Page 55 of The Viper's Wife

“Don’t you work at a lab?” she asks. “Why can’t you test this all there?”

“For lots of reasons that all end in me getting fired and almost certainly sent to jail. It’s a heavily monitored environment, and the tests would take a long time.”

“Lame, but okay.”

“Are you sure you can go to GenoLabs tomorrow morning? I can call out?—”

Her stuffed raspberry bounces off my face.

“No,” Lacey says, sticking one perfectly manicured nail into the air. “One, you’re already paying out the ass for express results, and two, I don’t even have to go into work until the evening. And three, you’re going to pay me back.”

I nod. “Of course, I can pay for?—”

She pounces, grabs my shoulders, and shakes me with all the wrath contained in her tiny body. “Not. With. Money. You. Idiot.”

I slap her off me, and she pulls back, scowling.

So much pint-sized anger.

“We’rebestfriends,” she says, “and I don’t know about you, but that means something to me. I would take a thousand paternity tests to a lab in Timbuktu if you asked me, and I know you don’t like to open up because of your fear of vulnerability and your hurried child syndrome, but it’s time. Spill the beans, Val. Why do you have all your stuff with you? Why do you need all these tests done? And why thefuckdo you have an engagement ring on?”

My gut plummets with the horrible realization that I’d forgotten about my ring entirely. I twiddle it with my thumb. The fancy engagement ring is in one of my bags, buried in a sock in case I ever need to pawn it, but the simple one feels like it’s been on my finger for years.

“Valeria.”

“Okay, yeah, you’re right.” I take a deep breath.

Lacey knows my family is… difficult, but that’s all she knows. I’ve kept her in the dark because I’d never wanted her mixed up in any of my problems. She’s focused on getting her sisters through college and out of her dad’s home. She didn’t need another broken birdie to take care of.

My mind is racing, but also completely blank, like I’m sprinting on a treadmill in an empty room. I swallow hard.

She’s my best friend, and she deserves to know the truth, but if I involve her any further, she could get hurt, and she’s the one good thing in my life.

Lacey sighs, drags her computer chair toward her with her foot, and plops inside. She points to my hand. “Deep breaths, babe. Let’s start simple. Are you engaged?”

I think back to when Lacey told me what her father was doing to her. How I stroked her back all night and listenedto her spill out all the poison she’d been holding onto for years.

She deserves the truth.

“Actually, I have to start earlier,” I say. “Lacey. My family is in the mob.”

Her jaw drops. She’s silent for several long seconds while my heart gallops like a spooked racehorse.

“Say something,” I whisper, my mind barreling toward worse-case scenarios.

She blinks slowly, her mouth moving before she finally says, “I knew it.”

“What?”

“Val, you’resoweird about your family, and you never say what they do. I always thought they were into shady shit, but I never thought they’d be in themobmob, you know, like the ‘sleeping with the fishes say hello to my little friend’ mob.”

I groan, falling back into the dozens of pillows on her bed. “Lacey, please.”

She flops onto the bed next to me, a few pillows diving to the floor. “Okay, so you’re literally Tony Soprano. What else?”

I hold up my ring finger. “I’m in an arranged marriage.”

Her eyes light up. “Tell meeverything.”