Page 16 of Violent Reign (Violent Kingdom)

I can feel Rosaline’s attention shift from the phone screen to me. I’m not picking up the spoon—I can’t. I don’t have enough room left on my leash.Thanks, Ty, you fucking asshole.Being watched by Rosie is an uncomfortable spotlight. Beating my fists against the walls of my cage isn’t possible with her standing there, looking at me like this.

“He could have taken me to the wedding.” She pouts and I pick up another spoon. It’s ideal to get the heart-shaped pills out of their tiny mold. So far, I’ve managed to create a quarter batch while convincing that fuckhead Tyler that it’s all I can do. But my hands shake too badly to do it. If I get them out now, this way, they’ll fall all over the floor and Rosaline will lap them up like a dog. She’s technically forbidden from having any—too much of that shit will kill her, like it would anybody else—but over the course of the wedding ceremony she’s inched closer and closer to where I’m working at the bench.

He couldn’t take her—you look high even when you’re not. “He should have.”

Kills me to agree with her about anything, but this is part of the plan. Get her on my side.

“I could have bought a new dress. We could have gone shopping. Photo time.” She lifts the phone and the flash goes off. A beat passes. Rosaline sticks her tongue between her teeth, reading the text that comes in. “Ty says it’s time to go back in your cell.” Ah—she’s filming me now. These were the conditions of her babysitting job. That shit put a light in her eyes. I back away from the table, leaving the pills where they are. Rosaline snaps a picture of the tray with a heavy sigh. Now she can’t sneak one. Why the fuck does she continue to be loyal to him? Her eyes swing back onto me, and—right. Because she’s obsessed with somebody else.

Me.

Rosaline goes over to the wall and reels in my leash, still staring at her phone. She reels me in closer and closer. Fuck, I don’t want that. My whole body recoils from her, but guess what? When you’re on a fucking leash, you don’t get to pull away. And besides, I need her.

I’m a foot from the wall when she reaches out and traces a line down one of my wrists. “You’re so tense.” She’s fucking right. The tendons on my wrists stand out. Can’t relax. Can you blame me? “You wanna see more?”

She shoves the phone into my face and turns up the sound. Avery’s voice spills out of the tiny speaker. She’s promising the rest of her life to Nathan. A knot unclenches at the base of me. Those are Avery’s blank eyes. She’s not even there. I’ve seen her do this before, when the panic gets bad—one second she’s gasping for breath and the next she’s nothing. Anxiety can’t touch you if you’re out of your body. That glazed look gives her away. Those fuckers in the cathedral will take it to mean that she’s overwhelmed with emotion, but she’s looking right through her husband-to-be.

I cannot say the same for him.

Nathan Capulet stares down into Avery’s eyes with the kind of focus I’ve only seen on one other person.

The killer in that fucking basement.Breathe, dumbfuck. Don’t let this get away from you. It’s just conjecture. Nathan has always been a creepy fuck, as far as I’m concerned. He hasn’t changed one bit since we were all at high school together and he was following Avery’s older sister Adeline around like a lovesick puppy. He’s just… he’s standing too close to Avery. I want him away from her. Dead, preferably, so that he can never put that expression on his face again. But instead, I watch him slip a ring onto her finger.

I watch them kiss.

A noise bursts out of me and Rosaline wrenches the phone away, pain contorting her face. “Come on.” She yanks on my leash and drags me over to the cell. I stumble backward through the door.

“Avery Capulet doesn’t care about you.” Her voice is thick, hurt.Jesus. “I care. I’m right here.” She plants her feet in the middle of the doorway, eyes glinting. I get my ass up off the floor. “I can see how stressed you are. You’re so angry, Rome.” Rosaline purses her lips. “I could help you with that.”

“I wish you would.” A bitter lie. A fucking bitter lie.

She reaches up and twirls one of the Harley Quinn pigtails on that ridiculous wig. “How ‘bout I close the door and then I can suck you off through the slot?”

It takes everything I have not to drop my face into my hands. She’s talking about the fucking slot in the door that they shove my food trays through on the days when I’m not cooking.

“Or you could leave it open and come in here with me.” If I can get her in the cell, I can play this up. I could get out of here somehow. “You know you’d like it, Rosie. I’ve never left you unsatisfied.”

Her cheeks go pink.

“Give me some slack on this wire and I can make you feel so good.”

Rosaline narrows her eyes, face going dark. “I hate you.”

“What happened to sucking me off through the slot? I could use it.” I put a hand over my entirely limp dick and pretend she’s already got me stirred up by the prospect.Yeah fucking right.

“I’m not helping you. You think you can trick me with sex? Please.” She rolls her eyes, but I can see her. She wants to come in. I want that stupid bitch to come in, too, so I can get out. Rage beats at the inside of my veins with both fists. For Avery. For me. “I’m not that dumb.”

“I want it,” I insist, running a hand through my hair. “It would take my mind off things. Just for a little while. Tyler would like it if I could focus better. And I won’t leave you hanging. How many times, Rosie? Three times? Four? I’ll get you off as much as you want. Today can be all about you while Tyler sits there in his nice suit, looking at all those other women. He’ll be going to the reception soon, and then what are you going to do? You’re not sipping champagne and eating filet mignon with him.”

A flicker of indecision. And then Rosaline slams the door shut between us.

Fuck.

I let myself slide down the wall until I’m sitting here, alone, and smash a fist into the hard floor. That was my wife, getting married to another man.Mine. And I’ll never get those images out of my head, not for as long as I live.

Chapter Ten

AVERY

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