Page 35 of Violent Reign (Violent Kingdom)

And yes, I’ll admit that my sleeplessness could well be exacerbated by the fact that I’m livingthislife as a captive. As a human incubator. As a fuck doll.

A week after Elliot catches me in the bathroom at the office, I’m lying awake on a Friday night. Weekends are the worst. Nathan’s erratic with his planning on the weekends, and I can’t predict him as easily as I can during the week. Sometimes he wants to go out, to show the world that he has me, but other times he’d rather stay in the house all day. So we rattle around the Capulet mansion, while Nathan finds new ways to torture me. The solitary chef who visits three times a day is my only solace, my safe person. I start making it a point to loiter in rooms close to the kitchen as much as possible. When Nathan presses me on it I say that I have an incredible need to be near food.

It’s not hunger keeping me awake tonight.

It’s spinning, circling thoughts, and a distant sound.

A faint, echoing splash of water coming from downstairs.Am I imagining it?

I roll over onto my side and try not to think about it, but I can’t stand the thought of pulling a pillow over my head, and I can’t ignore the sound anymore. It’s just loud enough to be obnoxious, but soft enough that I can’t tell what hell it is.

Whatever it is, it probably has something to do with Nathan. He’s not here. His side of the bed is cold, the blankets still untouched. That’s the other wonderful thing about being pregnant. Overwhelming exhaustion hits me early in the evening, and then I lay here chasing sleep for hours and hours. It’s odd that my duplicitous husband hasn’t joined me for at least part of the night.What is he up to now?

With a frustrated huff I heave myself out of the bed and grab my robe from a hook on the door. I’m going to find that sound, horror movie tropes be damned. I’m already living in a real-life horror movie and I still haven’t died yet, so bring it on.

I move through the house, a ghost in the moonlight, and follow the sound down to the main floor. Through the darkened foyer. Past the kitchen, which is quiet and still at this time of night. Across the wide living room. At the very rear of the house there is a set of French doors.

That’s where it’s coming from—the other side of those doors.

The indoor hydrotherapy pool. Well, that’s what it’s billed as - a hydrotherapy pool - but really, it’s a beautifully ornate cocoon of a room, the walls carved out of limestone, low and curved, the pool oval-shaped and small enough that you can swim from one end to another in just a few strokes. My father built it for my mother after she visited a traditional Watsu pool at some health retreat. It’s heated to body temperature, so you feel like you’re floating on air when you enter the water.

An old fear tightens around my throat. Ever since Adeline died, I’ve managed to steer clear of this room. I’ve not entered these doors in a decade. The last time I was in there, it was to the nightmarish vision of my sister’s prone body, floating lifelessly on the surface. I reach out to touch one of the doors, running my fingers along the wood grain as my memory serves up the horror of that night.

Rome, dragging my sister from the water.

Adeline, lying beside the pool, far too pale and still.

The cracking of her ribs as Rome performed CPR on what I since realized was her hours-dead corpse.

I vowed never to enter this room again after Adeline drowned herself.

But I have to look at it now.

Holding my breath, I keep my fingers on the wood, listening carefully. What the fuck is Nathan doing in there in the middle of the night? I push the door, stepping into a place of nightmares.

Drinking whiskey.

That’s what he’s doing.

Nathan stands on the blue mosaic tiles surrounding the pool in a pair of black boxer briefs, soaked through and clinging to his thighs. The scars of his childhood are angry red slashes all along his back, bright and glaring against his olive complexion. A bottle of whiskey dangles from one hand as he stares down into the water, little rivets of steam rising from the surface. Fat pillar candles flicker all around, providing the only illumination in the otherwise dark room, casting waves as shadows over the low, curved ceiling. He takes a giant swig, then goes back for another. The bottle hits the tiles with a clink, but it doesn’t fall over. He doesn’t know I’m here. He’s in another world, in here.

And then Nathan tips himself face first into the pool.

I don’t know why I gasp. I don’t care what happens to him. If he drowned right now, in front of me, it would be an incredible justice. It’s just the way he’s fallen—facedown into the water, not an ounce of hesitation. He doesn’t even raise his arms to stop himself. What a fucking psycho.Literally. I should go back to bed, but something about this moment hooks me. It’s so batshit crazy, so strange, even for Nathan, that I’m fascinated.

Nathan bobs up above the surface, candlelight glowing across the water, and shakes the water out of his hair. “Avery.” The slurred version of my name bounces across to me. The tight walls of this room make his words echo.

“Hey, Nate.” His name rolls off my tongue so easily. The name I used to call him before all of this. “Can’t sleep?”

He laughs. He sounds pretty drunk. “Sometimes I like to come down here.” He swims over to the side and climbs out. Something about the fabric against his legs, heavy and soaked, jogs a memory I’d rather not think about. “Visit. I guess I’m not visiting anymore. This is my house.”

It was my house the night that Tyler—thatNathan—raped me. And then afterward I came home. Rome brought me home.

And we ended up in this room, with Adeline. Dead Adeline.DrownedAdeline.

Suicide. I never blamed my sister for checking out of the hellish existence she’d been bequeathed as the eldest, as the Capulet heir. I understood. But here, now, one hand on my swelling belly, I wonder if Adeline could have killed herself knowing she was carrying a baby. Did it matter? Did it make a difference? Hell, for all I know she killed herself because she was pregnant, not despite it.

Don’t think about it.

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