Page 32 of Vicious Prince (Violent Kingdom)

Not people who are sending anything I want, as a general rule. Packages with nice things tend to be delivered in daylight hours, by men in UPS uniforms, with those little machines you need to sign your name on with a plastic stylus.

Packages outside of normal business hours tend to contain things like severed heads, or bombs, or elaborate envelopes stuffed with glitter from your asshole co-workers.

I abandon the coffee, frowning as I close the space between myself and Veronica in three strides. I take the package from her outstretched hand, touching only the corner with my fingernails as I take it to my desk. “Thank you, Veronica,” I call over my shoulder, trying not to draw attention to how odd I must look. I clear everything from my desk with my free hand, setting the package down as gently as I can — in case, you know,bomb— and call Isobel over.

She knows straight away by the tone of my voice that something is up, and is standing beside my desk as I read the return sender on the package. There’s no return address, just a name.

Avery Capulet.

Isobel looks at me. “Should we open it?”

I step back from my desk ever-so-slightly. “We should wait until it’s been inspected.”

Isobel scoffs. “Oh, come on,” she says. “Bring it down to the lab. If it explodes, at least I won’t have to go on a second date with the douchebag from tonight.”

I nod in agreement. “And I won’t have to watch Frozen again.”

We take the package down to the lab, and get one of the crime scene techs to check it over for us. When it seems pretty apparent that the package isn’t going to blow our building apart, he opens it with sterile gloves, gently tipping the contents out onto a stainless steel exam table that probably had body parts on it earlier in the day.

Isobel and I, wearing full masks and biohazard scrubs, lay out the items as efficiently as possible. This is going to be the ransom demand, surely.

Sunday’s copy of the New York Times is folded up inside the lagel-sized envelope, drenched in what looks like blood. Gently, with tweezers, Isobel unfolds the newspaper, and I can’t say I’m not surprised with what greets us inside the layers of blood-soaked newsprint.

The engagement ring Avery was wearing. The one worth millions of dollars. Also covered in what appears to be blood. And curled into the middle of the ring, where her finger would have been just hours ago, is a small piece of plastic-coated paper that looks like it’s straight from a fortune cookie. Isobel carefully fishes it out of the ring, using two pairs of tweezers to unfurl it.

Isobel and I look at each other at the same time. It’s a simple message, but it’s not the one I thought it would be. Not a demand for money, or a private jet. Not even a taunting message. Nope, it’s almost kind of boring.

Check your email.

So we do, pulling off our gloves and grabbing our cellphones at the same time. And what do you know, we’ve both got the same message sitting in the top of our individual inboxes.

It’s a hyperlink. I click it without worrying about viruses, or bringing down the mainframe, or installing spyware. We can worry about all of that later. Right now, we need to do whatever it takes to find this girl, and that means moving quickly.

My phone has a brief seizure, the screen lighting up and then seeming to turn off a half dozen times, and then a video appears.

I turn my phone to the side, thankful I’ve got one of the larger iPhones with the big screen. At first, I have to squint to see what’s being displayed on the screen, but once I figure out what it is, there’s no unseeing.

“Holy fuck,” Isobel says next to me, peering at her own phone. “Are you seeing this?”

A girl, who I have to assume is Avery Capulet, based on her appearance as well as the nature of the package, sits on a chair, not a stitch of clothing on her — only blood. A lot of blood. The room isn’t well lit, but there’s enough light to tell she’s been injured badly. She’s deathly pale, and shaking, and blindfolded.

“Looks like she’s lost a lot of blood,” Isobel says. “How long do you think she’s got?”

“Not long,” I reply, mentally listing all of the things we need to do next.

All the things that will help us to find this girl and bring her home, while we watch on, unable to do a damn thing.

At the top of my list?

Find out where this damn video is coming from, before this poor girl dies.

Chapter Eleven

AVERY

The thing that wakes me up isn’t the throbbing pain in my leg — although that pierces my consciousness soon after rousing. It’s my bladder, screaming to be emptied.

Where am I? Am I in the hotel room? Has Will come back?

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