Page 43 of Vengeance

I hate the way he knows me so well. I hate the way he’s learned the rules of the back and forth game we play and figured out the reasons for my maneuvering when it comes to him.

“It’s very simple. I love you. You love me. Or did you lie to me about that?”

“Not like you’d care if I said I did.”

“No. I wouldn’t. You’re mine, and you always have been. You can’t help loving me even if you try to deny it. I thought we established that already.”

We did. Back when Phae returning from the dead threatened to tear us apart again. I wish I hadn’t so I could have more leverage over him.

“Right now, I hate you for forcing me into this.”

Viper shrugs. “You’ll get over it. We have three children together. It’s the natural next step. So that’s what we’re doing. Are you going to cooperate or will you make this difficult?”

“As if you’re giving me a choice.”

“That’s a good girl.”

He’s teasing me now. He knows how much I hate being called a girl. Part of it is because that’s what people called me to be condescending before I set them straight with my guns or a well-placed punch. The other part is that for the better part of my late teen years, I wanted Viper to see me as much more than a girl. All things considered, my irritation with the word makes a lot less sense now. No one sees me as a just a girl anymore. Especially not Viper.

So instead of being irritated, I want to laugh. But I don’t want to give him the satisfaction he’s seeking.

I turn my head to look down at Bella sleeping with her mouth still on my nipple to hide a smile.

Viper sees it anyway, and smirks knowing he’s won his way.

I still feel like I’ve lost something, though. Even though this is everything a younger me dreamed of and all I still want now.

To marry Viper would be to lose every piece of actual leverage I’ve had to use against him all these years. First the children. Then my body and sex. Then my reluctance to tell him exactly how I felt about him. Marriage was the last thing I could hold over his head. I was always going to say yes eventually. Viper is right about that. But I was hoping it would wait until after we killed Pray and this war was over but now it won’t.

Now, I have nothing to hold over him. Now, after everything we’ve been through and all the betrayals between us, all I have to give Viper is the one thing I’ve never been able to give him but have no choice but to hope works to see us through to the end of all this.

My trust.

19

Dele

Viper is right in his assumption that Sabino’s people do the brunt of the planning for our wedding. The only thing I have anything to do with is when they come ask me what my preferences are, get my measurements for the dress design I pick out, tell me the planned time and date of our ceremony, and then they’re out of my hair.

Maybe if I didn’t have more pressing things to do, planning my wedding would mean lot more to me. But now, I couldn’t care less about it.

In between taking care of a newborn, I spend time making contact with my people back in the states to see what the fallout has been and to arrange logistics for when we go back to confront Pray. This time, hopefully, taking him by surprise.

Already, according to my sources, he’s unsettled. Not because I slipped away from him but the reason why I slipped out his grasp. Viper. His most entrusted enforcer. A traitor. On his enemy’s side the entire time and he never saw it coming. Maybe because he killed his brother without a second thought. Abandoned his daughter without a care in the world for her. He can’t comprehend that someone would risk the power and proximity Viper has to save their family.

He’s trying to hide how shaken he is, according to the spies we have near him, but he can’t. And it doesn’t help that without prompting or instruction, my sister has stepped up to play decoy. Pretending to be Addy Bianchi and act like she never left New York while she and my lawyers and spokespeople have fed the public the story that Isabella and Bond Uccello died from a robbery gone wrong after the two longtime married lovers ditched their security to spend some time together. Simple. But commonplace enough in New York city and an effective excuse for why Addy Bianchi was holed up in some undisclosed location with her children, making plans to take the bodies back to Italy for the funeral.

In other words, Pray doesn’t know what the hell is going on, doesn’t know who he can trust, and we’ve essentially got him paranoid and on retreat. If not the fact that I’m recovering from giving birth, I wouldn’t be waiting a little over a month to go after him. I’d be ready to make a final crushing blow right now.

But while this is the most scared and on the run we’ve had Pray and the greatest advantage we’ve had, he’s also likely at his most dangerous. Like an animal that’s just been wounded. In shock, scared, and desperate. Desperate enough to take risks he might not normally take that may be his undoing or could be ours if we’re not prepared for it. So better to wait. Better to wait until his guard is down enough that we can go in and eliminate him. Or for him to think he has the advantage again so he’ll underestimate us.

It's all good an well anyway. That gives me time to enact one last part of this plan that I haven’t discussed with Viper or Sabino. Not that I’ve talked to Sabino much beyond him coming to offer congratulations on the new baby, my impending nuptials, and becoming part of the Fantoni empire. They have similar ideas to the Russian clans about a woman’s place in all this. So better to let Viper be the talking head for both of us on that front for now.

With Bella strapped to my chest, I make my way to the opposite side of the Fantoni estate to where we’ve been staying to find the one person I know resides here but who I’ve very noticeably not seen. To be fair, it’s a big estate. But also, I’ve been spending my days walking around, in the garden with the children, in many of the other common areas. I should have run into them by now. So that just means I have to find them myself.

I knock on the door the way I’ve heard the servants knock before they come in my room. I’m going to go in regardless, but I’ll give the courtesy of asking first.

“Come in.”

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