Page 58 of The Vipers and Their Venom

“I wish I could get a tattoo.” Jarena sighs. “But the man I’m promised to said he’d cut it out of my skin if I dared.”

My mouth falls open as I try to process what the fuck she just said. I start to speak twice, and in the end, I go with. “Promised to? What do you mean?”

“I’ve been his since I was fifteen. When I graduate, we’re getting married. He’s gorgeous,” she says dreamily.

“Bitch, you’re crazy. He threatened to cut off your skin. I swear you should run.” Angelica practically snarls the words, but hell, she’s not wrong.

“Where? He’d only find me. You know what our family is like.” Jarena shrugs.

She has a slight accent, but I can’t place it.

“Bratva,” Angelica supplies for me. “Jarena’s marrying into the Russian mob, God help her.”

“I can’t wait,” she says. “He’s gorgeous. And rich. He drives a Maclaren and owns a ten-bedroom holiday home in the Hamptons.”

“Babe.” Angelica fixes her with a deadly serious look. “I am begging you, come and live with me. My family will take you in. He wouldn’t dare go against my father.”

Jarena sighs. “I want to marry him. Now, can we drop the subject? I’m going to grab a Coke.”

She pushes her chair back and saunters off, her slender hips swinging, her short skirt flipping up as she goes, almost revealing her ass.

“I swear to God, she’ll be found in his freezer six months into that marriage,” Angelica says.

“Oh, no, don’t say that,” Faith cries. “That’s awful.”

“She’s going to meet a sticky end, and I wish she’d listen to me, but she won’t.” Angelica looks up at me. “Are you just going to stand there, or are you going to get some food and come sit with us? I have some goss for you!”

She does? I ignore her rude manner because I want her gossip. It might be about my sister; what a stroke of luck that would be.

“I’ll grab some food and be back.”

As I reach the counter, three men enter, and I recognize them as the Devils that some of the other students have pointed out to me. They’re all so striking, they’d be hard to miss, even if they didn’t walk around in an intimidating threesome all the time.

There’s a woman with them, blonde and pretty and glowing. She smiles at me as I try to get past the guys to reach a plate.

I accidentally nudge her with my hip.

“Sorry,” I say immediately.

“It’s fine.”

The girl smiles at me. She’s friendly and breezy, not like the three girls I’ve seemed to fall in with.

“I’m Duch—” she starts to say, then quickly corrects herself “—Mackenzie,” she finishes and holds her hand out.

I take it a little unsure. “I’m Vani,” I say.

“Yeah, Dom mentioned you’d arrived. I hope you’ll be happy here.” She glances at the guys. “I have been.”

The blond guy leans down and whispers something in her ear, and, for a paranoid moment, I think it might be nasty and about me.

But Mackenzie blushes and swats him. “Kirill!”

Her tone is scandalized and makes me smile.

He grins at her, and I wonder what it would be like to have someone look at me that way.

“Thanks. I’m sure I will be,” I lie. “Nice to have met you.”

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