Page 48 of Violent Reign (Violent Kingdom)

She shakes her head. “No. He was never mine.”

“Then tell me. Tell me and I won’t kill you.”I’ll probably still kill you, I think to myself.

Eliza raises a trembling hand and points into the living room. “Sit down and listen then. And I’ll tell you what happened. I want to be absolved of my sins. I’ll tell you everything.”

Chapter Thirty-One

ROME

Eliza goes backfor her bottle of merlot and curls herself around it on the sofa, like the wine is the only thing holding her here on earth. Her eyes go vacant and glassy and I lean forward in my chair, directly across from her. It’s uncomfortable as fuck, and that is saying something considering my more recent pastimes. My father loiters near the front windows, keeping an eye out. From my position I have a clear view of the both of them.

“Enzo had an affair.” Eliza leans her head back, wiping more tears away. “You were just a toddler back then, Rome, and he—he wanted your mother. God knows why. God knows why my husband couldn’t be happy with what he had.” Eliza swings her head forward and meets my eyes. Her own eyes remind me of Rosaline’s. She’s so fucking drunk. “And your mother got pregnant. I was the first one to figure it out.”

My father freezes where he stands. He turns toward Eliza, the windows forgotten, his role as lookout forgotten, everything forgotten except the words coming from Eliza’s mouth.

“What?” he asks tightly.

“You’re saying my baby brother - Sebastian - you’re saying that Enzo was his biological father?”

Eliza nods frantically.

“The baby was born, and I—I punished Enzo for what he’d done. I made things miserable here. I—” Eliza puts a hand over her mouth. “I wanted a baby so badly. You have to understand. It was like a part of me was missing and could only be completed by my own little son. But that son belonged to your mother, and the Montagues—your family—your family was raising him. They had Enzo’s boy. My Sebastian. MyNathaniel.” She swallows a painful sob. “But there was nothing we could do. Our hands were tied. If news broke about the affair, then both families would suffer.”

“I don’t buy it.” The harsh words come from a place of shock, and even my father sits up straighter next to me. “You could have bought everyone off. It would have been easy.”

“Not in those days, no. Not with our families barely hanging on to peace. There are too many people in our orbit, even now, to pull that off.” Eliza’s head lolls toward the arm of the couch. “The cost was too high. Both families would take a financial hit to our corporations, and our reputations would be beyond repair. To acknowledge that little baby boy belonged to both of us would be the end of all of us.”

“What the hell, Eliza?”

“We kept it quiet,” she says viciously. “I kept trying to have a baby, but they kept dying. Baby after baby after baby. And we were all best friends.” The sneer disappears from Eliza’s face and her expression transforms into a mask of hurt. All those years of hurt, right there in her eyes. “Do you have any idea what that does to a person? Seeing you all play happy families right beside us, knowing that baby was Enzo’s son? I tried so hard to look away, but I just...I got fixated on the baby. I wanted him. I yearned for him. He was my husband’s, even if he couldn’t be mine.”

“What about Enzo? What did he want?”

“He wanted your mother. He’d thought that when the truth came out, he’d finally get her to have as his own. But the truth didn’t come out. We never got divorced. I never let him leave me. I had dirt on him buried in so many places, he’d never be able to get rid of me. I might have loved the man, until the day he died, but I’m not a fool. He would have had me killed the moment he thought he could get away with it. So over the years I made sure to collect enough incriminating evidence that he could never, ever be rid of me. An insurance plan, you know? He was trapped. And one day, he’d had enough. He went over there while your father…” she gestures to my dad, who is still standing there, frozen, stricken by grief.

“While your father was on a business trip. He drugged her.” Eliza looks so tired. “And you know what happened next.”

“Enzo burned our fucking house down. He killed Seb.”

“Rome,” Eliza says softly. “Come on. He didn’t kill him.”

“He stole him,” I whisper.

“He did. He stole his own son, the baby that was his rightful heir. Our rightful heir. He was a Capulet. But we couldn’t just appear with a baby. That wasn’t an option. We did the best we could.”

Rage boils inside my chest, threatening to overheat my body. I can barely see, it’s so potent. I don’t want to say it. I don’t want to admit it. “That psychopath is not my brother,” I say forcefully. “Nathan Capulet is not my brother.”

Eliza smiles sadly. “Yes, he is.”

Nathan is Sebastian.

My brother didn’t die in that fire.

My thoughts are jammed. I can’t wrap my head around this piece of information.

“Have you ever looked into Nathan’s eyes?” Eliza asks. “They’re so beautiful. Brown with those golden flecks. Tiger eyes, I call them. Just like Enzo’s.”

Fuck. She’s right. “Just like Avery’s,” I whisper.

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