Page 12 of Violent Reign (Violent Kingdom)

Nathan clears his throat. “As much as I’d love to see you two tear strips off each other, we’ve got a big evening ahead of us. Let’s save the tiffs for when we’re back home, shall we? Avery, you’re wearing that ring because we’re about to announce our engagement. A ray of hope in a tragic situation. I can see the headlines now.”

“You sure the headlines aren’t going to say ‘Nathan and Avery Capulet: The new Jamie and Cersei Lannister’? I ask, using my hands to signal an imaginary giant billboard for emphasis.

Eliza laughs. “What about, ‘Cousins to Lovers’. Or, ooh, ‘Marriage of Convenience: Marry a Cousin, Keep Your Last Name’?”

Nathan glares.

“Oh, I got it!” Eliza continues. “‘Incest is Okay, but Only if You’re Rich.’”

I run my tongue along my teeth, making sure none of my blood-red lipstick has smudged onto them. “That’s a good one, I’ll give you that.”

“Luckily,” Nathan snaps, “We own the newspapers. And the magazines, and the websites, and the social media companies. So they’ll say whatever thefuckI want them to say.”

Eliza - who I know, by now, has been brought up to speed with everything that has transpired, including Nathan and Enzo’s plot to capture and torture myself and Rome, get me to marry Nathan, and stealing my eggs at age sixteen, among many other fucked up things - sits back and checks her immaculately manicured nails.

Nathan has been simultaneously scrolling through his phone and exchanging witty barbs with us the entire ride, but when the driver pulls up in front of Verona Chapel, the most exclusive Catholic chapel in San Francisco, I watch him with a horrified fascination as he changes his face. It’s like watching someone slip a mask on, only the mask is his skin and it’s indistinguishable from the real thing. His lips curve down, his eyebrows draw together, and pain that looks real shines in his eyes along with the beginnings of tears. A hard glance at me that screamsBehave, and he grabs at the handle to the door and stumbles out into his mother’s arms.

There are press, of course, so their tear-stained hug is captured by countless shutters clicking like frenzied locust wings. Nathan puts his face into Eliza’s satin-encased shoulders and cries, his shoulders shaking. It’s a shockingly intimate moment. It’s shockingly fake.Go, a tiny voice says in the back of my mind.Don’t make him angry.

The leather seats of the limo try to hold on to my legs, but they’re foiled by the pantyhose I’m wearing underneath my brand-new all-black outfit. Nathan has kindly chosen a silky sheath dress that covers the bruises on my arms and the still-healing cut on my lower back from where they inserted the GPS tracker. Nothing has made me feel more caged in than that fucking piece of metal and computer chip. Before, I had some hope of running if I got outside. Now? I’ll have to cut into my own skin behind my back, a place I can barely fucking reach, let alone cut into and perform surgery on myself. I’m well and truly fucked, and we all know it.

In full view of the photographers, I step up behind Nathan and put one hand on his shoulder. His sobs are tapering down, getting past their peak.This shit is going on the front page.You don’t get this far in life as a Capulet without some sense of the things that’ll play in the press, and this is going to play. Nathan’s fiancée, recently rescued, comforting him while his mother holds him up. All of us dressed in black, fitting for a garish funeral, me wearing a horrifyingly large sapphire and diamond engagement ring that must blind all of the paparazzi as they snap away. It’s the first glimpse of us in public as an engaged couple, and the vultures are positively giddy as they circle, lenses outstretched, flashes dizzyingly bright.

Nathan raises his head and turns toward me, into my arms. “Great shot,” he whispers into my ear. This will be another moneymaker. Nathan holding my face up to his, tears in his eyes, both of us bathed in golden sunlight. He should be more careful. I might just throw up in his mouth out of grief.

I keep him at arm’s length until we actually go inside the cathedral and take our places in the front row. The smell of it reminds me of the chapel at Holy Cross. Desperation punches at the middle of my chest, right into my soul. It wasn’t that long ago, in the scheme of things, that I was confessing my sins in that booth with no idea how cruelly the universe would play me. Back then, my Uncle Enzo was just my Uncle Enzo. My biggest problem was having to marry Joshua Grayson. My life hadn’t yet been completely stolen from me.

The processional begins, and I find myself looking around for Father Mateo, the priest who let me borrow his car when I needed to bust Rome out of San Francisco and whisk the both of us away to Joshua Tree. The priest who gave me a gun for protection. The priest who prayed over my comatose father. Would he come here? Christ, what I wouldn’t give for him to press a set of car keys into my hand right now and jerk his head toward one of the exits.

Only now, I’d have Nathan on my tail within thirty seconds. That’s what happens when somebody puts a GPS tracking chip inside your body.

No, running away from all of this will never work again.

I’m out of options.

And that, more than anything, is what makes me bow my head at that particular angle that makes my jawline look amazing in photos. It’s what makes me cry. I’m not faking anything. It’s all very, very real.

Nathan rubs a soothing hand across my shoulders and makes low noises that set my teeth on edge. Enzo.Fucking Enzo. I loved him, and he played me. He orchestrated my ruin. He tried to kill me. Nathan, adopted or not, is only following in his footsteps. They say the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, and they’re right about that. These apples are rotten to the core, every last one of them.

The rest of the guests file into the chapel behind us. It’s a packed church, standing room only. Everybody who’s anybody in Verona and the surrounding exclusive San Francisco suburbs wants to be seen at Enzo’s funeral. To not be seen here is as good as being dead yourself.

The entire thing is just so outlandish. Eliza is wearing a black veil, for Christ’s sake, like some kind of psychopathic mistress from a daytime soap opera. There are blood-red roses arranged in vases everywhere, white death lilies, too. The priest - one I’ve never seen before - leads everyone in a prayer, and we all bow our heads. My prayer is different, though. It’s not for Enzo’s salvation. Honestly, I hope that scheming motherfucker died in horrific pain, choking on his own blood. If I could have stood over him with a smug smile while he begged for his life, that would have made it all the better. So, yeah, I’m not going to pray for that fucking traitor. But I might as well use the time to call in any and all favors with this cruel universe, right?

Rome Montague. Don’t you dare fucking die on me. I will fight with my last breath to get back to you. I know, wherever you are, you’re doing the same thing.

I would honestly rather be in that hellhole with you than in this cathedral right now with Nathan’s hand on my back where everybody can see it. A-fucking-men.

The priest’s words are lost on me up until the moment he invites Nathan up to the pulpit to deliver a rousing eulogy. I fight the urge to roll my eyes as my psychopath cousin grips the sides of the pulpit like he cares and lifts his chin to let the whole congregation see the fake-ass tears shining in his eyes.

“My dad wasn’t a saint.” Nathan lets himself grin at the answering rumble of laughter that hits the ceiling in the cathedral. “I know he probably seemed like that. He lived for his family. He and his brother were the dream team.” He shoots a meaningful look at me when he says this, and I’m forced to just sit there and take it. “Together, they steered the Capulet business—and the Capulet family—to many years of success and prosperity.”

Nathan’s words slip away, probably to wherever the priest’s went. The pew begins to feel uncomfortably like a seat on a private plane. Enzo’s photo, large and ominous, smiles out at the masses atop his shiny black coffin, his easy grin and his charming eyes magnetic even in 2D. He’s not here, so why does it feel like his hands are back around my throat? The grip gets tighter and tighter and I know I’m not moving my head but I feel the way it slammed back into the tray table on that plane. Someone makes a horrible gasping sound. It’sme.I’m gasping, sitting here in this church, because I can’t breathe. Black haze bleeds in from all sides of my vision. It’s the end, it’s the end—

“Avery.” Eliza puts an arm around my shoulders and gives me a stiff shake. “Honey. Are you all right?”

I wave her off, but I can’t stop making thatsound. Some enterprising photographer has found a seat in the choir loft, and the click of his shutter is capturing this in real time. If Rome ever sees these photos, I hope he knows I’m not crying for Enzo. I hope he knows I’m crying for him. My love.My goddamn husband.

“He’s in a better place,” Eliza says, her voice tremulous. My skin breaks out into goose bumps under the sheath dress as I gasp for air. Everyone in this family is a dirty fucking liar.

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