Matteo
The chamber echoed with polished boots and fraying tempers. The scent of tension was thick—councilmen murmuring under breath, elders trading disapproving looks, and at the center of it all stood Serafina Moretti, draped in obsidian silk and poison. She sat beside me at the war table like she still belonged there. Like Aveline didn’t exist.
“La Vipera,” they still called her. The Viper of Verona. My past, and more than that—an empire-builder in her own right. Her fangs had fed this pack when it was starving, her tongue had saved our lives during those early deals with syndicates that wouldn’t blink twice before burying a pack under concrete and blood.
But now, she was circling again. And this time, her fangs were aimed at Aveline.
“You’re being weakened,” Serafina said calmly, tw
