Page 56 of The Viper's Wife

I spend the next several hours explaining all the ways my life has gone to complete shit. The arranged marriage, my deal to stick it out with Nico for one year, my mom’s weird note, my dad going missing, the blood on the broken glass, and how I’m going to use the paternity tests to see if it’s Dad’s blood or someone else’s. As Lacey’s roommates start waking up and getting ready for work, and all hope of sleep is lost, she heats up frozen burritos and makes coffee.

When I’ve answered her last question, Lacey doesn’trespond for several moments, her arms wrapped around a pillow and her empty coffee cup sideways on the bed as she stares at one of theYellow Submarineposters on her wall.

“If you feel like being my friend is too dangerous, or too risky,” I say, my voice going shaky. I thought I’d feel better telling her all this, but I think I might throw up instead. “I understand. I won’t?—”

“Oh, shut up,” she says. “You’re not getting rid of me that easily. I just need a moment to process—of course, this is the week I decide to quit sugar. Look, I always knew your family was shitty, but notthatshitty. This makes even my dad look like a saint.”

“I don’t think there’s anything that can make your dad look like a saint.”

Lacey waves her hand through the air like she’s sifting through a record of our conversation. “So this guy—your fiancé. Nico. Val, it sounds like he makes you happy?”

“What couldpossiblygive you that impression?”

“Your voice does this thing whenever you say his name that I’ve only heard you use that one time you called to tell me you got the forensic science job.”

I clear my throat. “My voice isn’t doing a thing.”

“It totally is. This is your version of squealing.”

I toss a pillow at her face, and she bats it away with a laugh.

“Well, it doesn’t matter because I can’t stay with him,” I say. “I have to get him to lose interest, or I need to run.”

“Oh.” Lacey’s eyes go glassy, and she grabs my hands. “If you need money, I have some saved up?—”

“No. Absolutely not. I have that big engagement ring, remember? I can pawn it if I need to. I’ll be okay.”

“You know I’m here for you, no matter what.”

A wave of relief crashes over me, and tears prick my eyes. “Thanks, Lace.”

“Don’t you dare cry, or you know I’m going to bawl like a big baby.”

I laugh, swiping at my face. “I love you.”

“I love you too. Now, you better go get ready, or you’re going to be late for work.”

I glance at her mango clock. I need to leave for the train in an hour. We’ve talked all night. I should feel exhausted—and I do—but I also feel lighter than I have in a long while, maybe ever.

I grab Lacey and pull her into a hug. She smells like microwaved burritos and coffee and my best friend. She smells like home.

“A hug? This is getting serious,” she teases.

“Oh, shut up.”

At the train station,I’m halfway through an email to my future apartment complex askingplease, would you consider allowing an earlier move in, when the back of my neck prickles. I look up from my phone.

It takes me a minute to place his name.

Giovanni. He arrived at the engagement party with Nico. Stefano said he came from New York too.

He’s one of the biggest men I’ve ever seen, with powerful broad shoulders contained in a tailored wool coat and windswept salt-and-pepper hair. The two coffee cups he’s holding look like porcelain teacups in his massive hands.

“Good morning, Valeria,” he says in heavily accented English. He extends one of the coffee cups to me. “Stefano told me what happened. I assume you did not sleep well.”

The train should be here in five minutes.

I take the coffee cup, but don’t sip from it. Giovanni notices and smiles patiently. It’s a sort of patience that radiates menace, like he’s waiting for me to finish my prayers before he slits my throat.