Viper's Kiss: A Billionaire's Reckoning
as the silk of the ridic
sunlight through th
It wa
pposed to announ
given me a list, a curated se
y, the usual cor
ressed down, just
d mixed with the pressure,
Vande
d money, a key
in that o
her, or th
ind: beautiful, sophistic
r, Ryan Miller
a social climber she beli
sn't just a per
root of e
n, believed I' d sabotaged hi
for it, a deep,
aked Peterson Glo
onage, clean a
keover. My company, my
mprisoned on tr
ayal was
rison, a stress-aggravated
forgotte
in, it was all still fr
I woke up.
day, hours before t
ond c
m buzzed. M
ready. The board members
screen of the TV showing a young ma
e script woul
nce, the air was thi
inted look. Jess Vanderbilt. That was the
ed. Microphones w
red my
made my
ess in the front row, a small, co
se Soph
pled throu
ter, comp
er of a new money i
ssuming, a low-p
was a junior analys
anonymously, about irregu
quietly campaigned fo
ung in the air,
artled, met mine from
d like he' d sw
rs were mutteri
d vanished, replaced by a m
ed, my voice firm, cutting
onfiden
Sophia, offering a
ushed, but sh
was not the alliance they ex
o
as the initial chaos of report
ith rage, was grippin
ession a mixture of shock and some
s. The same insi
hing. My choice was