CHAPTER TWO

THE VIPER’S MARK

SOFIA POV

I scrubbed my skin until it hurts but his scent still didn’t come off.

Alessio Volkov, my family's greatest enemy, gave me the only three hours of my life that ever felt like mine. 

“I wanted another taste of him… FUCK!!”

I hate him for this.

I turn off the shower and stand in the steam trying to feel myself again. The burner phone sits on the edge of the sink where I left it, its screen dark, and I stared at it just to read his last message again.

Shower if you want, I’ll still know.

“Oh.” My stomach twisted a bit and instantly I began to sweat.

I put the phone under my mattress and lie down on top of the sheets before I looked at the ceiling trying to remember that he threatened Gianna's life and freaking blackmailed me. 

I gulped down the panic I was feeling before it climbed my throat. Everything tonight wasn’t… it couldn’t have been. 

“No.” I slowly got up as I sat on my bed. Men like Alessio Volkov didn’t make women feel alive. They fucking buried them.

I tried to remember that he is dangerous and ruthless and the son of the man who destroyed my family because the scar on his neck exists for a reason. So I really hope I won’t be that foolish enough to find out why. 

Cause whatever gave him that scar…didn’t finish the job. I had no intention of becoming the next person to try.

~ ~ ~ ~

Luca sits at the head of the table already dressed, dark suit, no tie, his phone face-down beside his plate. 

Maria serves eggs and doesn't even say hello like she normally does.  Marco stood at the window with his coffee, and this is the thing about Marco that most people miss..he never serves coffee.

He looked at me the way executioners watched condemned men as if he was  waiting to see if I will make a mistake.

I reach for the orange juice and when my sleeve rides up I see the bruise on my wrist, small and purple.

My eyes almost bulged out at the sight of it. 

“Shit.” I whispered as I set the glass down and pulled  my sleeve back without changing my expression. I picked up my fork instead. 

Luca speaks without looking up. "You look tired."

"I didn't sleep well," I say, which is true, and I cut into my eggs and wait.

"I've adjusted the security rotation," he says. "Marco will be doing checks every hour now." He says as his eyes come up and find mine across the table in a dark manner. 

I took a bite of my eggs. "Okay," I say.

Something changed  in his facial. He expected an argument and I gave him nothing to hold onto.

Now, he doesn't know what to do with that, and in the silence that follows suit. He thought last night frightened me back into obedience. I am going to let him believe that he won this time around. 

I just have to be smart enough not to waste it.

~ ~ ~ ~ 

ALESSIO POV

Nikolai placed the folder on my desk at eight in the morning. I didn’t open it because I already knew what was inside it. 

Shipping manifests and Pier numbers. The paper trail Luca Vecchio has been building for eighteen months thinking no one was watching.

“What a dumbass. Luca always mistook arrogance for intelligence.” I scoffed. Since the night they pulled my cousin's body out of the harbor with three bullets in his chest.

Luca thought that ended the story. It didn’t but just started mine.

I pull the burner phone from my drawer and look at it for a while before I set it down again. 

“She hasn’t texted back”. I said in satisfaction. She won’t.. at least not yet. 

Sofia Vecchio has spent her whole life being told what men like me do to girls like her especially when we’re fucking pissed, and last night I gave her one reason to believe it.

The mistake she’s making is thinking that’s the part she should be afraid of.

I opened the folder. Pier fourteen, Thursday. Her brother’s men, unloading something Luca doesn’t want to be seen  on record.

I let out a ugly satisfactory smile. He built his empire on my family’s blood. I’m going to take him apart one board at a time and I’m going to enjoy watching his sister choose, piece by piece, which side of that she wants to be standing on when it falls.

I carry my shot of whiskey , drank it all in one gulp. Threw a sharp dart directly at Sofia's picture right on her head.

“I’m coming to claim you.”

~ ~ ~ ~

SOFIA POV

The burner phone buzzes at noon while I'm sitting in the garden during my approved hours, twelve to two, eastern wall, guards at both gates, my book open on my lap and not a single word of it going in.

Tonight by 9pm. You know where.

I looked up at the guard by the fountain and noticed him watching the gate, not me. I typed back with my thumb, like I'm messaging a friend about some shit.

What exactly do you want me to do?

His reply comes before I finish the thought.

Attend your brother's harbor meeting tomorrow. Remember everything you hear and leave before midnight.

My heart starts pounding. He wants me inside Luca's operation, close enough to burn it from the center.

“Oh, fuck.” I sighed as I stared at the messages. I already knew I was going to do it… not because of Gianna but because Luca has been building a cage around me my whole boring life and Alessio Volkov just handed me the key all in the name of calling it blackmail.

I type back one word, close the phone and slide it into my pocket before sitting in the thin afternoon sun while the fountain runs.

Fine.

When I walked back inside I stop at the bottom of the staircase and looked up at the hallway camera mounted above Luca's office door. 

It’s the one everyone in this house pretends not to notice and I thought about everything Alessio said.

I know everything.

“Oh, sweet brother, you definitely have gaps.” I said quietly to myself and a man with gaps is a man who can be played big time.

I climbed the stairs and smiled at Marco on my way past and felt, for the first time in twenty-three years, like something other than the thing being hunted.

“Sofia, where do you think you’re going?” A loud voice roared and I flinched in shock before turning back.