“You want to know what real pain is?”
“Then let me teach you a lesson. Have a taste of my pet.”
Gianna held the black viper in front of my face.
Its forked tongue flicked in the air as its cold scales brushed against my arm.
“No!”
Before I could scream the word, sharp, searing pain shot through my arm as the viper’s fangs sank deep into my flesh.
Venom burned through my veins like acid, each heartbeat pumping the poison deeper into my body.
I forced myself to remain calm, one hand clamped protectively over my stomach, the other pressing desperately against the wound.
But the venom was an anticoagulant. Blood gushed from the wound, thin and dark, refusing to clot.
I curled into a ball, shivering, too afraid to even move.
“My snake is very well-behaved, it never bites.” Gianna cooed, retrieving her snake.
But as she drew it back, she felt its scales turn slick in her hand. She glanced down and saw dark blood dripping from its fangs.
My vision began to blur.
It felt as if a thousand blades were shredding my womb from the inside.
The snakebite on my arm was already a deathly shade of purple-black, and blood still oozed from the wound.
I could feel my life draining away, bit by bit.
Gianna didn’t leave. Her expression twisted from satisfaction to a crazed fury.
“You bitch! What did you do?!”
Her boot slammed into my abdomen.
The force of the blow nearly made me pass out again.
“My Medusa!” she shrieked. “You crazy woman! You made her bleed! She’s worth more than you and that bastard child combined!”
The room was dim. She grabbed a handful of my hair, yanking my head up to inspect me.
“You hurt her! You disgusting slut!”
She cooed at the snake. “My baby must have been terrified of you.”
Another kick. Each movement was a hammer blow against me and my unborn child.
All I could do was curl my body around my stomach, too weak to fight back.
“Why aren’t you screaming now? Keep up the act!”
“Please… don’t kick the baby…”
“The baby?” Gianna sneered. “Stop using the child as a shield. It doesn’t make you worthy of the Falcone name.”
She stroked the viper with one hand while pulling a small spray bottle from her bag with the other.
A white mist filled the room.
My consciousness began to fade.
“Now you can lie there quietly and reflect on your place,” she hissed. “And don’t get your hopes up. Only Scarlett’s bloodline is worthy of inheriting the family’s throne, destined to rule our empire.”
“Perhaps this will help you reflect on your place in this family, Alessia,” she said, her voice dripping with contempt. “A little something to… quiet your nerves.”
She left in a rage, but not before spraying more of the hallucinogenic gas around the room.
The heavy mist sent my body into violent spasms, layering a new kind of agony on top of the snake venom that was already coursing through my veins.
Adrift in a haze of pain, I heard it: the faint sobs of my unborn child.
A tiny voice echoed in my mind.
“Mommy… Mommy, help me…”
It was my baby’s voice.
In the hallucination, I saw a small figure reaching out to me.
“Mommy, I’m so scared… It hurts so much…”
“Baby, Mommy’s here…”
I reached out a trembling hand, trying to embrace him.
