Page 7 of Violent Reign (Violent Kingdom)

“She got pregnant.” Nate clicks his tongue, all trace of his smile gone now. He’s seriously fucking angry about Jennifer, and it’s terrifying seeing the switch in his personality so abruptly. “I told her to get rid of it, and she said she would. I even gave her the money myself. But you know what, Avery? She didn’t get rid of it at all. She fucking lied to me. And then she tried to leave town. Well, I wasn’t okay with that.”

“Nathan.” I can hardly force his name out. I don’t want it on my tongue, not ever again. “Is she still pregnant?”

“Nope. Took care of that myself. You can get the drugs on the internet even if you’re a fucking idiot, which obviously I’m not. A few pills and she started bleeding. She bled alot. I thought that would be the end of it, but she figured it out, smart cookie. Started talking about how I’d poisoned her and threatening me about how I could get in serious trouble for killing a fucking fetus.” He stares down at her, the anger gone, his weird smile back. “Guess the joke’s on her. Who’s in serious trouble now?”

Darkness encroaches on my vision, making it harder and harder to see. Too bad, panic. I’m not going to fucking black out here. I can’t. I have to stay strong. One, two, three, four. Hold. Breathe out. One, two, three, four.

“Didn’t you always want children, though?”

“Of course.” Nathan’s eyes meet mine, and for a brief instant I can see him—I can see the guy he pretended to be before all this happened. “I want a bunch of babies. But not with a common fucking peasant like Jennifer. She was fun for a while, Aves, but I’m a big picture guy. I have a plan. And that plan involves having my babies with you.”

I have to hold onto the wall, my knees turning to jello.

“No.”

“Yes.” Nathan turns to face me, crossing his arms over his chest. He doesn’t seem to realize - or maybe he just doesn’t care - that Jennifer is still trying to save herself. “What did you do with the embryos?”

The embryos? Those didn’t have to do with Nathan. Those were Joshua Grayson’s embryos.

Unless they weren’t.

The flash of understanding hits me like a freight train. “The embryos,” I whisper. “They weren’t Joshua’s, were they?”

“No.”

“They were made with...with your—” I can’t fucking say it. I gesture toward Nathan.

His eyes tell me everything I need to know.

“Did my father know?” I whisper.

Nathan observes me for a moment. “No,” he says finally.

I breathe a small sigh of relief.

“What did you do with the embryos, Aves?” he repeats.

For the first time today, I can answer with afuck yousmile of my own. “I stole them.” Nathan’s grin falls a fraction of an inch. “Yeah. I had to hold up the place at gunpoint to do it, but I stole all the embryos and buried them. They’re long gone. Useless.”

“That’s okay.” Nathan’s hand comes down on my shoulder. I want to rip it off, to shove him into the porcelain tiles, but I know how fast he can move. How strong he is. I wouldn’t make it two feet before he had me in his vice-like grip. “We’ll just have to make new babies the old-fashioned way.”

My smile fades in time with the hope in my heart. It dwindles away to a cold nothingness. My smile fades as Nathan’s grows. He’s bested me. Again. Fuck.

I want to throw up and die, but there is a woman bleeding out in the bathtub. I watched another woman die in that basement with a gun to her head and Rome’s semen on her thighs. That’s not happening to Jennifer. Not if I can help it.

“I’ll do whatever you want me to do if you get Jennifer some medical attention.”

“You’ll do whatever I want, period.”

“Nathan, for fuck’s sake.” I can’t temper the emotion in my voice anymore. “It’s Jennifer. It’sJenny. She grew up with us.”

Nathan tilts his head to the side, his eyes searching mine. He could do anything he wanted to me. There’s no stopping him. God, there’s no stopping any of this.

“Fine,” he concedes. “But if I do this one thing for you, you’d better fucking appreciate it.”I do appreciate it, you crazy fucking asshole. He takes his phone from his pocket, dials a number, and presses it to his ear. And then I get to watch Nathan’s face transform. His eyebrows draw together, his eyes actually get wet, and he twists a hand through his hair so hard I think he might pull it out. “Yes. Yes, please,” he says, and then he groans like he’s been stabbed. “My girlfriend. She needs help. Someone broke in—yes. No, no police. You know how our family is about involving law enforcement.” He rattles off his address and by the final word he’s mangled his voice into a scream. “Hurry,” he shouts and ends the call. His face immediately morphs back to his true self. The villain I just met. The one I’ve trusted all along.

Et tu, Brute?Seriously. Fuck my life.

Stay up on your feet. Don’t give in. “That was quite the performance.”

---