Page 74 of The Viper's Wife

She narrows her eyes at me. “I’ll text you the address right now. Yeah. I love you too. Bye.” She tucks the phone into her pocket.

“Where’d you get that?” I ask tightly. Her phone should still be at the strip club. I didn’t plan to keep it from her, exactly, but I’d prefer to know that she has one.

“Lacey grabbed it for me after Henry dragged me off stage.”

So that’s the name of Stefano’s dumbass friend. I file that information away for later.

“Is that who you were talking to?”

“Yes. She wanted to make sure I wasn’t chained to the radiator.”

My irritation cools somewhat. Valeria would scoff to hear it, but I like Lacey.

I’m glad she has someone in her corner.

“Did you tell her no, but that he seems open to the idea?”

She rolls her eyes. “What are you making?”

“Fettuccine.”

“For breakfast?”

I raise an eyebrow in her direction. “You always follow the rules?”

She glances away from me, clearly at her limit for morning interactions, and heads toward the second cup of coffee on the counter.

“What time do you have to be at work today?” I ask as I slice through the flat dough to create long, thin noodles.

She takes a deep drink and sighs, her eyes focusing on me with unnerving clarity. She always looks at me like she’s peering into the darkest parts of my soul—and finding me lacking.

I like to think I’d surprise her if she looked a little further.

“I don’t. Do you have cream?”

“Just milk. In the fridge.”

I wait for her to pass before I drop the noodles into the pot on the stove. A perfect little moment of synchronized domesticity.

Valeria seems to sense it too—the ease in which we’re existing together. She pours out her milk and leans against the wall to sip from her coffee and watch me like I’m a dog that could bite.

“Do you have the day off?” I ask. It’s a Tuesday. She’s not telling me something.

“Yeah. Today, tomorrow, the day after tomorrow.” She yawns widely, showing off her pretty pink tongue, and sets her empty cup back on the counter. “I’m going back to bed.”

“Wait. What are you saying?”

“I’m saying I got fired—but you already knew that.”

I nearly burn myself on the pot of boiling water I’m pouring out in the sink. I set the noodles to the side and face her.

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

She is completely unperturbed by my question as she shrugs. “It means there’s not a long list of people who would benefit from my boss finding cocaine in my purse. You set Giovanni to that?”

Giovanni.

My vision burns red.