Page 4 of Violent Reign (Violent Kingdom)

Nathan grins down at me like a kid on Christmas morning, and it looks like Santa’s brought him everything his heart desires: me.

“Y-you?” I stutter. “It was you?”

He beams as he looks down upon me, another pawn in his game. “It’s always the ones you least suspect, isn’t it? I mean, I knew I could fool Avery, but you? That’s pretty epic.” He kicks his shoe against my leg, apparently testing how completely immobile the drug has made me. He looks pleased. “Time for a nice long sleep, Rome.”

“What…” I try to speak, but the drug, man. It’s rendered me completely useless to even so much as whisper.

“You’re so fucking gullible, Montague,” Nathan says, a look of absolute amusement on his smug face as he crouches down in front of me. “You’ll do anything for love, won’t you? Too bad. There’s no love where you’re going.”

And then everything goes black.

Fuck. Okay. I force myself into some deep breathing bullshit. Whatever Nathan knocked me out with doesn’t seem to have done any lasting damage, but I test my reflexes just the same. Wiggle my toes. Wiggle my fingers. I still have all of them, as far as I can see. No new cuts. No new bullet wounds. Only a cold, creeping feeling in the pit of my stomach.

Nathan. Of course it was him. Hiding in plain sight. Right under my damn nose this entire time. A magnificent act, if ever I’ve seen one. The guy has had everyone eating out of his fucking hands this entire time,and it was him all along.

I need to get my thoughts in order. Right now. And that means getting my bearings. It means figuring out a plan. It means finding a way to get out of this godforsaken hole and back to Avery. As much as I’d love to just smash my head into the wall out of pure frustration… that’s hardly going to help me get to Avery.

This room, unlike the dimly lit basement where they kept Avery and I, is bright. It’s high fluorescent noon in here. Light gray, raw concrete. It’s so stark it feels almost unfinished. It’s a dungeon designed by a Capulet, though, so I’m fairly certain the warehouse aesthetic he’s ended up with is exactly what he was going for.

One of the walls isn’t actually a wall. It’s the same gray as the solid concrete around it, but it gleams like metal. My legs protest when I stand up. Guess I’ve been crumpled on the floor for longer than I thought. A knot forms in one calf, but I can’t worry about that now.Focus brain, damn it!The wire has enough give to reach it, barely. It makes my chest hurt to keep close to the wall—two feet at most—and make my way over to the strange wall.

Only, it’s not a wall. A door.

I tap it with my knuckles and wait. The sound reverberates through the metal but it doesn’t open. Nobody comes. They’ll have to come eventually, if only to collect my dead body. Might as well try it out.

Palms flat on the door, I give it a push. The door is solid as fuck and heavy, but it’s meant for this.

And it’s unlocked.

It opens. What the fuck?

I don’t like it. I don’t trust it.

It’s one thing to be trapped in a basement where you know the score. I don’t know what the hell this game is.

The door glides away into the wall recess, revealing the room beyond.

A bigger concrete room. No windows, just like my new cell—but this one has huge industrial fans built into the ceiling. A long bench runs down the middle of the room, crowded with stuff meant for a science lab. Beakers. Burners. Measuring instruments.

Fuck.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is a drug lab.

A cold thought suddenly grips me, clawing at my thoughts with sharp fingernails.

Who else exactly knows I’m here?

I know Nathan didn’t act alone. There’s still the other guy who was with him, not to mention tweaker barbie, whoever that crazy bitch with the rainbow wig was.

But what about the others? What was Enzo’s role in all of this? Is Enzo dead? And does this fucking nightmare reach deeper into the Capulet bloodline? I mean, fuck. They already sent me to prison once.

Something moves in the dim light at the far end of the room. A guy, uncrossing one leg and crossing it back over the other.

A guy I recognize. A guy whose face appeared in my mind as a possible co-conspirator before I even saw him here.

TylerfuckingCapulet.

I’ll never forget the way my fist met his face the night Adeline Capulet died. The night I found him hovering over Avery, his fingers crushing her wrists as he held her down on the bed, pants around his ankles, after he’d clearly just raped her. Her blood on her thighs, and smeared on his shirt. The way her blanked eyes struggled to stay open, since she’d clearly been drugged. She wasn’t fighting back - she wasn’t even really conscious. Maybe she couldn’t fight, but I could. I started with his face and I worked my way down to the tender organs housed in his midsection. To his knees. To his shins. I’d have killed him if I’d had a little longer before they pulled me off him.

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