Page 115 of The Viper's Wife

I suck in a breath.

It’s Valeria’s face I see behind my eyelids, smirking at me with a single raised eyebrow like I’ve told a bad joke.

“You’re stepping up, Nico. You’re helping the Family and becoming a man. You won’t have your papà forever. It’s good you learn how to take care of yourself now.”

I choke back a strained laugh, my eyes flying open.

“And Valeria?” I ask. “She doesn’t get her papà?”

“She loves you, doesn’t she?” Father asks, adding an emphasis toloveslike it’s a dirty word. “She will understand what you had to do. If she doesn’t, she will learn. You are the only man she needs now.”

Giovanni thrusts the knife flat against my chest. I take it, stumbling back and baring my teeth.

“She’ll hate me for this.” The same, the same. He’ll never change. “For what you’remakingme do.”

“Do you believe that if you let Aceto live after he tried to kill his own don that he wouldn’t try again with his son-in-law? If you’re going to be a leader, you need to be clever enough to discover the rot and strong enough to cut it out.”

“What rot?” I throw my hand toward Aceto, even though Father can’t see him on the other side of the phone. “He’s a dying old man. He’s not a threat to anybody.”

“He isn’t the only rot in your home,” Father says ominously. “And even dying old men can be a threat.”

He hangs up.

“If you don’t do this,” Giovanni says, leaning down to murmur in my ear, “Stefano has his orders.”

He holds his phone screen out. Two dots at Valeria’s old home, her parents’ house.

I jerk my phone out of my pocket—she’s there.

“Give that to me,” Giovanni says, sticking out his hand. “You don’t need to be contacting her in this moment.”

Dom has a wild grin on his face as he leans back against a tree trunk.

“You got nothing to say?” I ask him.

He shrugs. “I don’t get mixed up in family affairs.”

I pass my phone over. Giovanni slides my phone into his pocket like a teacher who’s caught his student texting.

I clench the knife. “Tell me what’s stopping me from stabbing you in the throat?”

He’s unruffled. “Your interest in your wife’s well-being.”

Your wife, your wife.

Father’s gamble worked. All he needed to do was let me pick out a woman, and now he’s got his hooks in me.

All for a wife who says she hates me. Who I was wearing down—who showed me love with her eyes even if she was too scared to say it out loud.

Who will never trust me again.

I squeeze the handle of the knife and walk up to Aceto.

He watches me with unblinking eyes, his body going tense as he senses his last moments.

I don’t know if she loves her dad.

But I know she would never forgive me.