---Chapter One – The Viper PlaysThe warehouse smelled of oil, rust, and stale cigarettes. Six men surrounded her, sneering, weapons glinting in the dim light.Aria DeLuca, fifteen, heir to the DeLuca crime family, rolled her shoulders lazily as if she were warming up for gym class instead of a fight. Her silver-streaked midnight hair caught the light, glowing faintly like moonlight. Her amethyst eyes flecked with gold swept across her opponents one by one.“You’re all shaking,” she said sweetly, voice carrying the sing-song lilt of a girl teasing classmates. “Don’t be shy. Step closer.”One man spat at the floor. “You’re just a kid. We’ll make you beg before this is over.”Aria tilted her head. For a heartbeat her smile looked almost innocent. Then it widened, sharp as a blade. “Big mistake.”The first man lunged. Aria ducked, snatched his wrist, and twisted until his knife clattered to the ground. Her knee shot into his ribs with a crack that echoed through the warehouse. He crumpled, wheezing.The others hesitated, but hesitation was death. Aria was already moving, a blur of grace and precision. A chain whipped toward her — she caught it mid-air, yanked, and slammed its owner into the concrete. A bat swung at her head; she spun low, grabbed it, and cracked it across the wielder’s shin with brutal precision.Two minutes. That’s all it took.Six grown men groaned on the floor, clutching broken bones and split lips. Aria stood among them without a scratch, twirling the stolen bat like a toy before letting it clatter away.Her lips curved into a dark smile as she crouched beside the man who had spat at her. She leaned close enough that he could see the gold sparks in her irises.“I would stay and play with you all…” she purred, her voice low and dangerous. For a moment her gaze was nothing but viper venom — cold, unblinking, terrifying. The men whimpered.Then, in a heartbeat, her entire demeanor flipped. Her face lit up, eyes widening, smile suddenly bright and cheerful.“…But Spare Me, Great Lord! is starting in five minutes, and you losers are NOT making me miss my favorite anime.”She stood, brushed off her skirt, and skipped toward the exit. “Ja~ne!” she sang over her shoulder in perfect anime-girl cheer.Her laughter echoed as the warehouse door slammed behind her.---From the rafters above, Damian Volkov had watched everything.The Wolf heir leaned against a steel beam, grey eyes narrowed. At eighteen, he was already a legend among his father’s men — the boy who could command armies with a glance, the one called the Wolf of Moscow.He had seen fighters stronger. He had seen strategists sharper. But never had he seen both in one body, wrapped in the shell of a fifteen-year-old girl who skipped away from carnage because of a cartoon.Intrigue burned low in his chest. Dangerous intrigue.“She’s insane,” he murmured, almost to himself. And yet his lips curved faintly. “Insane… and extraordinary.”---In the far corner of the warehouse, another pair of eyes had watched.Marco Romano, seventeen, clenched his fists until his knuckles went white. The emerald green of his eyes glowed with hate — and something darker. His ash-blond hair fell into his face, sweat dripping down his temple as he breathed hard, almost shaking.“She humiliated them,” he hissed. “She humiliated me.”Yet when he closed his eyes, the image that lingered wasn’t of Aria’s cruelty — it was of her smile when she spoke of her anime. That shift from viper to sunshine, from predator to girl, made his blood boil and his heart pound.Marco touched his lips with trembling fingers, as though brushing away an invisible kiss. “Aria DeLuca,” he whispered. His voice cracked between rage and desire. “You’ll belong to me. I’ll make sure of it. Even if I have to poison the whole world to do it.”---Outside, Aria dashed into the night air, her phone already out, her expression bright. She giggled, flipping open her streaming app.“Made it just in time~!” she cheered, settling onto the back seat of her waiting car, blood still drying on her knuckles.The driver, a DeLuca bodyguard, glanced at her in the mirror — eyes wide, face pale. “M-Miss Aria… are you all right?”Aria popped a piece of bubble gum in her mouth, blew a pink bubble, and winked.“Never better. Now drive faster. My show’s on.”---