Page 75 of The Viper
I looked fine. Beautiful, even. That was the problem.
People always said beauty was power. They were wrong. Beauty was currency—and like any currency, it made you valuable only until it ran out.
The girl in the mirror looked like she had everything, but I could still see the small-town kid underneath—the one who used to sit on other people’s porch steps after dark, listening to crickets and waiting for headlights that never came.
That night came back to me now, vivid as film:
I was nine. My mother had promised to pick me up from a birthday sleepover. Midnight came. Then one. Then two. The other girl’s father offered to drive me home, but pride made me say no. I sat outside on the swing until the bugs got quiet and the sky started to pale. When my mother finally arrived, mascara streaked and smelling of gin, she said the words I’d spent years trying to forget: “I’m sorry, baby. I lost track of time.”
That was the night I learned safety wasn’t something you were given. It was something you had to make for yourself.
Now, all these years later, I’d built an empire out of pretending to be safe. Out of selling the illusion that I had everything under control.
But the truth?
I was still that nine-year-old girl waiting for headlights.
And I’d just fallen for a man who carried war in his veins.
Where did that leave me?
With a sister who’d understood the same thing long before I did.
Hannah had been there that night, too—curled up on the sofa with a blanket over her knees, pretending not to hear our mother stumble through the door. She’d learned the same lesson, only she’d translated it differently. Where I’d chased escape, Hannah had built structure. Where I ran toward chaos and called it opportunity, she’d built a life made of checklists and contingency plans.
I’d been avoiding her lately, ducking her calls and resenting her reminders. She’d nag me about press schedules or media prep, about call times and interviews, and I’d turn her into an enemy in my mind because it was easier than admitting she was right. She wanted to keep the world spinning while I pretended gravity didn’t apply to me.
But Hannah wasn’t the enemy. She’d felt the same hollow ache I had, waiting for headlights that didn’t come. She’d just responded by grabbing the steering wheel and never letting go. Everything she’d done—all the color-coded calendars, the late-night emails, the tough-love speeches—wasn’t control for its own sake. It was protection.
She’d dedicated her whole adult life to making sure my dreams came true, maybe because she never got the space to chase her own.
And I’d taken that for granted.
I’d takenherfor granted.
Now, sitting in this world of quiet luxury and looming threats, I felt the pull of guilt twist inside me. Hannah was part of this, whether I liked it or not—whether she even knew it or not.
And for the first time in a long time, I wanted to call her. Not as my assistant. Not as the sister who kept me on schedule. But as the girl who used to sit beside me in the dark, waiting for the same pair of headlights.
I wanted to make sure she was safe, too.
When we landed, dawn was still hours away. The SUV waiting on the tarmac looked anonymous enough to be invisible. I slipped inside, the leather cold against the backs of my thighs. Lucas slid in after me, silent again, the soldier returning.
I reached for his hand without thinking. He hesitated only a second before lacing his fingers through mine.
“Do you ever get used to it?” I asked.
“To what?”
“The fear.”
He didn’t answer right away. His thumb traced slow circles on my palm, grounding and electric at once. “You don’t get used to it,” he said finally. “You just learn which parts to listen to.”
“Which parts are those?”
“The ones that keep you alive.”
I swallowed. “And the others?”
