I was never supposed to become a Serpent. That was the one thing everyone agreed on. The Serpents weren’t a club. They weren’t a gang. They weren’t men looking for someone to fill an empty seat. They were brothers bound by blood, loyalty, and an oath that had been carved into their bones long before I ever knew their names. Every Serpent wore the same black serpent ring, forged from the same piece of obsidian steel. A symbol that meant more than family. More than friendship. It meant you belonged to something that would burn the world down before allowing one of their own to fall. Their motto was simple: Strike once. Leave nothing alive. Six men carried that name: Cobra. Boa. Python. Viper. Krait. And then there was him. Boomslang. Although, everyone called him Boo. The youngest of them. The one with the sharpest smile and the quickest temper. The one who could walk into a room full of enemies and somehow make them forget they were afraid until it was too late. Boo was a Serpent through and through. Until he died. He didn’t die running or hiding. Hell, died the way every Serpent knew they might one day—in the action, protecting his brothers. And when a Serpent falls, the world doesn’t stop. The seat doesn’t stay empty. The oath demands another. That’s where I come in. I was never supposed to be considered. Not because I wasn’t capable, I fully am. Because I was his daughter. My father was Taipan. The original Serpent. The name that made men lower their voices. The legend whispered about in criminal circles. The man who built the foundation the Serpents still stood on today. Before he disappeared, before the world moved on, before I understood what his life truly meant, he left behind a legacy I never asked for. A legacy that now belonged to me. Hey, thanks dad. (major eye roll.) —- The Pit wasn’t a normal headquarters. It was an abandoned cathedral buried beneath the city, a place where secrets were kept and enemies were brought when mercy was no longer an option. It was their sanctuary. Their courtroom. Their home. When I walked into The Pit for the first time, five men stared at me like I was a mistake waiting to happen. They looked less than thrilled to see me, almost as if they were staring at a ghost from their past. And judging by their expressions, they expected me to be the one frozen in fear—like a startled deer caught in their headlights. They expected me to look at the black serpent rings on their fingers and understand exactly what kind of men they were. They didn’t expect me to ask for Boo’s ring. They definitely didn’t expect me to join their crew willingly. But they forgot one thing. I was Taipan’s daughter. I was raised around monsters. I knew how they thought. I knew how they fought. And I knew the difference between a man who was dangerous and a man who only pretended to be. The Serpents don’t accept replacements. They don’t hand out their rings. And betrayal comes with a punishment worse than death—the serpent mark burned away from your skin, a reminder that once you break the oath, you are no longer one of them. You are nothing. So if I wanted Boo’s place, I had to prove I deserved it. Not as the infamous Taipan’s offspring. Not as a woman they underestimated. As a Serpent. The first woman to ever stand among them. And the most dangerous thing about me? I wasn’t afraid of their venom. I was born from it.