Chapter 6

I fight. I lose.

They drive me to a private estate outside the city. Underground, the owner keeps a fifteen-foot golden python in a steel-reinforced cage and charges the ultra-rich to watch it feed. Live prey. Invitation only.

Anya is already there, draped in couture, champagne in hand.

"Wren, sweetie — the feeding show tonight is so boring."

Inside the cage, the python is coiled around a slab of raw, bloody meat, jaw unhinged, swallowing it whole.

She tilts her head, all innocence, but her smile has teeth. "You survived ninety-nine rounds of the Gauntlet. A little snake should be nothing for you, right? Dante, baby — I want to watch her tame it."

My blood turns to ice.

Deep in my belly, something flutters — the baby. As if even he can sense what's coming.

"Are you insane? That gets people killed!"

Dante looks at my white face. Something flickers — just for a second. Regret. Maybe mercy.

He leans close. His breath stirs my hair. His voice is low, almost tender.

"You know what I hate about you, Wren? You're so goddamn stubborn. Just bend. Once. Ask me to save you ， beg me ， and I'll rig the game so you win."

"Last chance. One more round. Beg me, and it's yours."

I look back at him. My eyes are dead. My mouth curves into a smile so bitter it tastes like ash.

"Dante. The biggest regret of my life is ever taking your invitation."

His face contorts.

Anya jumps in, right on cue. "How can you be so ungrateful? Dante is giving you a chance! If I were you, I'd be on my knees crying! If you won't play, it just proves you never loved him at all!"

Murder flashes through Dante's eyes. He shoves me — hard — and forces three words through clenched teeth.

"Put her in."

Hands grab me. The cage door clangs shut behind me.

The python's head lifts. Its tongue flicks the air. It starts toward me.

"Dante — please — let me out!" My scream rips through my throat. "I'm pregnant!"

The crowd outside is roaring — drunk, wild, deafening. They can't hear me. He can't hear me.

Dante squints, like he's trying to read my lips.

Anya hooks her arms around his neck and breathes into his ear. "Baby, she's having so much fun in there. I'm jealous. Take me to the back room…"

His Adam's apple bobs. He scoops her up and walks away without looking back.

The python coils around my legs. It bites — once, twice — then starts to constrict.

I can't breathe. My vision goes purple at the edges. I hear my own screams like they belong to someone far away.

"Oh my God — the snake's gone berserk —"

"She's bleeding — there's so much blood — someone call 911!"

I wake in a hospital bed.

A tearing pain in my pelvis. I rip the sheet back.

My belly is flat.

The baby is gone.

A scream rips out of me as it hits all at once—Gran is gone, and with this baby, the last of my family on this earth is gone with her.

Why? Why would he do this? Why would he take the last thing I had?

"No!"

The door swings open.

Dante walks in, flushed, with fresh marks on his throat. The evidence of what he was doing while I was dying.

He glances at me. Mocking. Bored.

"I heard you got your period. That's why you're in the hospital?"

"Come on, Wren. Through ninety-nine rounds, even at your worst, you were never this dramatic."

I take a slow breath. I drag myself out of the bed. Pain screams through every nerve in my body.

I cross the room and slap him across the face with everything I have.

"Dante Marchetti — I hope you rot in hell."