Page 13 of Violent Reign (Violent Kingdom)

Even me.

Because here I am, playing my part.

At least you’re doing it for Rome.

As if that makes it any better. How far is this going to go?

“I hope he’s in fucking hell right now,” I choke out under my breath, just loud enough for Eliza to catch. Her mouth twitches as she abandons her quest to comfort me, turning back to hear Nathan’s words as he continues to speak.

“And he would want us to take care of each other,” says Nathan from the pulpit. “He would want us to shake hands today and give too-tight hugs.” More laughter from the audience. The spot where those men put in my GPS tracker throbs like it’s getting infected. It would do that, wouldn’t it? Just to show me that Nathan can get under my skin any way he pleases.

“So let’s pray for Enzo Capulet. Let’s honor the man he was. May God have mercy on his soul.” Nathan chokes up at the end. “Amen.”

“Go to him,” hisses Eliza. She shoves me out of the pew and the momentum carries me up the first set of steps, right to Nathan’s waiting arms.

Nathan wraps me up tight. Too tight. It’s a reminder that I’m not supposed to spoil the show.

“It’s okay, Avery. Take it home.”

I hope you die too, Nathan, you traitorous, diabolical fuck, I think in my head. I manage to string together a few words that contradict my general feeling toward Lorenzo Capulet.

But the sentiment in my heart in black and poisonous.

Dearest Uncle,

I pray to God that you suffered. That wherever you are, you’re still suffering.

Amen.

Chapter Seven

ROME

“You want to come closer,Ty? Learn how to do it yourself?” I lean over a bubbling beaker and let the heat scorch my eyelids. It’s better than feeling nothing, which is what I feel when I’m in that fucking box of a room. “I know you need visual supports to learn multi-step things like this.”

Tyler glares at me from his seat at the far end of the room. He doesn’t want to come over here any more than I want him over here, but casual digs are all I have left. “Shut the fuck up, dick.”

“It helps me concentrate if we chat.”

Concentrate on all these extra steps I’m taking that have nothing to do with making the heart-shaped pills.

“You’re not here tochat. You’re here to cook. If you can’t do that, then I’ll have to remind you of your place.”

Anger snaps like a rattlesnake, ready to sink its claws into me. And then Tyler. All of us. Everybody. “How are you going to do that, buddy? Chain me up to the wall?” I shake my wrist at him. “You’ve already done that. And I don’t think you have that many more tricks up your sleeve.”

“I’ve got plenty of tricks, you piece of shit.”

Rosaline saunters into the room like she’s the Queen of England, if the Queen of England were twenty-eight, obsessed with wearing a rainbow costume wig, and intent on starving herself tojust this sideof skeletal. She sits on Tyler’s nap and nuzzles her nose against his neck. If there’s one thing the two of us could bond over, it’s how sex-crazed Rosaline can get when she’s high. I don’t want to remember it, much less talk about it, but never let it be said that I don’t empathize.

“Your girlfriend has more tricks. Don’t you think?”

Red blotches bloom to life on Ty’s cheeks. A vein in his neck grows more visible by the second. “I saidshut the fuck upand do what you’re supposed to do.”

“Don’t, Ty. He’s not worth it.”

Tyler growls something I can’t hear.

“Get closer if you want to see what he’s doing. You know you can’t trust him,” Rosaline says.

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