The Reception of Snakes

POV: Malia

The air inside the Toorak mansion didn't smell like money. Money smells like fresh paper and crisp cotton. This place smelled like antique wax, vintage champagne, and copper. The faint, lingering iron tang of blood that no amount of expensive bleach could ever wash out of the hardwood floors.

I adjusted the hem of my silk dress, my palms damp against the delicate fabric. Every single person in this ballroom had a body buried somewhere in Victoria, or a shell company hiding a syndicate laundering operation.

"Stop fidgeting, Malia."

Jarrah’s voice was a low, sandpaper rasp right against my ear. His hand slid to the small of my back not soft, not romantic, but a heavy, warning anchor. His fingers locked into place, pushing through the back of my dress until I could feel the ridge of his knuckles against my spine. Through the thin silk, his body radiated heat like an exposed engine.

"I'm not fidgeting," I whispered, keeping my smile pasted on for the room. "I'm surviving."

"You're broadcasting your pulse across the room," he grunted, his gaze tracking a pair of men in tailored Italian suits near the grand staircase. "Slow it down. Breathe through your nose. Look at me like you're madly in love with me, or at least like you believe the lie we sold them at the altar."

I turned my head slightly, catching his profile. Jarrah Vance was a wall of muscle wrapped in charcoal wool, his jaw perpetually tight, a pale silver scar bisecting his left eyebrow down to his cheekbone. He looked lethal, beautiful, and completely unreadable.

"I'm a great actress, Jarrah," I murmured, leaning slightly into his chest to play the part. "But loving a wolf who drags me into a pit of snakes is pushing my range."

A faint twitch caught the corner of his jaw. "Keep talking like that, and they'll think we're having a foreplay argument. Good. Let them think you're my obsession."

"Are you playing the role, or am I?"

"I don't play roles, Malia," he said, his eyes darkening as he scanned the perimeter. "I enforce them."

Before I could answer, the air around us shifted. The crowd of syndicate leaders, corrupt politicians, and high-end fixers parted like water around a stain.

A man staggered into our visual field, holding a crystal tumbler of straight whiskey. Victor Callahan. He was twice my age, his face flushed red from liquor, his shirt unbuttoned halfway down a thick, hair-covered chest. He was the reigning king of the Melbourne docks, and Jarrah’s most volatile rival.

"Well, well, well," Callahan drawled, his voice slurred, thick with an accent born in the rougher suburbs before he bought his way into Toorak. "The golden boy of the underworld and his little bargaining chip."

Jarrah didn't move a muscle, but the hand on my back turned to iron. "Callahan. You're drunk before the host has even made his toast."

"I drink when I'm celebrating, Vance!" Callahan took a deep, unsteady step forward, his bloodshot eyes locking onto me. He raked his gaze up my legs, over my hips, down the line of my throat. It felt like grease sliding across my skin. "And I’m celebrating. I didn't think you had it in you to take a wife. Especially one from a bloodline as fragile as hers."

My breath hitched. I squeezed my clutch until my knuckles turned white.

"Step back, Victor," Jarrah said. His voice dropped an octave, losing every trace of social pleasantry. It was the tone of a man counting down the seconds before an execution.

"Or what?" Callahan sneered, taking another step into my personal space. The smell of stale Scotch and expensive cigar smoke washed over me. He reached out a heavy, calloused hand, his yellowed nails pointing directly at my face. "She's pretty. A little thin, but pretty. Is she good for anything besides securing your truce, Jarrah? Or does she scream when you"

He didn't get to finish the sentence.

It happened so fast the rest of the room didn't even drop their glasses.

Jarrah’s left hand snapped forward, catching Callahan by the throat before the man's fingers could brush my skin. In one fluid, terrifying movement, Jarrah shoved Callahan back against a marble pillar. The sound of Callahan’s head striking the stone cracked through the ambient murmur of the room like a gunshot.

Glass shattered as Callahan’s tumbler hit the floor.

"Touch her again," Jarrah growled, leaning in so close their noses almost brushed, "and I will tear your fingers off one by one and feed them to your brothers."

Callahan gagged, his face turning purple as Jarrah’s grip tightened, lifting him slightly off his heels. Callahan's hand fumbled toward his jacket pocket, reaching for a piece.

"Jarrah," I gasped, stepping closer, my hand catching his forearm. The muscle was rigid as steel under my palm. "Jarrah, stop. Everyone is watching."

For two agony-filled seconds, I thought he was going to kill the man right there on the polished marble floor of Toorak. The violence in Jarrah wasn't a flare-up; it was a reservoir, deep and waiting.

Then, slowly, Jarrah released him.

Callahan crumpled to his knees, coughing violently, clutching his throat while his two bodyguards finally rushed forward, hands hovering near their shoulder holsters. Jarrah didn't even glance at the guards. He stepped back, pulled a silk handkerchief from his pocket, and meticulously wiped his fingers as if he had just touched trash.

"Get him out of my sight," Jarrah told the guards softly. "Before I forget we're guests."

The guards hesitated, looked at the dangerous quiet in Jarrah’s eyes, and dragged their bleeding, gasping boss out toward the terrace doors.

The ballroom slowly returned to its quiet hum, though every eye remained glued to us. My heart was pounding so hard in my ribs I could barely catch my breath. The reality of the world I had been traded into pressed down on my chest like a ton of wet sand.

Jarrah turned to me, his face a cold, unreadable mask once more. But when he reached out to tuck a stray lock of hair behind my ear, his fingers were surprisingly gentle. A sharp contrast to the beast that had just nearly choked a man to death.

"Are you hurt?" he asked softly.

"No," I whispered, my voice trembling despite my best efforts. "You... you almost killed him."

"He was going to touch you," Jarrah replied simply, as if that explained everything in the universe. "Nobody touches what belongs to me."

Belongs to me.

The words chilled me to the bone, even as a dangerous, traitorous heat coiled low in my stomach.

"Come on," Jarrah said, wrapping his arm around my waist and pulling me close to his side again. "The host wants to speak with us in the library."

We walked down the long, dimly lit hallway away from the main ballroom, our footsteps swallowed by thick Persian rugs. Jarrah pushed open the heavy oak doors of the private library, stepping inside first to clear the space.

"Wait here a second," he murmured, walking toward the grand mahogany desk at the back of the room. "I need to grab the documents before he comes down."

I stood by the doorway, taking a deep breath to calm my racing pulse. My hand brushed against the pocket of my silk dress, feeling the small, cold metal object I had hidden there three hours ago before leaving our estate.

A flash drive containing the internal ledgers of Jarrah’s shipping routes.

I was here to survive, but I wasn't just his property. I was a spy for my father’s fallen firm. If I uploaded these files tonight, Jarrah's empire would crumble within forty-eight hours, and I would finally have my freedom back.

My heart hammered against my ribs. Do it now while his back is turned.

I stepped quietly toward the library's side terminal, pulling the silver drive from my pocket. My fingers shook as I lined it up with the port. Just five seconds. That was all I needed.

"Malia."

Jarrah’s voice didn't come from the desk.

It came from right behind me.

I froze, my thumb resting directly over the drive, my blood turning to ice. I felt the heat of his chest against my shoulder blades before I even heard him move. He had moved across the room without making a single sound.

Slowly, his large, warm hand reached over my shoulder, his fingers gently wrapping around mine, locking my hand and the flash drive right against the computer port.

He leaned down until his lips brushed the shell of my ear, his breath hot against my cold skin.

"Looking for this?" he whispered, holding up an identical silver drive between his index and middle finger. "Or were you looking for the one I swapped out of your jewelry box this morning?”