Page 30 of Viper’s Reign

“What the fuck are you doing here, asshole?”

“Well, while you were off having the time of your life, some of us were actually working.” He taps at his tablet, not even looking up. “I found something you’ll want to see.”

“This should be good.” I shrug out of my jacket as I close the distance, stopping behind him to look over his shoulder at the screen.

“I should get my own smart tablet from Volks so you don’t have to breathe down my neck every time you want to look.”

“It’s still a prototype. Now stop fucking around and show me what you have. I’m tired.”

“I’m sure you are,” he grumbles under his breath. If he weren’t my friend—the only one—that tone would have cost him a kneecap by now. “Here.” He hands me the tablet.

The footage is grainy, but the figure in the frame is instantly recognizable. It’s a video of Laura—Ace—walking through a parking lot toward a hospital building, then disappearing inside. The footage cuts to the interior: a corridor, fluorescent lights, and her again, this time in dark-blue scrubs with a lanyard around her neck.

I try to zoom in on the ID, but the resolution dissolves into pixels before I can read anything. It doesn’t matter.

“She said she was a blogger, right? Not a fucking nurse, Dima.”

And there’s nothing wrong with that. Except she fucking lied to me.

For a split second, her face flashes in my mind—wide-eyed, awestruck as we stepped onto Liberty Island—but I shut it down and shove the tablet back into Noah’s hands. “I didn’t ask you to look into her.”

He blinks at me. “You never ask me to look into the women you mess with. I just do. You’ve never complained before.”

This time is different. I don’t say it out loud, but the shift in his expression tells me he gets the message. “Stop digging into her. Lock the door on your way out.”

“What? Dima, she⁠—”

“I’ll handle it myself, Noah. Good night.” I enunciate every word, staring my friend and right-hand man down until he finally backs off with a frustrated huff.

I wait for the door to shut behind him, then pull out my phone, already typing as I make my way to the study.

I run the name Laura Holmer through Specter—a homing software designed to find people—and within seconds, I have a list of over fifty profiles on my phone screen. Then I open my laptop, boot it up, and feed the name into OmniTrace, which digs through records, socials, and even encrypted archives.

Finally, I upload the picture one of the journalists took of her at the expo entrance into Lucent—a face recognition software. While the programs work, I scroll through the fifty-plus Laura Holmers on my phone, already knowing she won’t be on the list. If she lied about her profession, she sure as hell lied about her name.

Nobody calls me Laura.

At least she was honest about one thing. I wonder if anyone actually calls her Ace.

I still go through every profile methodically, and sure enough, she isn’t there. My hand curls into a fist, and I slam it down on the desk.

How the hell did I let her slip through my defenses?

And what the hell did she want? Sex? To get on Volya?

I suppose it doesn’t matter. She fucking lied to me.

OmniTrace and Lucent are still processing; it’ll probably be another few minutes before they spit out the information I want, so I bring up her number on my phone and tap out a text.

Got home okay? I want to see you tomorrow.

She opens the message almost immediately and I see three typing bubbles appear, stop, start again, stop. Having trouble keeping up with your lies? My lips pull into a faint sneer as I watch the screen.

Finally, her reply comes through.

Yes, thank you. I had the best time with you, Dimitri, and would love to see you again… but I think it’s best we don’t.

My brows draw together, anger burning through my chest, tangling with an emotion I don’t want to name. She wants to end this now? No, she doesn’t get to end it. Not until I know what she wanted. Not until I’m done with her.