Viper’s Reign - Prologue
GRACE
Ten days earlier…
The woman staring back at me through the vending machine reflection looks tired and worn out. Because she is. My ankles throb painfully from being on my feet for almost my entire shift. My back and neck ache from hunching over cots all day.
“Turner!”
I jolt, the familiar voice of my preceptor snapping me to attention. I glance behind me just in time to see Nurse Collins tossing an energy bar my way. I snatch it mid-air.
“You look drained,” she says, not breaking stride. “Go home.” She disappears around the corner before I can respond.
She’s not wrong. I am drained. My shift ended only minutes ago, and I feel it in every bone.
So I take her advice. Energy bar clutched in hand, I head to the changing room, trade my scrubs for actual clothes, then make my way through the hospital halls under the harsh fluorescent light that’s starting to make me dizzy.
Night shift staff nod at me as I pass, and I nod back without stopping, my pace picking up the closer I get to the exit, eager to escape the smell of antiseptic and sanitizer.
I love working here. I genuinely do. I thrive in the chaos of the ER—because chaos is all I’ve ever known—but at the end of every twelve-hour shift, I’m always desperate to get away.
The automatic doors hiss open as I approach, and as soon as I step outside, cool, fresh air washes over me like a balm. It must have rained earlier. The pavement is wet, and the air carries that intoxicating first-rain smell I love. Petrichor.
I close my eyes, inhaling deeply as the doors slide shut behind me.
Everything seems quieter now. Sure, there’s still noise—typical New York traffic, the rumble of idling ambulances nearby, a distant siren fading into the night—but none of it demands anything from me.
Both noises soothe me, but after a full shift of monitors beeping and doctors being paged and the constant hum of a busy ER, the city’s particular version of noise feels almost gentle. Harmless.
I take another deep breath and step away from the ER entrance, glad that I don’t have a shift at Dr. Lenz’s consultation room tonight. There’s no way I could give the patients there my all in this exhausted state.
I roll my neck as I walk, blinking against the blur of streetlights. The only thing I want right now is my bed—and maybe a cup of ramen, because I’m too tired and hungry to cook anything else.
I dig the energy bar out of my purse and tear it open.
The first bite earns a small smile. Nurse Collins came off like a tight ass when I started my clinical rotations a couple of months ago, but she’s a total softie.
After devouring the bar, I wipe my hands down the front of my pants and tuck the wrapper into my pocket.
When I get home, I’ll—
A hard grip clamps around my arm, and the ground seems to drop out from under me. I gasp, flinging my other arm out to catch my balance, but it feels like I’m fighting gravity.
The pavement scrapes beneath my shoes as I stumble, panic spiking fast as I realize I’m being dragged into a dark alley.
Oh shit. I part my lips to scream, but almost like my attacker expected it, a large palm slaps over my mouth, pressing so hard it half covers my nose too, restricting the flow of air.
Am I about to get robbed? My pulse spikes so violently I can feel it in my ears. My mind goes white, then snaps into focus as my fight or flight instincts kick in. Not today, Satan.
I drive my elbow back into the man’s stomach, and he grunts—but his grip only tightens. I keep fighting, thrashing, until his hand slips from my mouth.
I take the opportunity to scream for help, but my shout is cut short when the sharp edge of a knife kisses my throat.
Dread coils in my stomach, making saliva pool in my mouth. But I don’t dare swallow. I’m not sure if my attacker is aware, but that knife rests right over my carotid artery—one wrong move from either one of us and there’s no coming back. For me.
“I see I have your attention. Good.” He eases the knife back a fraction, and I gulp, my head spinning with relief.
“I–I don’t have any money,” I stammer. “I can give you my phone if you want.”
He scoffs in disgust. “I don’t want your phone. I’m here to talk about your good friend Millicent Wilson.”
Millie? The name hits differently than the knife did. “What about her?”
“Are you going to cooperate, or would you prefer to see her in a body bag?”
I inhale sharply, my head racing. I know Millie is involved in some dangerous stuff—most recently that suspicious ‘job’ she took. Could this be karma catching up to her? Through me?
“I’ll cooperate.” The moment the words leave my mouth, his grip loosens, and I turn to face him.
He’s an older man, probably in his mid-to-late forties, with streaks of grey in his hair. Average build. Clean clothes. He looks… normal. The kind of man you’d pass on the street without noticing. That somehow makes it worse.
He pulls his phone out of his pocket and hands it to me. I frown but take the device—I did agree to cooperate, after all.
A video is playing. At first, my brain struggles to process what I’m seeing, but when it does, the nausea hits like a wave, sudden and scalding. My stomach clenches so hard I gag and have to press my lips together against it.
He snatches his phone from my hand, but it’s too late.
The image is burned into my mind. Millie, all roughed up, her face swollen past recognition, the skin around her eyes deep purple and broken open, her lips split, her whole body slack in the chair they’ve bound her to—not unconscious, from the angle of her head, but surrendered in the way of someone who has stopped fighting.
“Your friend fucked up. She fucked up real bad, and you’re going to fix it, or she loses her life.”
My throat closes, eyes stinging with tears as I stare up at him, my mind reeling.
“You remember the mission your friend was supposed to complete?”
I swallow hard. A few weeks ago, Millie and I started working at an underground clinic—Dr. Lenz’s consultation room.
It’s a place where criminals, or anyone trying to stay off the radar, go to get patched up.
Gunshot wounds, stabbings, injuries people don’t want recorded anywhere official.
It’s bad, but we were unpaid interns, living in a city as expensive as New York with student loans hanging over our heads. We had to make ends meet somehow.
Not long after we started there, a man wearing sunglasses approached us. He said he needed compassionate nurses to help restore life to his stubborn ‘clients’. Our job would be to slip certain ‘medications’ to these sick men who had given up on their lives, and we’d be paid heavily for it.
It sounded shady as hell to me, so I declined. But Millie… well, she’s tougher than I am, has seen worse things growing up, and her stomach is made of iron. So she accepted. And honestly, I couldn’t blame her. The money she made from just one of those side jobs covered our rent for six months.
Then another job came along. This time, she tried to make me take it—God knows I needed the money, and I was so tempted—but I refused. My gut screamed no, and I don’t ignore that. She shrugged and took the job herself. But there were some… complications.
For the first time since she started doing these jobs, she couldn’t even get the man to notice her, so she couldn't get close enough to give him his ‘medication’.
The last time we spoke, a few days ago, she sounded worried about it.
She had tried again and again to connect with him, but nothing worked. Is that why she ended up like this?
I blink through the tears blurring my vision and glare up at the man. “What about it?”
“It falls on your shoulders now.”
My eyes almost bug out of my skull. “If Millie couldn’t succeed in seducing Dimitri Petrov, what chance do I have?”
The handsome billionaire has only ever been photographed with dark-haired beauties. He clearly has a type—which is Millie. Yet even she failed to get his attention.
So how am I supposed to pull this off with my red hair and freckles?
I’m the direct opposite of the type of woman he usually goes for.
Plus, the Petrovs might have that respectable rich family image, but it’s not exactly a well-kept secret what other things they do to make their money.
There’s literally a politician using their name to run for office, for Christ’s sake.
The man sneers. “I’m sure you will figure it out if you don’t want your friend dead.
” He pulls a small phone out of his pocket and shoves it into my hand.
“Take this with you. You’ll receive your first instructions in a few days.
You’ll have one week to complete the job your friend was paid for—or she dies, and you follow. ”
Paid for? She got paid already? Oh, Millie.
“And don’t even try calling or going to the police. Think about poor Millicent and how easy it was for me to get to you tonight. We can take both of your lives. Just. Like. That.” He snaps his fingers, and I gulp. I believe him.
“I won’t.”
“Good. Get ready to receive your instructions and make yourself available this weekend.” Then he melts into the darkness of the alley and disappears.
My knees buckle as soon as he’s gone, and I slump weakly against the wall behind me, trying to breathe through the shock.
What have you gotten us into, Millie?
I tuck the burner phone he gave me into my purse and grab my own, dialing Millie’s number.
I don’t know what I expect—her voicemail, probably, or for her to laugh and tell me it’s a prank, anything other than what it clearly is.
But a cold spike shoots through me when the call is answered on the first ring.
I go very still. “Millie?” I ask in a tentative whisper. The silence on the other end lasts exactly long enough for hope to form. Then the deep chuckle of a man carries over the line, and my eyes slide shut.
“I see you got my message. I mean every single word my man communicated on my behalf. Instructions will be sent to the phone in your possession. I’d suggest you take them seriously.”