Page 104 of Pitiful Lies

“Why?” I ask her. “Why did you betray the Vipers? You know what they’ll do,” I tell her, mad as hell that she had a hand in this.

Angel doesn’t share a lot about his business with me, but I know this woman is considered an ally. Maybe even a friend.

I don’t know what makes a person like this betray another, especially a fellow woman, but I know it won’t go unpunished. And that mollifies me just a little.

“Shut up,” Chen steps forward, cursing under his breath.

“You know I’m right. They are going to come for you both,” I tell him, and this time he slaps me harder.

“Shit, Chen, She’s right. They aren’t going to back down and now they’ll think I had a part in this!”

“You do have a part in this, Maggie mine,” someone else says.

Chen turns around to face the direction of the voice, and he is smirking. I’m still seeing stars over that last slap, but I recognize the silhouette of the woman as she comes into view.

“Giovanna?” Margaret says, sounding confused. “I don’t understand.”

“What’s there to understand? I used you to get an introduction to the Vipers. That was all I wanted you for. Now, you’re useless to me,” Giovanna says, raising a gun.

“You work for her, don’t you Chen? And you, you’re the Ghost!” I say suddenly putting it all together.

“Brava! Give that girl a cigar!”

Giovanna grins wickedly, turning around like a runway model.

“You’re Ghost? Wait. What do you mean? I thought you and I?—”

“What? You thought that was real? Oh, Baby, you’re so green. I wonder if Nico put you in charge just so he could manage you.”

“Fuck you. Now, where’s my brother?” Margaret yells, and I see tears well in her eyes.

Her brother?

If Ghost kidnapped Margaret’s brother, and was posing as her girlfriend, gathering intel, then shit, this whole thing is a complicated web of betrayal and backstabbing.

But it explains her part.

I think of Resa and everything I would do for her. It makes sense.

Angel will still be pissed, but I can’t blame her. I understand Margaret O’Doyle’s motivation to betray the Vipers. But not Giovanna’s.

Buffy hisses inside her tank, and I look down at her. The lid on top of her travel tank rattles and I look down, my fear growing and not because of the guns in the room.

Angel has told me enough about her to know that an agitated black mamba is not something I want near me.

“Please, enough with the drama. Baby boy is fine. He’s tied up in the other room. You can have him back, Maggie mine, but not until I say so,” she says, then hits Margaret in the face with the butt of her gun.

She shouts in pain, then drops to the floor. She just crumples like a pile of old clothes. And my fear level rises.

“Now, how is our little victim?” Giovanna says in a mock baby voice before stopping in front of me.

This bitch.

“I am not a victim,” I snap, angry at this woman for not only toying with my life, but with all of us.

“Not yet,” she says and smiles.

Giovanna is not a nice woman. I knew that before. But when she touches me, wrenching my face up with her nails digging into my chin, I want to vomit.

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