Page 33 of Violent Reign (Violent Kingdom)

Isobel narrows her eyes.They go wide again. Then her face scrunches up. I have a feeling this is exactly how she’d look if a UFO landed on her front lawn. “He’s taken her captive.”

“Yes.”

“Nathan Capulet. Forced Avery Capulet. His cousin. To marry him.”

“Yes. From what she said during our very brief conversation, yeah. That’s what happened, and it’s still going on. Obviously.”

Isobel leans back in her seat. “MotherfuckingShit.”

“I know.”

She stares off into space for a minute, and when her eyes swing back to mine, her expression is stormy. “I think that girl’s been through enough. Should we get her out of there?”

“No. Not yet.” I’ve told her about the conditions involving Rome, and I have no doubt that removing her now will only make things worse. Avery might be free, but if Rome isn’t—or if he’s killed—then I’ll have more than one angry Capulet on my hands. That’s not something anybody in the precinct wants to deal with. “First, we have to figure out what’s going on.”

“With the Capulets?”

“With all of them. The Montagues. The Capulets. I don’t even understand what their feud is about, but we have to know more if we’re going to take any steps forward with this.”

Isobel’s expression hardens. “Oh, we’re going to take steps forward with this. I don’t care which Capulet we piss off the most. Come on. Let’s get the files.”

* * *

“The files” is an enormous collection of case files—truly enormous. We recruit three interns to help us drag filing cabinets on wheels to a rarely used meeting room down the hall from our shared office. This is our new home base. And then, once the room is cleared and the door is locked, we start at the top and work our way down.

The Montagues and Capulets might wear a veneer of respectability, but they’re criminals at heart. Very fucking rich criminals. They’ve been in this business going back decades, with their Capulet Tower and hotel chains and everything else. But money laundering will only take you so far. If you’re caught in the act of something else—murder, theft, fraud—then there’s a chance you’ll get tagged with the charges. And the Capulets and Montagues have been tagged many, many times.

Some of the case files are small potatoes, about people related to the families but so distantly that all they share is the last name. But others point to a longstanding feud that’s about a hundred small stabs in the back. They almost seem to take it in turns. A Montague dies here. A Capulet gets sent to prison there. A building burns down here. A drug ring gets busted up there. The constant fighting has been pretty stable over the years.

On the third day of digging, four hours in, Isobel gives a low whistle. “I got something.”

I go over to her spot at the table, rubbing grit from my eyes. It’s been hard to sleep with all of this information running through my mind. I constantly think someone’s at the door, or the other guy in the elevator is looking suspicious. I’ll feel better when Avery Capulet’s life isn’t in imminent danger. Or, if these case files are any indication, I’ll just have to live with the knowledge that these families live and breathe danger. They’re not afraid of exacting revenge.

“What am I looking at?”

It’s an autopsy report, but my bleary eyes take a second to pick out the name. “Adeline Capulet,” Isobel says. “This is from when she drowned.”

“Coroner ruled it suicide.”

“He sure did.” Isobel flips through the stapled packet of papers. “But way back here, on this very last page where nobody was likely to look, he added another note.” She stabs her finger at the scribbled-in words.

“Holy shit.” It takes a full beat for my mind to process what it means. “Twelve weeks pregnant...she probably knew by then.”

“One late period and I’d say the odds were 50-50. But two, or three? My guess is that Adeline absolutely knew she was pregnant at the time of her death.”

There’s another file that Isobel has marked for further study—it’s the case report for Avery Capulet’s rape from all those years ago. The coroner’s report for her sister’s body is from almost two weeks later, but the date the evidence was entered is the same. On the same night as her sister died, someone raped Avery. The accused was another cousin. Tyler Capulet. Game of fucking Thrones, man. The images from Avery and Nathan’s wedding flash back into my mind. Was it really Tyler who raped her? Somehow, I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that it wasn’t. Still, investigations aren’t run on hunches and bad feelings about people, no matter what they show on TV.

I drop into the chair next to Isobel, who watches me with a tired curiosity.

“Do we think the sister was a suicide, then?”

“It could have been. Maybe she was desperate to get rid of the baby. Maybe she thought she didn’t have any other options.”

I meet her eyes. “You really think that adds up?”

Isobel puffs out her cheeks with a heavy breath. “No. The Capulets have enough money and influence to pay for and hide abortions if they want to. If Adeline didn’t want to be pregnant, she had resources and options. I doubt the suicide ruling. I doubt it a lot, Elliot.”

“But whose baby was it?” The words on the case reports don’t give any indication. “If it wasn’t suicide, who would have been pissed off enough to kill her? There’s no mention of a boyfriend, right?”

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