The Viper’s Wife (Sacred Vows #3)

Prologue

NICO

The waiters are here to kill my brother.

Or, they were supposed to be.

Now, five Russian mercenaries barely disguised as waiters slink through the crowd of black-tie mobsters, holding serving trays of artlessly arranged drinks while they wait for the cue to kill their old employer.

Swaying from the gentle rocking of the yacht, I sip from a flute of champagne that tastes like wet cardboard—some idiot must’ve let the bottle store under harsh light for too long—and sigh.

Coups d’état are entirely pedestrian affairs.

Monkey has banana. He sees other monkey with bigger banana.

Monkey kills other monkey, seizes key territory, neutralizes bad actors, and liquidates their unprofitable assets.

Monkey develops a deep paranoia streak and obsession with power until another monkey with banana envy swings by, and the cycle continues.

My half brother—as he’s so quick to remind everyone—Salvatore “il Diavolo” Luporini, don of the Chicago Outfit, and King Monkey, sniffed out this particular takeover attempt almost at the moment it took seed in Aceto’s empty mind, thanks to Salvatore’s frankly excessive network of surveillance instruments planted in prime locations all over Chicago.

Including one microphone hidden in Aceto’s home office.

And through that microphone poured out secrets.

Being capo for the Outfit wasn’t enough. Aceto wanted to be top banana. And with the pride and shortsightedness of a man who thought he could manifest victory through sheer force of will, he low-balled half a dozen Russian mercenaries into assassinating his don.

Those mercenaries with shady personal histories and dubious professional loyalties were overjoyed to receive a better offer from Don Salvatore. Less risk, more reward. Simple.

Tonight, I’m here to observe. Obey my father’s demand that I learn what I can from my older half-brother.

So far I’m learning that Salvatore has the same flair for the dramatic as our father.

I sip from my champagne and smile. Maybe I’ll mention that to Salvatore after he has the Russians turn on Aceto later tonight, just to sprinkle a little salt onto his satisfaction.

If the Russians manage to last that long. The nearest one with the thinning, shoe-polish black hair scowls as a shrill woman berates him over the cold hors d’oeuvres. A vein pops out on his forehead. His fingers curl over the serving platter like a knife handle.

I smile. It wouldn’t take much to stir up a little trouble tonight. He’s very close to the edge.

“I heard Olivia did not fall for your charms.”

My smile falls, and I suck down the rest of the champagne before turning to my father’s favorite henchman.

Giovanni wears his signature withering look, brows furrowed over dark unyielding eyes, and meat hook hands packed into his grey three-piece-suit.

I admire the subtle puckering of skin, almost completely hidden by his stubble—a little gift from my eighteen-year-old self. Most of the acid spray missed his face, and he beat the shit out of me for it, but while I’ve healed, his scars remain.

I set my flute on the platter of a passing waiter, nearly unbalancing his load. He shoots me a stink eye, but continues on.

“Shocking, considering I won the fight. I thought women liked that sort of thing.”

Giovanni sighs. He’s good at sighing—not overly dramatic or windy, just the right length of time. He’s really perfected it over the years from constant exposure to my sister and me.

“I have sent flowers to the hospital where her cousin is staying,” Giovanni says in his thick Italian accent. He eyes a passing waiter with mild distaste. “Thankfully, he was not her favorite. She is willing to meet with you again.”

Her parents were very willing, I’m sure.

Her father saw a tidy little shortcut in his criminal career through a marriage between his daughter and someone of my pedigree—if only he could get me to peek down her plunging neckline.

But I was more interested in her cousin, the stuck-up prick with the dyed-blond hair whose eye would twitch every time I insinuated Olivia was anything less than a perfect, Catholic virgin.

Predictably, he followed me outside to straighten out my behavior. I threw grey snow in his face and stabbed him six times in the gut with a fork I pinched from the dinner table.

“Whatever you think is best.” I wonder if the cousin would ever join us again. That could be fun.

Giovanni sighs again. It’s a category three. I can tell his heart isn’t really in this lecture—he’s probably only talking to me to distract me from doing something stupid tonight. “You have one job, Nico. Find a wife. Someone with a good family and a little ambition.”

I can almost recite this speech by heart.

I need a woman to make Father happy. Someone from a powerful, respectable family who will turn me into a powerful, respectable man and give me lots and lots of Italian sons.

My focus drifts from Giovanni to the crowd of mobsters and politicians—is it low-hanging fruit to say they’re one and the same?—until it lands on a woman who looks about my age.

I’m struck first by how tall she is—nearly as tall as me, and that’s a feat. Then, by how furtively she’s weaving through the mass of people, her shiny dark waves kissing her jawline and hiding her features. She’s aimed toward the exit, maybe to give the slip to an overbearing guardian.

For one fleeting moment, the crowd parts and exposes the rest of her slender figure, wrapped in black silk and balanced on thin stilettos.

She looks like a black-and-white movie starlet, all pale olive skin and pitch-black accents.

Except instead of an actress’s demure smile, her small, crimson-red mouth and big, dark eyes form a look of complete and utter contempt.

She’s somebody’s spoiled, pretty princess whose every complaint gets resolved within the hour.

One of the imposter waiters bumps into her, and I wait for her venomous response, but it never comes. She places her hand on his shoulder and seems to check that he’s okay, never dropping that distasteful look from her face, before they part ways.

She skirts along the edge of the crowd, casting one last secretive glance behind her before slipping out the saloon doors.

Interesting.

“Do you have anyone in mind?” Giovanni asks, cutting through my reverie.

I shrug and point in the woman’s direction as the doors close shut on her figure.

“Who’s she?”

Giovanni hesitates, which practically makes my mouth water in Pavlovian anticipation, before admitting, “She’s Aceto’s daughter. Valeria.”

It’s like the heavens part and a choir of angels float down, singing her name.

Or, more accurately, a band of devils crawl up to hiss Valeria Aceto into my ear.

After tonight, Aceto will be dead and his family name will be mud. Lower than mud, really, more like a toxic industrial sludge that no one in their right mind would want to get near.

“Giorgia Pasino is a wild girl, too focused on sex,” Giovanni tries to offer, lingering on sex, “but she is interested to know you.”

His dangling of a new woman doesn’t work when I’m already hooked. “Tell me more about Valeria.”

Giovanni sighs.