Page 1 of Vicious Prince (Violent Kingdom)

Prologue

AVERY

Eight hours from now

In my family, we follow two religions.

Catholicism.

And an unbroken devotion to the Capulet family bloodline.

The Catholic side may seem more understandable to the uninitiated.

Be a good Catholic. Say your prayers. Go to Mass. Confess your sins.

But when you’re raised a daughter of the most powerful man in California, ensconced in the heart blood of the Capulet lineage — loyalty to our family name is equal priority to God.

Capulets don’t have a bible, but we do have written rules. And unlike the bible, oursarewritten in blood.

Be a good Capulet. Obey your vows to the family. Go to family meetings. Ensure there are no sins against your own blood to confess. That last one being the most important.

Never sin against your family, because in our religion, there is no forgiveness. There is only loyalty, or death.

Sometimes, even when you are loyal, there is still death. All the protection of our father’s money, our bodyguards and spies placed strategically around the city of San Francisco and beyond, can’t save us.

Because hatred is stronger than any religion.

I wonder how much my captor hates me, as I strain in the dark to place his approaching footsteps.

I wonder how much of my blood he will spill before this is over.

I wonder which Capulet sins he intends to punish me for.

Because I wasn’t afraid at first, see? No, when I woke up here, bound and gagged, I was bored. Annoyed. Like a customer in line at the bank, waiting for her turn, so I waited for my father to pay whatever ransom my captor demanded. Even as a young woman living in a city gripped by the terror of an active serial killer in its midst, picking off girls at the edges of society, I was not afraid. Arrogant? Absolutely. But worried that I might somehow become swept up in the bloodbath myself?

Hell no.

I’m a Capulet. People don’t fuck with Capulets.

A ransom. A ransom. A ransom.

I imagine them making the call. Maybe they’ll take my picture. Perhaps we’ll Skype my father, because this is 2018, after all. I imagine him gathering crisp banknotes from one of our many vaults scattered across the city, stacks and stacks of green paper that will secure my release.

Even as I slowly came to in —wherever it is that I am— I was thinking about how this hiccup would affect my schedule, how brazen my kidnappers were, how my father would stick a goddamn blowtorch onto whoever did this and slowly, agonizingly, melt away their flesh as punishment.

Then it came rushing in, like ice water into my consciousness.They shot my father. A single gunshot that cracked everything apart. My father, in his tuxedo, dropping his whiskey on hard tiles, the glass exploding at his feet as blood blossomed across his white dress shirt.

His trajectory into the pool, the heavy splash of his dead weight as five hundred people in ballgowns and designer suits screamed and scattered, nobody wanting to be gunshot victim number two.

My desire to jump into the water after my uncle, to help him save my dad. The hands that clamped around my arms hard enough to cause bruises, as my own personal security team whisked me away, to supposed safety, and straight into a trap.

Somebody shot my father just to take me. And they didn’t fuck around. I saw where they shot him — right in the middle of his chest.

Is he even alive to know that I’ve been stolen away?

“My family will pay whatever ransom you want,” I say to total darkness, over and over again. “Just tell them what you want. They’ll give it to you.” I don’t even know if there is anyone with me. Whether somebody is watching me. I could be buried alive, or in somebody’s attic, or in my own fucking house. I can’t see.I don’t know.

I’ve been in this fucking room for hours, and fear has begun to drip into my veins like a steady dose of poison leeching into my blood.

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