Chapter 4 - The Viper in the Nest
The rage that surged through my veins was no longer human. It was something primal, dark, and utterly consuming—the fury of a syndicate king who realized a venomous snake had been sleeping in his bed while trying to assassinate his queen.
I handed Clara’s cracked phone back to Mateo, my hands steadying with terrifying precision.
“Where is she?” I asked.
“Who? Serena?” Mateo blinked. “She’s still upstairs in her VIP room. A couple of our guys are guarding the door, but—.”
“Don't let her move an inch,” I interrupted, my voice dropping an octave into a register that made Mateo step back instinctively. “If she tries to pull out her IV, break her arm. If she screams, gag her. I’m coming up.”
I turned on my heel, my expensive leather shoes clicking rhythmically against the hospital floor as I marched toward the private elevator. The armed men standing post along the corridor saluted sharply as I passed, sensing the impending bloodshed in the air.
Within ninety seconds, I pushed open the door to Serena’s VIP room.
The lights were dimmed. Serena was sitting up in bed, scrolling lazily through Instagram on her designer tablet, a smug little smile playing on her lips. When the door slammed open, she jumped, dropping the tablet onto the sheets.
“Dom! Oh, thank god,” she whined, instantly putting on her best damsel-in-distress pout, squeezing out a theatrical tear. “Where have you been? That scary doctor wouldn't even let me leave my room, and your thugs outside are staring at me like I’m a criminal! Is your wife—?”
I didn't say a word.
I walked slowly across the room, my shadow stretching long and menacingly across the white walls. I pulled a chair out from the corner, reversed it, and straddled it backward right beside her bed, resting my forearms on the backrest.
I stared at her. Just stared.
The theatrical pout faltered. Her smile dissolved into nervous twitching.
“D-Dom? Why are you looking at me like that? You’re scaring me...”
“Who took the picture, Serena?” I asked.
My voice was terrifyingly calm. There was no shouting, no explosive rage. Just the cold, flat monotone of a executioner reading a final writ.
Serena blinked, her eyelashes fluttering innocently. “What... what picture? What are you talking about?”
“The picture of us at the Azure Lounge on 47th and State,” I continued, leaning in closer, catching the sudden, frantic scent of her rising panic. “The one sent to my wife’s phone twenty minutes before her car was T-boned by an armored Moretti vehicle.”
Color drained completely from Serena’s face. She looked like she had just seen a ghost.
“I—I don't know anything about that! Some crazy person must have—!”
CRASH.
I slammed my fist against the wooden backrest of the chair so hard the mahogany splintered, the deafening sound echoing through the small room like a gunshot. Serena shrieked, pressing herself flat against the hospital pillows, pulling the blankets up to her chin.
“Don't insult my intelligence, you pathetic little parasite,” I hissed, my face inches from hers, my eyes blazing with absolute murder. “You’ve been whining for months that Clara was still in the picture, haven't you? You wanted her out of the way. You wanted my ring, my name, my money. So you played messenger girl for Lorenzo Moretti.”
“I didn't!” she sobbed, tears finally streaming down her face for real. “I swear to god I didn't know Moretti! I just... I wanted her to see us! I wanted her to leave you so you’d be all mine! I didn't know they were going to kill her!”
The confession hung in the toxic air between us.
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She had done it. Out of petty, narcissistic jealousy, she had given Moretti the exact coordinates and timeline he needed to orchestrate the hit, thinking it was just a clever way to break up my marriage.
She had sold my wife’s life to the devil for a designer handbag and a wedding ring.
