Page 22 of Vicious Prince (Violent Kingdom)

It’s unseasonably hot in San Francisco this year, especially since we’re in the middle of a heat wave. People in Southern California would probably laugh at us as they roast through their regular hundred-plus summer days, but in the North we’re a little more acclimated to clouds and wind.

I could blame my sweaty palms on the heatwave, but it’s crisp and cold inside the hotel’s grand glass enclosure. Cold like a refrigerator. Like a morgue.

You’re daydreaming again, Avery.

I take a deep breath and focus on my father’s booming voice, forgetting about the crowd of family and my father’s friends. I feel like a head of cattle being marched down a market to fetch the highest bidder. Because although this is merely my twenty-fifth birthday and not an auction; almost everybody is here for one reason.

Money.

My money.

The money that, according to the rules of our family’s trust, cannot be accessed by women heirs until they marry.

Which is complete fucking bullshit. We’re living in the age of equality, yet, according to the Capulet decree, all women born bearing the Capulet name would be penniless unless they marry a man of their father’s choosing.

Arranged marriage, in 2018? In America?

I almost wish somebody in the crowd would shoot me, put me out of my misery. Almost.

“Think of all that money,” I hear somebody whisper as I walk through the middle of a parted crowd. I look in the direction of the voice, finding a guilty face staring straight back at me. Jacob Goldstein. Preppy guy, Ivy League, all that crap that people spend their lives and their fortunes making sure they’ve got. I went to high school with Jacob, the most exclusive preparatory school on the West Coast of the United States. He’s been trying to get into my pants since his voice broke and I grew out of my sports bra.Sorry, buddy, you were never on the shortlist.

Yes, I am the only surviving child of the most powerful man in California. Daddy has enough collective money and assets to rival anyone on the Forbes rich list, but he prefers to be discreet with his riches. If for no other reason than the fact that his wealth isn’t entirely honest. The Capulet family is the Rosthchild family of the criminal underworld. Only, instead of owning and controlling banks, we own and control other things.

Diamonds. Guns. Drugs.

And yes, hotels. Lots and lots of hotels. After all, you have to launder the money somewhere, right?

My family has so much money, you could never spend it all. It’s not in any one account, or controlled by any one person, but we have enough money to burn piles of the stuff as tall as this building, and not miss it at all.

Many of the men eyeing me off in the crowd find that staggering wealth extremely attractive.

Me, I learned a long time ago that money doesn’t mean much. Beyond granting you food, and shelter, and warmth, money doesn’t do much at all. It doesn’t hold you at night when your father is still working, always working. It doesn’t help you trust anybody who might be a romantic possibility.

Money doesn’t bring your mother back from the dead after she dies giving birth to your stillborn brother when you’re twelve years old. Money doesn’t suck the water out of your dead sister’s lungs after she drowns herself to avoid taking the throne that was her birthright, not mine. Now I’m the consolation prize to all this.

Money: I’m about to have more of it than any of these greedy fucks could imagine.

And I don’t want it.

Not a nickel. Not a penny. Not a dirty dollar bill.

But for my father, I will take it. I will assume the throne of the Capulet family. It’s my destiny, whether I want it or not.

As I get closer to the front of the grand ballroom, I see Joshua standing beside my father and my uncle, all three of them dressed in their best fucking suits. Christ, all I need is a bouquet of flowers to hold, and this could actually be our wedding. It’s basically a rehearsal for that very eventuality. I fight to keep my eyes on a spot behind Joshua’s head, wondering what it would look like if somebody shot him in the face and blasted his brains all over the back wall of the room.

That sure would solve a couple of my most pressing issues.

I make it to the front of the room. There are speeches. The Cartier box makes it’s own entrance, to much applause.Lamb, meet slaughter.Joshua smiles at me as he slides the giant rock onto my finger. And just like that, we are engaged. I am betrothed. I look at the cold diamond’s surface, imagining the sweet relief my sister must have felt as she plunged into icy waters, emptied her lungs of air, opened her mouth and let herself drown to avoid this very moment, all those years ago.

Chapter Six

ROME

Merc takes great pleasure in getting to babysit Rosaline. I wonder if I’ll return home to find her missing fingers, or teeth, or her large intestine. Merc does so relish the sight of blood, especially when it’s spilled in the names of loyalty and vengeance.

Me, I could go the rest of my life and be quite happy to never see the brutal reality of a bullet hole, a stab wound, a lip split from angry fists. I prefer the simple life, dabbling in my makeshift lab in the basement of a house I own in Alameda County, across the bridge and far away, where the watchful eyes of Verona can’t reach, or at least, choose not to look.

On the passenger seat beside me, I have an odd assortment of things; a gold masquerade mask, a change of clothes, a Glock pistol, a switchblade. I’m driving a fucking Prius, because a Prius is the least showy, most able to blend in vehicle I could think of. I’m smart, these days. I mean, in my youth, before I understood the importance of flying under the radar, I used to drive a fucking hearse around town.

---