VENGEFUL QUEEN

by St. Germain, Lili

  “Okay. So, how’d you do it?” I look out the window as the San Francisco blocks roll by. Bubble tea shops. Boutiques. A Chinese restaurant. An underground club. A girl strolls down the sidewalk in front of the sunken street entrance, her purse swinging merrily from her fingers. With her dark hair, she could be Avery. Avery from before, I mean. I bet Avery doesn’t walk like that anymore, all happy and carefree. I know she doesn’t walk like that anymore.

  I have to swallow a lump in my throat.

  “Drove,” my dad says.

  I let out a half-laugh. “I mean the bail. Did you borrow money from your wife?”

  He manages to look even more uncomfortable while still keeping his eyes locked on the road. “I used family money.”

  My stomach sinks. There is no family money. Not anymore. Not since the Capulets ruined us. “What are you talking about?”

  “I used the house as collateral. The property.”

  The house. My house. The very last dregs of the family property. The Montague mansion is crumbling—I won’t even bother arguing that point. I know that. I lived there until very recently. But the land it sits on is worth millions of dollars. It’s the one thing I have left. And now, it’s probably held by some dodgy fucking bail bonds company who will figure out a way to seize the property the moment I inevitably go missing or skip bail.

  Fury blooms in the pit of my gut and sloshes up into my throat.

  “Why would you do that?”

  My dad throws a sidelong look across the car at me. “How else do you think I could afford the bail? You could either rot there, get stabbed, get beat to death, or I could use the house as collateral. Well...” He changes lanes with a hasty jerk of the wheel. “House isn’t worth that much on its own. I don’t have to tell you that. The land, though...”

  Yeah. The land. The land is where our family fortune is buried, fucking literally. A buyer could raze the Montague mansion to the ground and still have a fortune sitting there in the dirt. I’ve always felt a duty to the property, which makes no sense, but there it is. In some distant way, I always thought I’d have a chance one day to rebuild that house to its former glory, bringing it back to life. If I could do that, it would mean my life wasn’t a heap of flaming wreckage.

  Now I’m chained to it, whether I realize that dream or not.

  If I don’t show up to court, they’ll take the house. They’ll take the last of what we have. And then what? I’m looking down the barrel of a future full of nothing.

  “You put the house up for bail,” I repeat softly. “I can’t fucking believe you did that.”

  “God, Rome.” He shakes his head, and my dad’s shoulders droop. He drove all the way here in his beater, and I’m still so fucking pissed at him. Maybe I always will be. Maybe that is my lot in life, and his, too. “It was the only way. What do I have to say to get that through your skull? There was no other way.”

  I’m not anywhere near a jail cell or that stinking hole in the ground, but I hear all those locks slamming shut nonetheless. One, two, three, four. The sound repeats and echoes crushing me. I’m still there. And for as long as I’m alive, I’ll never really get out.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  AVERY

  “Wait here.” I’ve already got my hand on the door handle and my purse over my shoulder. My cousin should recognize that this isn’t the time to argue with me. He really should.

  Nathan gapes at me from the driver’s seat. “What? You know I can’t do that. You have to be with somebody. It’s not safe, Aves. Your crazy stalker ex-boyfriend just made bail. He could be anywhere.”

  He’s referring to Rome, though I understand crazy stalker ex-boyfriend could mean multiple people at this point in time. Truthfully, I have to fight to keep a grin from taking over my face at the relief I feel now that Rome is out of jail and safely with his father. A task that cost me a pretty penny, but Thomas Burton stuck to his word and used every trick in his shady lawyer handbook to make it happen. That he made it happen without anyone mentioning my name is a small miracle, and right now, I’ll take all the miracles I can get.

  “I am going inside the police station.” I gesture at the hulking brick building in front of us and give Nathan what I hope is a convincing smile and not a parody of the anger and confusion that have been boiling inside me since I watched Will get dragged away by the police. Should I have left my gun at home? Probably, but it’s too late for that kind of consideration now. “This has to be the safest place in town. I’m not going to get kidnapped by a serial killer while I’m surrounded by the fucking police. Wait here.”

  He puts both hands in the air, gets his phone out, and settles in.

  He’s giving up awfully quick. Nathan glances at me out of the corner of his eye. “What?”

  “Nothing.” All this makes me feel like a petulant teenager. People moving into my house to take care of me. My dad in intensive care. My own cousin pretending to be my keeper. But those are things to dwell on another day. Today, I need answers.

  The air conditioning in the police station is cranked on high, probably to keep nervous criminals from sweating through their shirts and stinking up the place. I immediately wish I’d worn a thicker bra, but I honestly didn’t think of it. I’ve been tossing and turning since yesterday. I can’t sleep. I can barely eat. I’m crawling out of my skin with the need for actual information, and my aunt and uncle are either oblivious or purposely keeping it from me. I’m done. I’m so fucking done.

  “I need to talk to Elliot McRae,” I announce to the woman behind the round desk at the front of the station. “Now.”

  She looks me up and down. If she recognizes me from any of the news coverage, she doesn’t show it. “Do you have an appointment?”

  “I need to talk to him now.” I smile at her, making my face soft. I’m certain the expression doesn’t reach my eyes. Let her see that too. “It’s an extremely urgent matter.” I will use the Capulet name if that’s what I have to do, so help me God.

  The woman nods and picks up the phone. Murmurs something into it. I brace for a fight, for a throwdown. My throat tenses in anticipation of using the dagger-sharp voice I use when I need to get shit done.

  “He’ll see you now. You can go on back.”

  “When I said urgent matter—oh.” Heat comes to my cheeks, a response that didn’t use to be commonplace for me. “Thank you.” The animal inside backs down. It stops baring its teeth. “Thank you,” I say again, because I feel like an idiot and I look like one, too.

  Elliot sits behind his desk at an office down the hall, peering intently at a computer screen. He doesn’t look up when I come into the room. I clear my throat.

  He rises when he sees me. “Avery. I thought you’d be at home.”

  “I’m tired of being at home,” I reply, dropping into the chair on the other side of his desk and pulling my purse into my lap.

  He nods. “Fair enough. If you’re here to argue Rome Montague’s innocence for the umpteenth time, no need. He made bail, though I’m still trying to figure out how.

  I smile sweetly. “Anything’s possible.”

  “So it was you,” he replies. “You know he’s not allowed within a mile of you, right? There’s no reality where you get to see him again until the trial is over. Even then, I’m not sure you’ll be able to visit him when he’s in maximum security.”

  I ignore his resolute conviction that Rome is guilty. I can only fathom how guilty that video evidence must make him look. The DNA evidence he was forced to deposit inside poor, dead Penny doesn’t exactly help his case, either. But I can’t worry about that right now. I know Rome is out of jail, safely off the grid, so I can focus on finding who really did this and in the process, clear the name of the boy I’ve loved since we were teenagers.

  “What happened with Will? You arrested him? Everybody cleared the hell out of there a little too fast for my taste. And Joshua? How is he a part of this?”

  Elliot smooths his tie down, apparently weighing a decis
ion in his mind.

  “I want answers,” I add.

  Elliot nods, circling behind me to close the door before he sits back at his desk. He turns off his monitor and swivels to face me, folding his arms across his chest. “We don’t have any answers yet.”

  My stomach turns. “What do you mean, you don’t have any answers? You seemed to have plenty when we were at Will’s house.”

  “Here’s what we do know.” He perches his fingers on the desk. “Both Will and Joshua Grayson had a number of video files on their personal laptops. Video files that included footage from your...time in captivity.” He meets my eyes. Elliot isn’t a total fucking coward, which is a good thing for him. “We haven’t been able to conclude how the files got there, or whether they had more involvement than essentially being hosts for incriminating material. We just don’t know yet, Avery. We’re still getting to know these guys, getting under their skin to figure out what makes them tick. They’re both smart, and they have money to throw at this. Lawyers. In different ways, they’re both making it near impossible for us to properly interrogate them.”

  Elliot leans back in his seat and looks at me, and I damn well know what he’s going to say next. I can see it in his eyes and the set of his shoulders.

  “Jesus, Elliot.” I raise a hand and rub at my temples. “Just ask me already. This isn’t like a middle-school date.”

  He frowns. “You don’t know what I was going to say.”

  “You’re going to ask me to talk to them, aren’t you?” I suddenly feel so exhausted that I could put my head down on Elliot’s desk and sleep right now. “Come on. I’ve sat across from a thousand guys just like this at my father’s company. I know what it means to be the bait.”

  “All right, you do know. If you feel up to it, if you feel strong enough, and only if you feel strong enough...there’s a possibility that you could get much further with them than we’ve been able to. But Avery, I don’t want to push you. If this isn’t something you’re up to, then tell me right now, and I’ll never bring it up again.”

  I don’t want to meet with them. I don’t want to put my body in a room with either of those men until I’ve sorted out all my feelings about this. Until I know who I can trust, and who has fucked me over. But figuring that out could take years. I don’t have years to figure out what the fuck happened to me and to Rome. I’ll die if it takes years.

  So I’ll do this one thing. I’ll have these conversations if that’s what Elliot needs.

  The fight seeps out of me like a gush of blood. I came here to get answers, and once again, I’m going to be the one to search for them. Can’t anybody help a girl out for once?

  “I’ll drive, if you’d like.”

  I meet Elliot’s eyes. “You want to go right now?”

  “I don’t feel like we have a lot of time to wait.” He folds his hands on the desk, patient as ever. “Do you?”

  “No.” He’s right. “There’s no time. Let’s go.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  AVERY

  The jail reminds me of that basement.

  It’s cold. Industrial. Concrete everywhere. Even the smell of it is somehow similar. It shouldn’t be. The jail is probably cleaned far more frequently than my prison with Rome ever was. It pulls my skin into goosebumps and makes me want to throw up the smoothie I choked down for breakfast. It rises in my throat, but I manage to swallow it back.

  Elliot accompanies me as far as the private visitation room. He has a brief conversation with the guard outside, who agrees, by some miracle, to let me talk to Joshua alone, albeit with Elliot standing just outside the door. We’ve discussed it, and Elliot thinks it’s the only way Joshua will reveal anything. I think he’s probably right. That doesn’t change the fact that it still scares the shit out of me.

  But not as much as being in that dungeon did.

  I take my seat at the metal table—it reminds me of that table in our hellhole, fuck—and try to hold my emotions firmly in check until this conversation is over. I can fall apart in the safety of the parking lot once this is over.

  A few minutes later, the wire-reinforced door opens and Joshua Grayson, my dear fiancé, is deposited inside by a burly guard who has four inches on him, easy.

  Joshua looks...diminished.

  I remember the way he took up so much space in my father’s office. It seems like several lifetimes ago that I was complaining so bitterly about having to marry him. I could never have imagined him ending up like this. Not ever. His prison uniform hangs on his once muscular frame, and he has two black eyes, each in a similar state of swelling. Joshua, chained at the wrists and ankles, shuffles in like a man who’s been broken down.

  In some strange way, he reminds me of myself.

  I don’t get up from my seat. One of the conditions of any visit to this place is no touching allowed. I’m not about to contest that rule.

  I watch as the guard shackles Joshua’s chains to a solid metal ring on his side of the table. He’s now trapped here with me. The chains make a loud noise as he gathers them, lowering his manacled wrists to the table and looking at me with a resigned expression.

  “Who did that to you?” It’s not the most courteous greeting, but fuck it. We’re well past that.

  Joshua sits down heavily in the chair opposite me and studies me. All the heat has gone out of his eyes and most of the life, too. He looks as bad as I feel, and that’s saying something.

  “Rome Montague. I believe you’re acquainted.”

  I huff a laugh because that is literally the most hilarious thing I have heard all day. Yeah, I’m acquainted. Joshua has enormous balls to make that joke. Some of the tension knotted in my chest eases. Not all of it.

  “What the fuck is going on, Joshua? You had videos of me on your computer?” A sick anger grips me. “Tell me what the hell you’ve done, and tell me right now.”

  There’s no sign of the smarmy, overconfident asshole he used to be. He looks me straight in the eye. “There’s nothing I can tell you about the videos. I don’t know how they got there.” He pushes a hand through his hair, an old habit, but winces halfway through. Rome must have got him in the head, too.

  “You’re hiding something from me,” I accuse him. “I know it. I can feel it. And I’ll do whatever I have to do to make you tell me what it is.”

  Joshua buries his face in his hands, momentarily, before looking at me once more.

  “Here’s what I will tell you.” He leans forward, glancing at the door, and for a heartbeat, I can see a glimpse of the way he used to be. It crumbles in the weak light coming through the prison windows. “I should have told you this a long time ago. We all should have been honest. Here’s the truth. I’m in love with somebody. I have been for a very long time. But it was someone I could never be with, you understand? Not out in the open.”

  He seems genuine. “What’s her name?” I press.

  Joshua looks down. “His name is Patrick.”

  My mouth falls open. I can’t help it. I don’t believe it.

  And then I do.

  “I never lied to you,” Joshua says. “I just didn’t tell you the whole truth. I’m gay, Avery. And despite it being the twenty-first century, despite what you might think... most people in our circles aren’t so accepting of it.”

  He finally looks up at me tentatively, and for a second, he looks like a scared little boy. If he’s lying, he deserves a damn Academy Award, because I’ve bought every word.

  “You should have told me,” is all I can manage.

  “I was going to tell you as soon as we were married. As soon as I knew I could trust you not to tell anyone. It hardly matters anymore.”

  I nod, letting that sink in. A gay fiancé is not something I was expecting when I walked in here. It’s something that makes a ton of sense, now that I think about it. What kind of man would throw away a chance at true love for an arranged marriage that has been years in the making? An arranged marriage the bride-to-be has been fighting at every turn? All
along, I’d believed it was greed propelling Joshua toward the altar. Turns out, it was love.

  “Look.” Joshua sits up as straight as he can. “I was always going to be a show husband. I knew that from the moment your father approached me with the idea of marrying your sister. I never intended to sleep with her, or with you.” Something like pain crosses his face. “I was telling you the absolute truth about letting you have lovers if we were married. This, us? It’s a business arrangement, or it was. It would only have been fair. That’s all I know, Avery. I can’t tell you about the videos or anything else because I don’t know anything.”

  He grits his teeth, and I realize that what I saw before wasn’t just pain—it was anger. “I’m so sorry that happened to you. When they told me—” He looks away, then looks back. “I went fucking ballistic.” He lets out a long breath. “I swear, I could never hurt you, Avery. However those videos came to be on my computer, it wasn’t me.”

  “What about the newspaper? The first edition of The Verona Times?”

  Joshua nods. “Yeah, that one I can explain. We had ten thousand copies of the first edition circulated that night before a major news story broke. It was the actor who died suddenly, you remember?”

  I nod. I’ve been caught up on all the pertinent news since my escape, mostly by my aunt, who loves to gossip about anything and everything Hollywood. “Yeah. I heard.”

  “We had to run a second edition at four in the morning. We reclaimed and scrapped as many copies of the first edition as we could, but we couldn’t keep tabs on them all. Mostly, we asked the stores to dispose of them on their own. I’ve given the police a list of every news outlet that was supplied with the first edition, but it’s so many. Ten thousand copies, Avery. A needle in a haystack. How do you even start to look?”