The Beast and the Snake

VANCE’S POV

Mateo Castillo has always known exactly how to get under my skin.

It’s a talent, really.

A decade of watching him perfect it at summits and treaty negotiations and the occasional high-stakes poker game where we both pretended we weren’t calculating how to destroy each other.

He does it with that smile, that lazy aristocratic charm that makes everyone else see a gentleman while I see th