Page 68 of The Serpent's Bride
My cousins lounged back in leather chairs like this was some private poker game instead of a territorial meeting by the docks. The twins looked almost offensively perfect beneath the hanging warehouse lights.
Twenty-six years old and born handsome enough to get away with murder.
Dark hair styled carelessly. Sharp jaws shadowed with perfectly groomed stubble. Tailored black suits stretched over lean athletic bodies built more for yachts, penthouses, and models than actual violence. Gold watches gleamed at their wrists while whiskey swirled lazily in crystal glasses between their fingers.
They looked like socialites pretending to be mafia. And usually, that’s exactly what they were.
Women adored them. Cameras adored them. Half of the city’s elite daughters had probably ended up in their beds at some point. The twins treated life like one endless party. Money, power, sex, repeat. I’d spent years dismissing them as spoiledplayboys too distracted by pussy and partying to become truly dangerous.
Apparently that had been a mistake. Because sitting between them was Angelo Ventura.
Chiara’s father looked exactly like the kind of man who sold his daughters for power. Fat. Sweaty. Greasy.
His expensive suit strained against his bloated stomach while sweat glistened beneath the folds of his neck despite the freezing warehouse air. Thick gold rings covered sausage-like fingers wrapped around a glass of whiskey he clearly needed to steady himself. His slicked-back dark hair was thinning badly at the crown, and his small piggish eyes darted nervously between me and the twins like a rat trapped between bigger predators.
Coward. Evil always disappointed me when it looked this pathetic. My gaze locked onto him first. Then slowly drifted back to my cousins.
Nobody spoke. Rain battered the roof hard enough to sound like distant gunfire.
Finally, Santino smirked lazily. “Cousin.”
I didn’t move. Rage started curling low and hot inside my chest.
“Didn’t know you keep company with pigs, boys,” I said calmly.
“Funny,” Angelo drawled, swirling his whiskey. “We were saying the same thing about you.”
Sergio shifted beside me. I barely noticed. Because every piece clicked together at once. The inheritance whispers. The sudden interest in my movements. The docks.
Chiara.
They knew enough. Not everything. But enough.
“You really thought we wouldn’t notice?” Santino asked lightly.
“Notice what?” I replied softly.
“That you’re desperate,” Santino smirked. The word echoed through the warehouse. Dangerous fucking word.
“You’re moving too fast,” Angelo added. “Marriage in a week? Suddenly obsessed with heirs?” His smirk sharpened. “You practically announced Uncle’s will cornered you.”
My jaw flexed once. The twins exchanged a glance. And for the first time in my life, I saw something truly ugly behind their pretty-boy masks.
Greed. Real greed.
“You always treated us like idiots,” Santino said quietly now. “Pretty boys. Useless relatives.”
“You are useless relatives,” I reminded him.
Angelo laughed once under his breath. “There he is. The Serpent.”
“The great Leonardo Moretti,” Santino mocked softly. “King of the Moretti.”
I stared at them across the warehouse while fury coiled tighter and tighter in my chest. Not because they challenged me. Because they dragged her into it.
“You brought Ventura here,” I said slowly. Ventura visibly swallowed. Pig.
Santino shrugged lazily. “He came willingly.”
