I—”Get married to someone else.I nearly gag. I force myself to continue, “When his attentions are elsewhere. He’s dying, Valeria. I’ll keep him busy.”

“So, this is it?” Her voice is condemning, even in the center of half of her things she’s packed into suitcases.

“This is what you wanted.” I didn’t mean for it to come out harshly, but she flinches like I’ve struck her.

Hate sears into her teary expression.

“After everything,” she says venomously, “now you justlet me go? I thought you loved me too. But you’re just giving up?”

I slap my fist against the wall. “There is nojustwith you!”

Valeria takes a step back, her eyes wide. Her hands instinctively raise to cover her belly.She’ll be a good mom.

“They’re trying to make me a don. Even if my father dies, there’s no universe where we can be together and let our children be free from this madness. If it’s not him, it’ll be someone else threatening you both. I am making the right choice for us—and you know it—you’ve known it since the start. And I’m so fucking sorry that I didn’t listen to you. But I don’t know how much it would’ve helped when my mind, body, and soul was, and always will be, yours.” I’m sick with the desire to touch her, but I don’t let myself. “I can’t prioritize my own selfish happiness. I can’t risk losing you.”

Her face goes stony. “And what if I don’t keep it?”

I think of the joy on her face when she looked at that little girl at the engagement party. In all the uncertainty of our lives, there’s one thing I can be sure of. She could no more get rid of our baby as she could cut off her own hand.

“You will have enough money to live as a rich woman for the rest of your life. You can do and choose as you see fit.”

“And who should I say their father was?”

“Tell them the truth. He was a criminal.”

28

VALERIA

Watch yourself.

I carve out the finalfand stick it onto the page with a dot of glue.

“I like how the butterfly wings form a broken heart,” Lacey says encouragingly. “Very creative.”

Everything in my collage is a broken heart—the butterfly wings, the snake scale, the inked tattoo skin. In the center, a tiny baby figurine I’d cut from one of the magazines thathe’dbrought me weeks ago.

“Not really,” I say. My creativity feels hollowed out. A missing limb. The only thing I’m capable of now is making sappy, cliche collages and eating buttered bread.

Speaking of.