Title: The Viper's Venom by Ipsitalali
Series: Queen's Gambit (book one)
Source: Gardenia: A Review Shop by -Chrysalis_Realm
Genre: Romantic Suspense
Secondary/subgenre(s): Rom Com
Mature: N (abduction, alcohol use, blood, death, medical depictions, murder, non-explicit sexual content, physical assault, smoking, strong profanity, suicide, violence)
LGBTQIAP+: G (side characters, non-explicit sexual content)
Status: Ongoing
Special note: No "First Impressions"
Digging deeper: 50/100
Final thoughts: Complete
Note: Chapter 32 "Dramatic" was the last available chapter as of the publishing of this review.

Clicking the "External Link" button below the "Continue to next part" button will take you straight to the book, or click the link in the inline comments here. → 

*****

Digging deeper: 50/100

Cover & title: 8/10
I like the title. It's spicy and prepares me for a story that bites, although hopefully not me. I'm thinking more along the lines of betrayal within the story.

Overall, I love this cover. It's so unique. The plain gray background makes the vibrant purples and golds pop, and there's such an interesting contrast with the snake amidst pretty flowers and purple blotches. The glowing purple and gold font imprinted over it all really stands out, too. I love the scratchiness of "The Viper's" above the bold print "Venom," as if one is a handwritten scrawl and one is a stamp, and your name is visible but not intrusive.

The only critique I have is with the text at the top. It looks like it's cut off a bit, and I have to really squint and stare at it for a while before I can read it, even when I click the book on your profile page to pull up the larger image. I'd recommend shifting that down a bit so it doesn't look like it's cut off at the top and bumping the font size up a bit as well. You don't want it too big, because you don't want it distracting from the rest of the cover, but I think it needs to be big enough to read fairly easily. I'm not crazy about the font, because I think it's one that's hard to read, but that isn't too much of a problem with the combination of letters and words you have going on here.

Blurb: 2/5
Overall, this is good. Short, sweet, and to the point, introducing the main character and the plot conflict without giving too much away. It has a touch of humor to it as well, which I appreciate, and I'm interested to see how that plays out within a story that could be quite dark otherwise. My only critique here is with the placement of the first question. Right now, it starts the second paragraph, but that doesn't feel quite right to me. I think it would work better either tacked on to the end of the first paragraph or set apart as a single-line paragraph between the two paragraphs. The effect differs slightly depending on which way you go with that. I'm leaning toward the single-line paragraph, but it's up to you whether you want to change it or leave it as is, of course.

Addendum: After reading the first five chapters, I'd recommend redoing this blurb. It gives the impression that Valeria's husband is in the mafia and she didn't know about that, but she's the one in the mafia, and he knew before they got married. That threw me for a loop the moment I started reading.

Grammar & voice: 10/20
So, the first overall comment I have here is AI use, and I've commented about this in the story, too. I should say right away that this does not feel like an AI-generated story. It definitely has a uniqueness to it which I don't see in AI-generated or AI-rewritten stories, and that uniqueness is your personality and your writing voice. But it seems like you may use AI to refine or enhance your writing, and that introduces some problems, like automatic disqualification from official Wattpad and Ambassador contests, and many unofficial ones as well. There are also plagiarism concerns, because AI learns from online sources, and it can copy directly from them sometimes, too.

But all of that is secondary to what I think is the most important thing: AI mutes your voice. There's a consistent style and tone to AI content across all stories and genres. It's very distant, descriptive, introspective, and elegant. But your writing voice is light and playful, so when you use AI to refine too heavily, it mutes your voice, and in the sections where you don't use it as much, there's a distinct clash between the two styles. And I prefer yours. I always prefer human over AI, because AI is all the same, and there's a personality with the human aspect that AI can't replicate.

It seems like you may use AI more in serious scenes with heavy emotions, and I'm guessing that's because the lighthearted, humorous stuff comes more naturally to you, and you're worried about how well you can convey what you want when the story gets serious. And I understand that. Writing presents a lot of challenges, and the prospect of writing something you're not confident about can be intimidating. But I'd encourage you to give it a go and see what happens. You may not like what you write at first, but the more you practice, the better you'll get, and asking for reviews and feedback (which you're already doing) can help guide you in the right direction. That would also eliminate the problem of clashing styles and characterizations when there's heavier AI use in one area than another.

AI is pretty solid, grammatically speaking, but there are some grammatical issues I noted as I read, which is another way I can tell this is your writing and not fully AI-generated content. And I don't mind the errors. Again, writing can be a challenge and a learning process, so it's okay to make mistakes.

AI-specific problems include repetition, slipping into present tense for summary or almost moralistic observations, and dialogue issues (splitting up one person's dialogue, capitalizing dialogue tags incorrectly, excessive amount of dialogue tags). Repetition involves things like "test your loyalty and cunningness," followed in the same paragraph by "This challenge will test your skills, cunningness, and loyalty." There's a similar problem with a "haunting symphony" in the car crash chapter. And "mischievous" as a descriptor for Valeria gets overused a lot, too.

There aren't too many slips into the present tense, but when they happen, they tend to be something like this: "Maybe one day I'll find peace in my heart and learn to cherish the memories we shared, rather than dwell on what could have been." That gives the impression that Alton is writing this in his present and looking back on his past, but this is all within the storyline, not outside of it, if that makes sense. So, it needs to stay past tense to match the rest of the story, and the only change it needs to do is to switch "I'll" to "I'd."

Dialogue and dialogue tags feed into non-AI issues as well, since dialogue seems to be the least touched part of the story in that regard, so this marks the transition away from the AI conversation. And dialogue is complicated. This is a common area for mistakes, because all the punctuation and capitalization rules can be a lot to keep track of. Hopefully, this will help you out.

First, a dialogue tag is an incomplete sentence that accompanies dialogue and describes who is speaking and how they're talking. It can come before, after, or in the middle of dialogue, and you can often identify it by phrases like "he said," "she asked," "they shouted," etc. Not every sentence that follows dialogue is a dialogue tag, so look for those keywords to help tell the difference. Another test is to separate it from the dialogue. A dialogue tag can't stand on its own as a complete sentence without the dialogue. It's actually considered a part of the dialogue.

I'll start with the most common placement for dialogue tags, which is after dialogue. Every piece of dialogue needs to have an ending punctuation mark within the quotation marks. That could be a period, exclamation mark, question mark, ellipsis (...), or dash (—). These are your final ending punctuation marks. Commas and semicolons can't end a sentence or paragraph.

But if dialogue leads into a dialogue tag, that dialogue tag is part of the dialogue, so the ending punctuation mark within the quotation marks technically comes in the middle of the sentence. There has to be a mark there, though. And, since the dialogue tag is in the middle of the sentence, too, the first letter of the first word needs to be lowercase (unless the first word is a proper noun).

For all punctuation marks except the period, that's all you have to do for your dialogue tag. Make sure you have that punctuation mark inside the quotation marks, and then make sure the first word of the dialogue tag is lowercase. And this is where AI and editing tools mess up. They see a question mark ending dialogue and think that ends everything, so they make the first word of the dialogue tag uppercase, but that's incorrect. The first word should still be lowercase.

But if the dialogue ends in a period, you have to change that to a comma, and AI and editing tools usually get this one right. So, here are some examples (italicized to set them apart):

"I wish you weren't in the mafia," he mumbled.
"Didn't I tell you before we got married?" she asked.
"Yes, but I didn't think you'd get hurt all the time!" he shouted.

Those sentences of dialogue all have dialogue tags. These don't:

"I wish you weren't in the mafia." He had his back to her as he mumbled the words under his breath.
"Didn't I tell you before we got married?" She crossed her arms over her chest, annoyed.
"Yes, but I didn't think you'd get hurt all the time!" He spun to face her, clenching his fists at his sides.

If a dialogue tag comes before dialogue, the first word of dialogue will always be capitalized. That's because the dialogue is a full sentence on its own, so it doesn't need the dialogue tag. But the dialogue tag needs the dialogue, so it will always end in a comma:

He stood with his back to her and mumbled, "I wish you weren't in the mafia."
She crossed her arms over her chest and asked, "Didn't I tell you before we got married?"

Dialogue tags can also come in the middle of dialogue. Usually, they're attached to either the sentence before them or the sentence after them, and you just use the same rules you would if that were the only sentence of dialogue:

"I wish you weren't in the mafia," he mumbled. "I know you told me before we got married, but I didn't think you'd get hurt all the time."
"Didn't I tell you before we got married?" She crossed her arms over her chest and continued, "You said you could handle it."

Rarely, the dialogue tag comes right in the middle of a sentence of dialogue. In that case, keep in mind the dialogue doesn't need the dialogue tag. So, treat the dialogue as a sentence on its own and work the dialogue tag around that. You're just interrupting the sentence of dialogue with the dialogue tag. That means the first part of dialogue will always end in a comma, the dialogue tag will be lowercase and end in a comma, and the second part of dialogue will be lowercase, because it's in the middle of that sentence of dialogue:

"I know you told me before we got married," he conceded, "but I didn't think you'd get hurt all the time."

In all those examples, you'll also see that I kept one person's dialogue and actions together, and when the speaker/actor changed, I started a new paragraph. That helps readers follow a conversation more easily, because they expect an A B A B flow, where A is one speaker and B is another. If an A B A A happens, that can throw the reader off.

I also kept the dialogue tags in the same paragraph as their dialogue. They can't stand alone, and a comma is not a final ending punctuation mark, so you can't have the dialogue tag in one paragraph, end with a comma, and then have the dialogue in the next paragraph. They need to stay together.

One final note with dialogue is the number of dialogue tags. It's something I hadn't really noticed before, but another reviewer pointed it out in my writing, so now I look for it. You don't have to include a dialogue tag for every piece of dialogue. Especially when there are only two people in a conversation and you keep the A B A B flow, you don't have to say who's speaking every time they talk. The reader already knows that from the start of dialogue, when you establish the order of who is speaking first and second. Sometimes, a lot of dialogue tags can actually interrupt the flow of conversation.

Of course, you need to use dialogue tags more frequently when a conversation involves more than two people, and dialogue tags are a great way to help build your characters, because you can include details of facial expressions, body language, and tone. But you can also include those in full sentences paired with the dialogue. So, it's a balancing act. The other reviewer recommended using dialogue tags no more than 50% of the time, and I'm working on it for myself. It's...a process. I love dialogue tags. 😅

Moving on, I already talked a lot about punctuation in all that, so I may as well finish that up. When you're using trailing periods, it should be just three to make an ellipsis (...). No more; no less. For spacing around punctuation, most of the time, a word should touch on the left and there should be a space on the right. Exceptions are quotation marks and parentheses, and you can see examples of all that throughout this feedback. As for commas, you have a tendency to under use them (I tend to overuse them), and this is where a good editing tool can help you out, because the rules are...complicated. I mentioned the free version of ProWritingAid in the comments already, and when I use that to do a final editing check of all this feedback before I post it, I guarantee I will have at least one comma error.

Sometimes, your paragraph divisions feel a bit odd to me. There may be a single line paragraph between two larger paragraphs, and I think that line would fit better tacked onto the end of the previous paragraph or, more rarely, added to the front of the next paragraph. It's not that big of a deal, but just something I wanted to point out.

There are a few line-specific issues I noticed as well. These are usually onetime things that just jumped out at me. In the first chapter, Valeria says this: "One last thing 'There are no rules or limits to this game'"

The inset quote isn't really a quote, and there's no ending punctuation mark. Also, and this may be just because I've only read the first five chapters, I don't think that line is significant enough to warrant bold and italics. That's up to you, of course. As far as the punctuation, I'd fix it this way: "One last thing: There are no rules or limits to this game."

There's this line: "I got off the wall and turned to face him..." And I immediately imagined Valeria as Spider-Woman climbing off a wall. An amusing mental image, but not what you're going for here, so I'd change it to something like "I pushed off from the wall."

In this one, you're just missing "-der" after "red": "My face became even red as a rush of embarrassment..."

This one's a run-on sentence: "I glanced at the caller ID, it was James." Just swap the comma for a semicolon or a period. I think a semicolon would work best here.

When you use em dashes, they should usually come in pairs: "Valeria's presence brought a mix of emotions—shock, excitement, and a tinge of nostalgia but before my brain could work properly..." So, there should be another em dash after "nostalgia."

And there are a couple of sentences that are a bit convoluted. First: "I don't know when, but I had fallen asleep, but now that I look back on it, I wish I never had, because as soon as I had fallen asleep, Alton was kidnapped and taken away." There are many ways to make this smoother, and how you do that is up to you, but here's one way: "I don't know when, but I fell asleep. Looking back, I wished I hadn't, because as soon as I did, Alton was kidnapped and taken away."

Here's the second one. The problem is all the instances of the word "as": "Valeria's expression softened slightly as she shook her head in amusement as she crossed her arms as she looked at me smugly." Again, there are many ways to change this, so here's just one option: "Valeria's expression softened slightly as she shook her head in amusement. She crossed her arms and looked at me smugly."

Plot & pacing: 5/10
The plot is a bit convoluted, and that's mainly because of the timeline. Chapter one starts with Valeria as the head of a criminal organization, and then chapters two and three pick up a few years before that. I got the impression that chapter one was a prologue, giving the reader a taste of what was coming. But then chapter four jumps forward to the same time frame as chapter one. So, that makes chapters two and three feel more like prologues, which were giving the reader the context for the rest of the story.

I think I need to read more to figure out a good suggestion here. Chapter one is a strong start to the story, but for the story's chronology, I think it would make more sense for chapters two and three to come first. Except I really like chapter one as the start. Maybe you could extend chapters two and three. Not the exact content itself; that would drag and get boring. But you could have more chapters showing Valeria and Alton in the past, before the car accident, and that would improve your characterizations by allowing the reader to meet them before the plot started and see what their relationship used to be like.

That would help with pacing as well, because I feel like the story is rushed. The background information provided by those two chapters isn't given much screen time at all. It's like we're zooming past it on the way to the next plot point, and if you blinked looking out the car window, you missed it. I think the pace will settle down after chapter five, because it feels like this is where the meat of the story really starts, but what came before needs attention, too. That gives context for the relationship Alton has left behind and the relationship Valeria is trying to get back.

But you're still writing the story, so I wouldn't stop now to do a major overhaul. If you're anything like me, you don't know exactly where the story is going until you finish it, and even if you planned ahead, surprise may still pop up. So, keep going, finish the story, and then, once you have it all laid out, you'll have a better idea of what is and isn't important and what you do and don't want to emphasize to the reader. That's when you can go back for editing and make any changes you think are necessary. Or if you hit writer's block, you can go back to the beginning now and work on it, and sometimes that helps get the inspiration going again. Whatever works for you.

I'm not crazy about the section headings, especially things like "The car crash," which sounds like it should be a chapter title. Those headings in chapters two and three could be guidelines for where to expand and add more chapters. Most of the headings just show perspective changes aren't that big of a deal, but I'm just not a heading person.

Also, I wanted to make a note of the chapter titles. For some of them, only the first letter of the first word is capitalized, and for others, most words in the title are capitalized. It's a little thing, but I'd recommend picking one way and sticking to it.

Lastly, while throwing the necklace into the fireplace and burning it to ashes is a nice dramatic effect in the first chapter, that wouldn't destroy a necklace. The heat required to even melt metal would be far too hot for a fireplace, and I'm not even sure if a regular fireplace could reach those temperatures.

Characterization: 10/20
Here's another area where AI causes some trouble, because AI writes the characters differently from how you write them. They're much more serious, introspective, and distant in the heavily AI-refined sections than in the sections with lighter use. Chapter two is a good example of this. Valeria and Alton are bubbly, flirty, and cute—and then Valeria is enmired in thought about what could be wrong with Alton, deeply concerned for his well being, dwelling on the depths of their love—she's a different person. The dialogue is where the characters feel the most real, because I think that's the most untouched part of the story.

But there's conflicting information with the words of dialogue and the surrounding words. For instance:

Looking into his eyes, I mustered all the strength I had to say it again, this time loud and clear. 'You're important to me too,' I whispered, my voice filled with sincerity and vulnerability.

She musters "all her strength" to "speak loud and clear"—and then whispers. That isn't loud, although it may be clear. And her voice is "filled with sincerity and vulnerability." That isn't strong. There's a conflict here because of the words before and after dialogue.

Another example is when Marcus and Carmi are talking about the new teacher:

"Why are you so excited?" Marcus asked his wife, raising an eyebrow. Carmi shrugged with a mischievous grin on her face.
"I just love a bit of gossip, and a new teacher always brings some drama," she replied, a twinkle in her eye. Marcus chuckled, shaking his head at his wife's enthusiasm.
"Well, let's hope this new teacher lives up to the hype," he said.
I chuckled, recognizing their mutual fondness for captivating tales—a bond that wove laughter and shared stories between us.

They're playful, cute, and fun, talking about how they love gossip and drama, and then there's this sentence about "their mutual fondness for captivating tales." That's a very high, flighty sentence that takes the previous conversation far too seriously and tries to give it a depth that it just doesn't have. They weren't having a deep, introspective conversation. They were just goofing off.

(That's also an example where speakers/actors need to be split up. "Carmi shrugged" should go down to the next paragraph with her dialogue, and the same with "Marcus chuckled.")

Last example:

...Carmi stepped on my foot hard, causing me to wince in pain and stop grinning.
'Ouch!' I exclaimed, looking at her with a mixture of surprise and amusement.

Why would he be amused? She just stepped on his foot hard enough to make him wince. He wasn't expecting her to do that, and in context, he didn't realize why she did it, either. It seems to me AI thinks there should always be two adjectives, so sometimes, it can't figure out a good one, and it ends up throwing something random like this into the mix.

So, for all the characters, I have a sense they're supposed to be fun, teasing, playful people. Chapter two was all about Valeria and Alton teasing and flirting. The interactions with Carmi and Marcus show they have a similar relationship, and they share the fun with Alton. They're realistic and relatable. But Valeria and Alton have these moments of deep contemplation and serious, heavy thoughts that don't fit with their personalities, and in those moments, they're different people who aren't nearly as realistic or relatable. Yes, people who laugh and joke around can get serious, but their thoughts should still sound like them. The person didn't change, so their personality and defining characteristics shouldn't, either. Even if they're living double lives as teachers by day and mafiosos by night.

Harmony within genre: 5/15
You have this listed as Romantic Suspense, which is a blend of Romance and Mystery/Thriller, so that's definitely on point. The Rom Com that's listed as the secondary or subgenre...not so much. I think that would be much stronger without the AI influence. The biggest issue in this category is really the disconnect between the blurb and the story, because the blurb set me up for Valeria finding out her husband was secretly a mafioso, when in fact, it's the other way around. And it wasn't a secret. He knew before they got married. Now, he definitely has a big secret he's hiding, but I think the blurb needs some reworking to bring that out and make it seem less like Valeria is an innocent bystander to her husband's secret double life.

Originality: 10/20
As I've said earlier, chapter one is a strong start. It has a good hook, and this is also where the most detail appears. However, it's also where the AI comes off the heaviest, so it really feels like a different story to chapter two. Although there is a jump back in the timeline to chapter two, and I've already gone into all the timeline and chapter order issues previously. I think there's supposed to be a sharp contrast between chapter one and chapter two. But I also think Valeria's characterization needs some attention, because while she's definitely playing a part in front of her men, when she's alone with her closest confidantes, she should still be Valeria. You could say the events of the past few years have changed her significantly, but the Valeria in chapter five, who is in the same time frame as chapter one, is more similar to the Valeria portrayed in chapter two to the woman in chapter one.

And, of course, there are inherent problems with AI use and originality, since it learns from other sources on the internet and can actually plagiarize other authors. I know the story is yours, and I hope I've done a good job of pointing out how this is your story and not an AI story, but using AI too heavily can still cause you some problems in this department. And I think the sections that are more clearly written in your words without assistance are more engaging than the more grammatically correct AI-refined/enhanced sections. Your writing style and voice are what make this story unique from all other mafia romance stories, and bringing that out more would, I think, be to your benefit.

Chapters 6-32:
I have several more observations or suggestions to make after reading all published material. Some are about writing style and structure, and some fall under plot inconsistencies. I'm the kind of person who always spots every plot hole or inconsistency in TVs, movies, and books, and since this is the first draft of a story you're currently writing, plot issues are bound to pop up. And there's nothing wrong with that. It's just something to keep in mind when you finish the story and go back through for editing. I have...a lengthy list of issues I need to fix in my stories, so I do this to myself, too. 😅

I'll start with the writing style and structure stuff. The story is mostly in the first person perspective, so that limits your level of detail. If the chapter is in Valeria's perspective, she's probably not going to be describing how her smile looks to others. She can't see it. Unless she's specifically trying to make her facial expressions or body language convey a certain message (like when she's the Viper and she's talking to her organization), she probably won't describe those with a lot of detail, either. When you're writing in the first person, if you try to put yourself in that character's shoes and experience the story the way they do, that will help prevent issues with describing things the character can't.

There's a point in the story where Alton has a flashback to their childhood, and that flashback is in the third person. That feels strange to me, because the previous section of the chapter is all in the first person from Alton's perspective, and since it's his flashback, I think it would make more sense to keep that in the first person.

Another thing to keep in mind here is the age of the children. Eleven-year-old Alton wouldn't think and talk the same way adult Alton does. Fortunately, your flashback is pretty short, so it's not that big of a deal if the kids sound more mature than they should, and it wasn't a glaring issue where they sounded way, way too mature, but it's something to keep in mind.

As the story progresses, slips into the present tense happen much more frequently, so that needs to be changed into the past tense for consistency. Also, and this may be a Wattpad formatting issue, but single-sentence paragraphs become much more frequent as well. That can create a choppy feeling for the reader, because each new paragraph break is an automatic pause in the reader's mind. So, to maintain a good, immersive flow, I generally recommend grouping multiple sentences (that all relate) into larger paragraphs and using single-sentence paragraphs to emphasize important points. There are always exceptions where you may need multiple single-sentence paragraphs in a row, of course, and that's just something to work out as you go.

The area where the single-sentence paragraphs become most problematic is dialogue. A single speaker sometimes has several sentences of dialogue split into single-sentence paragraphs, and sometimes, the dialogue tag is in a separate paragraph, too. But the dialogue tag has to stay with the dialogue, and I don't think you really have any sections of dialogue that are so long they warrant splitting up like that. So, I'd recommend putting everything together in one paragraph.

If you want to split dialogue up, each new paragraph has to have a set of opening quotation marks, each paragraph has to end with a final ending punctuation mark (. ! ? ... —), and only the last paragraph should have closing quotation marks. So, there shouldn't be any paragraphs ending in commas or semicolons. This is another area where editing tools mess up, so if you use them, just ignore it when they say you're missing quotation marks:

Valeria took a deep breath and said, "I'm going to talk now.
"And keep talking.
"And keep talking.
"And now I'm done."

Moving into plot stuff, you do a good job of keeping the pace up while adding new plot elements without forgetting the old ones. It's interesting, because it almost feels like the story is all over the place, and I think that's just because the genre almost seems in flux. The storyline makes sense, though. You shift from focusing on Valeria and Alton as she tries to make him remember while he tries to keep her at arm's length for her own safety, to Valeria working as the Viper with her bodyguards to kill off her enemies, to Alton working with his friends on their secret mission, to the unknown head of the secret organization that's after them all, and you do it all pretty smoothly. That could be a jumbled mess, but it's not. One section flows into the next, and the loose threads from earlier in the story always come back later.

The reason I say the genre almost seems in flux is each aspect of the plot seems to have its own genre, if that makes sense. The Valeria/Alton thing is Romantic Suspense; there are definite Thriller vibes for the Viper's killing spree; Alton's mission is Mystery; the secret organization brings a growing Science Fiction presence; and the whole Los Angeles thing feels a lot like Action/Adventure to me. And I don't think there's anything wrong with any of that. I'd say the primary genre is still Romantic Suspense, with the other genres popping up as needed for the plot, and as I said above, the transition from one section to another is smooth.

Something that's not so smooth is Valeria's character. That changes frequently. She's the dark, cold, mysterious Viper in the first chapter; then she's the playful, teasing, flirty wife in the next chapter. At school, she's bold and commanding; at home, she alternates from naïve and vulnerable to worldly and calculating. She's the no-nonsense, intelligent, dominating woman on the street who everybody fears and nobody can frighten—until her sisters arrive. Then, she's reduced to almost the level of a teenage girl, unable to think for herself and reliant on everybody to do everything for her.

A character having multiple aspects to their personality is fine (and desirable), but there needs to be some continuity throughout, something that says "This is Valeria" regardless of which role she's playing, and I don't think she has that right now. And for whatever reason, she's the only character that has this problem in the story. But, as with everything else I've said, I wouldn't recommend going back through the story to change anything right now. Just finish it up, and then, once you know where it ends and what happens, you can go back and smooth out the kinks.

I said this in a sentence here or there throughout the comments, but I'll bring it all together here. It's interesting that Valeria is the strongest character in the Valeria/Alton relationship, because usually the male character is the stronger one. Alton isn't weak, by any means, but Valeria is just the more dominating character. Until the flip in the story where he's suddenly in control, and then he becomes the stronger character trying to bring them back together while she's the vulnerable one trying to push him away. That flip makes perfect sense in the plotline, and I like how you did it.

Now, for the plot holes/inconsistencies.

If Alton can feel the listening device in Valeria's wrist from brief contact, why hasn't she noticed it? Shouldn't she be able to feel it, too? And if she's so ridiculously strong, why isn't she breaking his bones when she gets angry and starts hitting him as hard as she can?

Why does it take James and Killian two years to find the tape of Alton's accident? With the size and reach of the Viper's organization, I would expect her to get that very quickly after it happens. And just what kind of car are they driving? It would have to be massive for the trunk to hold the bodies of five grown men. A van would probably be a better option here.

Also, the warehouse full of dead bodies should reek to high heaven. That would be a nice detail to add. How do they cope with the smell without vomiting as soon as they set foot in the place?

They clean up the scene where they disposed of the bodies, but not the scene of the murders? Evidence could get lost pretty easily under the sheer volume of yuck in a warehouse full of dead bodies, so it would be much more important to get rid of any evidence at the actual scene of the crime, because that's where they're most likely to get caught.

The dead goldfish. I don't know what else to say here. 😆

Yes, I do. I understand Alton is scrambling for a viable explanation, but Valeria's acceptance of the dead goldfish is very strange. She's married to the man. She should know him well enough to know whether a dead goldfish would really affect him that way. After he leaves, when she's thinking about it later, there's some doubt, but I think there should be more as it happens.

One final note is that the phrase "lifeless body" is used several times to describe an unconscious person, and that's incorrect. If they're lifeless, they're dead. However, you could say an unconscious person is as unresponsive as a lifeless body, or some other comparison, and that would work.

Oh, just kidding, one more thing. Wattpad requires stories with graphic depictions of suicide to be rated Mature, and I think the scene with the staged suicide would qualify as that. It's tricky, though. The reader knows she's not actually committing suicide, but since you describe how she makes it look like suicide...I think it would probably be better to rate the story as Mature, just to be on the safe side. You can always check Wattpad's Content Guidelines to see what you think, too. Link in the inline comments. →

*****

Final thoughts:
Valeria wants two things: to reunite with her husband and to get out of the mafia. Simple, right? Except her husband has amnesia after his abduction and car accident two years ago, and getting out of the mafia is not exactly easy. Her current plan is to kill off her entire organization and all her enemies while moonlighting as a teacher at the school where her husband works, trying to help him remember her. But he's being difficult, and even though all her enemies are dropping like flies as planned, a new, unknown enemy has made an appearance, and this one may be more dangerous than all the rest put together. There's much more to this story than she realizes, and unfortunately for her, there's nothing simple about it.