Page 5 of The Vipers and Their Venom

“Okay, you have a deal.”

I swallow, hopeful but still wary. “A deal?”

“You can go to Verona Falls and get your degree.”

I leap from my seat and throw my arms around his thick neck. “Thank you so much, Dad. You’re the best.”

This was what I’d wanted all along. It’s a physical struggle not to clap and jump up and down with joy, but I must act calm. Inside, I’m dancing. My plan has worked. Perhaps I can finally meet my sister.

He untangles himself from me so he can look me in the eye. “But in return, you have to promise me that you won’t get into any trouble. The first sniff of it, and you’ll be straight out of there.”

“I promise, Dad. No trouble.”

I grin at him. I’ve always been an excellent liar.

2

ZANE

Iswallow and ignore the throb of pain it always creates. I need some air. The lecture hall is full of fucking idiots. It always is. This whole place is full of idiots.

Imagine a normal college, with all the self-satisfied students who think they’re better than everyone else and times that by a hundred.

These guys are the kids of incredibly wealthy crime lords, and in some rare instances, crime ladies, and they have the same arrogance as the kids of the normal wealthy folk, with the added belief that they’re untouchable. They aren’t. No one is.

I learned that lesson.

I swallow again and bite back the grimace. Being almost garroted is as painful as it sounds.

The lecturer is droning on. Verity is a few feet in front of us, and she turns for the third time to flash me a smile. I don’t know why that girl is acting like a bitch in heat around me, but I’m not interested. She’s not my type, and she’s used goods of the Devils. I’m not interested in their castoffs.

Taking out my phone, I bring up my notes app.Heading out for ten. Let me have your notes at the end.

I shove the message under Saint’s face, and his twin leans in to read it, too.

Saint shrugs. “Sure, dude. Don’t go far. We said we’d hit the gym today—get some of your strength back.”

Lex grimaces. “Word is that Nathaniele is going to pick you to fight this semester. I bet he’s going to put you up against Brute.”

I let out a laugh that sounds like a hiss and slam my lips closed around the noise. I hate it. It makes me cringe inside. Fucking screwed up throat.

Not worried, I type.

“You should be,” Saint says. “Brute isn’t called that for no reason. He might be a year below us, but he’s fucking massive, and he’s also fast. Not many people have that combination.”

Brute is big and fast, but so am I. I bet he doesn’t have the advantage that I do. I don’t give a fuck about consequences. I’ll risk being pummeled into a mush rather than lose. How many people can truly say that?

Touching my hand to my forehead in a mock salute to my two best friends, the Laurant twins, I push out of my seat, head up the steps and out the double doors.

When I step into the courtyard, I immediately suck in some crisp, fresh air. It’s bright and sunny but with that distinct chill to the air that announces fall is approaching. The girls will all be drinking endless Starbucks pumpkin lattes on the streets back home, and the boys will be playing sports on a field full of fallen leaves. And here I am, shut away in this strange institution that in so many ways feels like a relic from a time gone by.

Here, the girls know their place, and the men lead. The men fight, physically, for superiority, and we have a code of silence and honor. All of it ruled over by Nathaniele Rossi, our dean, and the head of the Italian mafia across the Eastern Seaboard and beyond.

I lean against the outside wall of the building, absorbing the heat from the surface. The fresh breeze washes over me, and I close my eyes as I tilt my face to the sun. The low hum of something I can’t quite figure out rumbles in the distance. Is it a plane? I open my eyes, shielding them against the glare of the sun, and scan the sky.

There’s nothing except for a few contrails of jets far too high up to make that kind of noise.

The rumble grows louder, and, as I listen, I realize it is echoing along the road through the woods and the outskirts of the college.

---