Page 35 of The Vipers' Vow

I glance at my watch. Okay, it’s nearly seven in the evening, so I need to get back to my room to try to call Zane and Vani. I’ve kept my part of the bargain so far as Angelica is concerned.

I strip her of her clothes, leaving her underwear on, and put her into bed. I cover her so she doesn’t freeze to death. Then I leave some water and pain pills on the nightstand.

My dealer friend said the drugs she’s been given won’t show in any tests, so she’ll never be able to prove anything. I’ll tell her she got drunk, we screwed, and then I put her to bed.

I spot her iPad and phone and hesitate. Should I take them with me? I could borrow them for a few hours and do some research into Angelica and who she’s been talking to.

Biting the inside of my cheek, I consider my options. If Angelica is hiding something, she’s most likely going to have a passcode on both her phone and iPad, unless she’s using a fingerprint or face ID.

Experimentally, I pick up her cell and hold it to her face. Dammit. It wants a passcode, just as I’d suspected. She doesn’t even have a fingerprint option set up. I could take them with me and try to crack the code, but if she wakes and discovers them gone, she might tell Jarl, and that could risk my brother’s life.

I shake my head and step away. As much as I want to learn more, I believe she’s given me enough.

If Angelica is this paranoid, it means she has something to hide.

13

ZANE

I’m among the enemy for real, and it’s fucking scary, but also exciting. I’m sick in the head, and I kind of love this shit. When Vani’s father warned me away from her, he might as well have wrapped her up in a bow.

And as for Big Mike, that fucker held a knife to my throat and made me freeze. For that moment in time, he took away my power, and no one gets to do that. Ever since, I’ve promised myself that one day I’d gut him like a fucking pig. If it wasn’t for the fact that we need to find Lex, and that I’d never put Vani in such a difficult position, today would be that day. As it is, we need her father on our side, so for now, I’m going to act like a pussy, and be allyes sir, no sirto these bastards.

I won’t kill her father because I can’t do that to Vani, but Big Mike? I’m going to have to hold myself back from at least breaking his nose—show him he fucked with the wrong person.

We’re being led through the bikers’ clubhouse and to a door in the back, where we are ushered inside. Her father’s there—Jack ‘the Blood’ McGrath in the flesh. He’s six-two and a solid wall of muscle. He’s much older than me, in the later side of his forties, at least, but he doesn’t seem to have lost any of the toughness that comes with youth. His dark gaze doesn’t cut to his daughter at all. He just walks around his desk and stares at me.

A beat passes, and then he draws back his fist and punches me. Blinding pain hits the side of my jaw, and I stumble back.

My instinctive reaction is to hit him back, and, before I can stop myself, I’m up in his face. Vani reaches for my arm and holds on.

“Zane, no,” she begs. “Please, don’t. We’re here for a reason, remember?”

Still holding my arm, she turns to her father. “Dad, don’t. I came home because I need help, and this is the greeting we get? How could you?”

Her voice wobbles, and I glance at her to see tears in her eyes.

Her father sighs and rubs his beard with his fingers. I stare at him, rubbing my own jaw, trying to soothe the burn.

“I warned you,” he rumbles. “I told you to stay the fuck away from her. Are you deaf?”

I take my phone out and type furiously.I might not be able to speak, but I hear just fine, and I’m not fucking stupid.

I shove it at him, and he reads it, frowning. Then he glances up at me. “You can’t speak?”

“He had his throat cut,” Vani says. “By enemies of his father’s empire.”

Her father eyes me, and I don’t know if I’m imagining it, but it seems as if there’s new respect in his gaze.

“He’s protected me, Dad,” she says softly.

“Yeah, and what else has he done?” her father asks.

“He has been my friend when I needed one the most.”

Those simple words hit me hard because I haven’t been her friend, have I? I’ve helped Saint and Lex torment her, at times against my own better judgement. I’m not as into the games as they are, but I enjoy sharing, and I like that if I order the twins to do something, they will. They might not like it, but ultimately, I’m in fucking charge, and maybe that’s the weird kick I get out of it. The fact that, in the end, I can make them all bend to my will, them and whatever girl we are fucking with. That was fine when the girl meant nothing, but Vani does mean something.

She means everything.

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