Page 126 of Serpentine

I shake my head as he walks around my body, stopping when he sees what his men did to me. Likely, he’s covering his mouth like the bitch that he is. Trying to keep his stomach contents where they belong.

“Beautiful job, isn’t it? I think I’m ready to go to the ball,” I manage, throat feeling like a thousand needles are inside it.

“You just don’t know when to quit, do you?” he counters, finally rounding from behind and coming back into view.

“Did you ever consider I’m just tougher than you? Unaffected by your little games?”

He snarls, his lip pulling up and showing a gold crown on one of his teeth that almost makes me laugh.

“This isn’t about your fucking sister. Because I fucked her the once and never came back, Vito. Why don’t we get down to business, hm? Why don’t we discuss the drugs you’re running and what I know?”

His face gets violent as his body stills, eyes searching my face before he spills another ounce of information. “You should’ve stayed in your fucking territory.”

I shrug, and it earns me flashes of pain throughout my back. “You shouldn’t have touched what was mine.”

“You killed my man,” he tosses out like we’re having a tit-for-tat.

I laugh. “He tried to rape what was mine. Unlike you, I protect the pretty things that belong to me.”

His eyes narrow as he steps closer. “You know nothing about what I have going on…”

I cut him off with a laugh. “I know you’re running drugs, but I also know that someone high up is helping you. Offshore accounts and laundered money? That’s far above your fucking intellect. For a while, I thought I gave a fuck, Vito. But I don’t anymore. Even though I watch the drug game in my territory, I don’t have the fucking motivation to watch it in yours, too. You’re supposed to watch out for your city, not feed its nightly hunger pangs.”

Guilt waves over his face, if only briefly, before his lip pulls up again, flashing that gaudy golden tooth of his. “That’s fucking rich when you’re fucking my partner’s daughter.”

My stomach sinks like I just swallowed a bag of rocks. That’s what his problem was this entire time. He knew I had Aella. Which means Walter Montague knew this whole fucking time that I had his daughter. He used Vito to find out why I had his daughter. Was it the feud between Vito and me over his sister, or did I know about the dirty drugs he’s been involved with in Portland?

Half of me wonders if some of those same drugs have been leaking into Twin Pines because everyone knows Walter splits his time between the two cities.

“There it is. Now you know,” Vito says as if he’s just dropped the mic, and I’ll have nothing final to say.

“How long?” I manage. “How long have the Jackals been in the drug trade with Walter Montague?”

He straightens and crosses his arms over his chest. “If I told you, I’d have to kill you. Isn’t that the saying? I mean, not that you won’t die from all your injuries anyhow. There’s no harm in telling a dying man something, right?”

I swallow, trying not to let him see the fear of leaving this world with so much undone on my features.

“Since my father ran this organization, he’s had people like Walter in his pocket. They think they run shit, but they don’t. Rich types, huh? They think they own the fucking world with the money they have access to. But we run what matters. We run the streets. We’re in charge.”

The Jackals are Walter’s puppet, and they don’t even know it. He’s a lot more cunning than I gave him credit for.

So, now the question is: what did Mom find out that got her killed?

“So, he’s using his factories. To move product and money,” I realize, more to myself than to Vito.

He smirks. “Smart fucker, huh?”

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out how he could move large amounts of drugs in airplane parts once I had a tiny shred of information. Once I knew he was involved.

“So, he killed my mom because she found out about his little business,” I mumble. It’s common knowledge my mother is missing, presumed dead, so it’s nothing Vito doesn’t already know.

He smirks. “Mmm, so not so fucking smart, after all.”

He turns and heads for the door, and my heart pounds rapidly in my chest. “What do you mean?” I shout after him, but he keeps going.

He might not be an intelligent man, and he might not be as scary as he thinks he is, but he knows when to fold them, and sometimes, that’s a more powerful skill than all the rest put together.

FORTY

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