VENGEFUL QUEEN

by St. Germain, Lili

  Rome puts his hands in the air, that old cocky smile on his face.

  “You’re under arrest for kidnapping and violating the terms of your bail.” The lead cop comes forward with a pair of handcuffs. No.

  I leap in front of Rome, drawing a gasp from somebody at the back of the crowd. “Stop this. This isn’t a kidnapping. This is my husband.” My heart’s never beat so hard or so furiously. “Plus, I think you should double-check those bail conditions. A lovely judge decided to remove them all as long as Rome stayed in California. Which he has.”

  The cop studies me, and that’s when Uncle Enzo comes through the door. He wears a dark, impeccable suit as always, one that matches the dark fury in his eyes.

  “Avery.” His voice says he was worried about me, but his eyes say something else. “You need to come with me. Right now.”

  “I’m not coming with you, Enzo.” With every word, a newfound steadiness holds back the terror building in my brain and wrapping tight fists around my lungs. It’s my uncle. And he’s out of line. Why am I reacting this way? It’s stupid, and I won’t do it. Breathe. Breathe. “I’m married now.” I thrust out my hand so he can see my wedding band.

  Enzo’s eyes go wide with shock, but he’s a consummate businessman and it’s gone from his face in a flash. “Congratulations. We can discuss that later. And I’m certainly relieved you’re here of your own volition and not a hostage.” He pauses, clearing his throat. “There’s more pressing news.”

  “I doubt it.” Breathe and be brave. It’s not lost on me that the policemen filtering into this room all have high-powered guns, and most of them are pointed at Rome. It’s not lost on me that one false move is going to set them off. They’re gunning for my fucking husband, and I’m not having it. Enzo seems to sense my horror, and motions for the police officers to lower their weapons. The gesture is subtle, and welcome, but it also reinforces to me that Enzo is in charge of every police officer here. If they’re even real police officers and not private security staff dressed up to play the part.

  I don’t trust a single one of them, guns lowered or not.

  “Get rid of the police and I’ll talk to you, Enzo.” My words are sharp, my bravery manufactured. I’m still the same little girl terrified of the powerful men in her family, but something changed inside me in that basement. Now, in spite of the fear, I can still stand against the man in front of me for maybe the first time in my entire life.

  Enzo nods, turning to face the police. “Thanks, officers,” he says. “This was all a misunderstanding. You can go.”

  The police officers only hesitate for a moment before filing out of the house, headed for their cruisers. A moment later, they’re pulling away, headed back to the highway, a procession of sedans kicking up dirt in their wake.

  Enzo puts his hands in his pockets, a deep worry lining his face. “Avery. I hate to bring you this news on what seems to be such a joyous day for you. However, we don’t have much time. As of this morning, your father is in renal failure. He needs a kidney transplant, today, or he will die. Imminently. Somehow–I have no clue how–you’re the only match in the family.” He gestures in the direction of the helicopter. “We all got tested. Even Nathan, which was a long shot, but still. You’re it, kiddo.”

  Kiddo. He used to call me that when I was a kid. He was a good uncle before I was kidnapped. Always the one I could confide in. Ever my defender against my father’s angry outbursts and grief-stricken tirades. He lifts his chin, daring me to argue with him, but I can’t.

  I can’t.

  My father? Dying?

  Cold horror crushes me in its grasp. Renal failure. Those two words draw all my focus. I haven’t been able to talk with him since the night of the engagement party, and now he might die before even knowing I survived? Before ever hearing me tell him how much I love him, despite everything?

  I have two kidneys. I’m young and healthy. I’d give my own life for my father, in spite of everything. A single kidney is nothing. I’d give him both if it would wake him up long enough for me to talk to him. Whether he deserves it is another thing. The tragedy of a daughter’s blind devotion to the last surviving immediate member of her fucked-up family.

  Because even though it was my father who made all these stupid decisions on my behalf, I still want to talk to him. To fight with him. To cry on his shoulder as he holds me and strokes my hair and tells me everything will be okay. Maybe it sounds terrible, even for me, but I’m going to be an absolute wreck if I don’t get a chance to finish the grand argument Daddy and I were having over my life as a Capulet.

  And now my life as a Montague.

  “I understand if you say no,” Enzo says quietly. “But I know you’re better than that.”

  I don’t want to take my eyes off Enzo, so I step to Rome’s side instead of turning around to face him.

  “Can you give us a minute?” I ask Enzo. He nods, stepping outside and closing the door behind him. I turn to Rome, whose eyes flick between me and keep tabs on Enzo over my shoulder at the same time.

  “Do you believe him?” Rome asks quietly.

  I nod. “It was already starting to happen before I left. The doctors thought they had a match on the register, but it must have fallen through or something. He’s not making it up.”

  Rome’s eyes narrow. “I’ll go with you.”

  I shake my head. “No. You take the marriage license and you lodge it. Right now. City Hall. It’s an hour from here. You’ll get there before we land.”

  He scrubs his hand along his jaw. “I don’t like this, Aves. It feels like they’re trying to pull something.”

  I nod. “Maybe. But he’s right that I’m the only match. And that my father’s kidneys have started shutting down. I already knew that when I left the hospital the other day. That’s why I have to go. That’s why you have to drive as fast as you can in the other direction and get that certificate filed before I land in San Francisco. Okay?”

  He doesn’t answer.

  “Rome. If he dies… I don’t want him to die, I love him, but also. My father dying makes my life–our life–that much harder. I would rather give him a kidney than have to give the rest of my life to serving in his place if he doesn’t make it.”

  Rome’s eyes cloud over. He knows what I mean. Right now, my father is the head of the Capulet family. He is the conduit between the bankers and the mafia families, between the lawmakers and the underground. If he dies, that responsibility falls square on my shoulders.

  I’m not ready for that.

  “You know I have to go.” Tears well up in my eyes as

  I take Rome’s hand and kiss the back of it. He squeezes tight. “I have to. But I’m coming back. Okay? I’m coming back for you. I promise.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  AVERY

  The sight of the Capulet private jet turns my stomach. It’s perched in the middle of a private airport, the helicopter we’re in landing right beside it. I guess there aren’t any landing strips close enough to Joshua Tree to fly the jet straight there. The earmuffs I’m wearing are digging painfully into the sides of my head, and I can’t wait for the chopper pilot to cut the engine so I can rip them off.

  It makes Enzo feel better to see the sleek black-and-white jet—I can tell from the way he shifts in his seat and straightens his tie. He’s ready to get on that damn plane and get back to his life. Not long ago, I’d have killed a person to have this jet land on top of that house of horrors and whisk me away. Now I’m as torn as I’ve ever been in my entire life.

  I did not want to leave Rome in that room. My only hope is that he does what I said and goes straight to the local county clerk’s office to file the marriage certificate and make our union legal, not just in the eyes of his father and the commune witnesses, but a part of public record. I hate that I’m not still there beside him. But if my father is in danger of dying–and I do believe Enzo that he is–I have to go to him. He’s the only one left in this family who might be persuaded to my si
de, especially if that side has had one of my healthy kidneys inserted into it. It’s not going to be Enzo or Nathan accepting my marriage to a Montague criminal, that’s for sure. But I’m his daughter. That has to count for something.

  Doesn’t it?

  A somber-looking Nathan loiters by the stairs leading up to the private jet. He’s showered and wearing a suit, which strikes me as odd. Nathan doesn’t suit up for shit like private airstrip reunions with his runaway cousin. Maybe he came from a meeting at Capulet HQ.

  Enzo’s out the door the second the chopper stops, holding his hand out to help me step down. The chopper blades haven’t stopped completely, and the noise they generate is still deafening. Careful to avoid the rotor blade’s wake, Enzo hustles me up the stairs and onto the plane, Nathan following wordlessly behind. I try to steal a look at him, but he just shakes his head.

  “Nathan, sit up in the cockpit.”

  Nathan hesitates, but makes a sharp left into the cockpit as the crew shuts the outer door behind us. A private jet is a luxury—I know that. Most people would give anything to fly private. But being in here, with all the leather seats and the hardwood finishings, makes my skin crawl. I’m this close to beating on the windows and begging the ground crew for help. To please fucking let me out of here.

  But I have to get back to my father.

  Enzo and I sit halfway back in the plane, two wide-style seats next to one another. It gives me room but not enough. He grabs a drink from the minibar and downs it in one go while the engines rev. I want to confront him. I want to be the kind of woman who confronts him, here and now, consequences be damned. But I can only stare at the sofa across from us with its lap belts and sturdy cup holders. Please don’t die, Daddy.

  The plane zips down the runway—too fast, too far away from Rome—and I find myself digging into the leather armrest with my fingernails. My ears pop. The pilot announces cruising altitude. The wind rushes by the windows, a soothing white noise. And Enzo faces me, expression carefully blank. I’ve seen this shit before in meeting rooms, and I don’t like it.

  “Your wedding today was a mistake. You are not to tell anyone you did that, because you’re marrying Nathan one week from now.” He checks his watch, the bastard. “The press release is about to go out regarding your engagement.”

  I don’t throw up, but it’s a near thing. “Daddy isn’t in renal failure, is he. At least, not the kind that’s going to kill him today.”

  Enzo eyes me curiously. “Not today, no.”

  “Am I even a match?”

  He looks at the floor. “No.”

  Oh My God. My knees turn to rubber, and it’s a small mercy I’m sitting down, or I’d be collapsed on the floor right now. I start to hyperventilate. “You tricked me.”

  Enzo’s resolve is steely, flawless. His conviction in his own belief is absolute. The arrogant bastard.

  “I did what I had to do. Marrying a Montague? What the fuck were you thinking?”

  I struggle to steady my breathing. “I was thinking I fucking love him, you asshole.”

  “Love makes us do foolish things,” Enzo says, his words dripping with condescension. “Really, I thought you were smarter than your sister. I guess I was wrong.”

  “She’s dead, you motherfucker.” I want to kill him.

  “She is, the selfish bitch. You can blame her for what’s about to happen next.”

  “Oh, yeah? What’s about to happen next?”

  He sighs. “Really, Avery. Don’t you listen? You are getting married to Nathan. Next week. Pay attention.”

  A flare of anger dissolves some of my anxiety. I force a cocky smile onto my lips. “You know what, Uncle Enzo? It doesn’t really matter what you’ve got planned. What’s done is done, and right now the marriage license I just signed as Avery Montague is being filed at County Hall.”

  Enzo reaches into his breast pocket and pulls out a folded piece of paper, a vicious smile on his mouth. “This marriage license?”

  My stomach drops violently. How the hell did he get that? I try to snatch it out of his hand but my fingertips meet empty air. Enzo holds it just out of my reach, giving me a big, mocking cringe. “I don’t think so, kiddo. No niece of mine is marrying a fucking Montague.”

  And then he rips the only proof of my marriage to Rome into tiny, tiny pieces, a tragic confetti that rains down on the carpeted floor of the jet.

  CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

  AVERY

  I’ve spent my life learning to present a perfect public image. To always keep my composure, no matter the situation. I’ve clawed the way up the ranks at the Capulet corporation. I’ve walked through a ballroom during my own forced engagement party with my head held high. I refused to let my kidnapper kill me. I kept control, even at the end.

  But watching the tiny scraps of my marriage license flutter onto the floor of the jet snaps something inside of me. I lash out with my fingernails, wishing they were razor sharp, and catch Enzo across the side of his clean-shaven cheek. He curses under his breath, the last of the marriage license falling to the floor, and I fumble with my seatbelt. Damn it. Damn it! I have to get away from him.

  The belt comes loose and I bend forward, trying to get to my feet, only for Enzo’s big hand to come back across my windpipe. Enzo slams me back against the seat. In my peripheral vision I can see the red blotches across his cheeks, the blood rising against his skin. The thing about Capulet men is that they’ll hold it together in meeting rooms. But there’s no such restraint behind closed doors.

  “I thought they’d fucked this behavior out of you, Avery. You were supposed to come back docile and pliable. I paid them enough to destroy whatever streak of self-indulgent temper you possess. You were supposed to come back weak, and scared, and ready to do whatever I said. I told them to break you. I didn’t want you back like this.” He hisses this into my ear as he squeezes around my throat harder, tighter, and I freeze.

  My blood is ice. My body is ice. Everything is ice, from the air I’m trying to breathe to the nerve endings down in my toes. What is he saying?

  “I really thought it would work, too.” He looks crazed. “Guess I’ll have to try harder.”

  My body moves, trying to defend itself, and I rake my fingernails over his exposed wrist.

  “Bitch,” he says, and slams me back against the seat. It’s plush leather but the hand around my throat makes it hurt like concrete. It forces the air out of my lungs.

  How? How could he do this to me?

  Why? I loved him. He was my favorite uncle. He was my favorite, aside from my dad.

  “Why?” I wheeze brokenly, my eyes filling with tears.

  “This is for the greater good, Avery. Sometimes, we have to set our personal morals aside in service of something bigger. My brother, that sentimental fuck, has too many morals for a business built on corruption and blood.”

  He yanks me forward again, blocking my hands with his arm, and throws my head back against the seat. I’m going to get whiplash if he doesn’t break my neck first. My hands fall limply at my sides while my mind screams to fight him. Not here. Not now. This can’t be happening.

  “Now it’s time to do your part for the family business.” He tightens his grip on my throat. “That basement business—it was nothing personal. It was designed to make you see that everything outside of the family is a bad thing.”

  That’s ironic, because my family did this to me.

  My family did this to me.

  A howling rage starts low in my belly and burns its way up to my mouth, where it comes out in a scream. New energy ignites and I throw my hands out, looking for contact. Rocking back and forth in the seat is all I can do, and I do it with the fury of a woman scorned.

  “I’ll never do it,” I gasp. “I’ll never fucking do it, Enzo, fuck you—”

  I twist sideways, enough to lurch partway out of the seat, and that’s when Enzo looms over me. He wraps both his hands around my neck and drives my skull down into the armrest. The leather on
this one isn’t as thick. It hurts. It throbs.

  “Fuck it,” Enzo says lightly into my ear. “You don’t want to play my game? I’ll kill you now. And when you’re dead, Tyler can take over. Remember him? The first boy to rape you? I can make your life so much worse than that, but why bother when you’re easier to deal with dead?”

  I’m starting to black out. Starting to say goodbye. Thinking of Rome, and his blue eyes, and how I really believed we could get away from this savage fate. What fools we were to think we could ever get away from this.

  I’m losing my grip. I try for a breath and get nothing. Through the haze of impending death I see a shadow at the cockpit door. Nathan.

  He moves quickly down the aisle.

  “Help me hold her down,” Enzo says casually.

  But instead there’s a horrible, choking scream. Blood explodes over my face and neck. Enzo releases me and I fall into the aisle, hitting my head on the hard floor. What’s happening? I can’t—I can’t—

  I turn over, onto my back, gasping for every breath as my throat screams with pain. Nathan stands over Enzo. I trace the line from his arm to his hand with disbelieving eyes. To the handle of a knife. To Enzo’s neck.

  He stabbed him. He stabbed his own father.

  Nathan looks down at his father with a curiously blank face. The absence of emotion there makes my stomach drop, all the way down to the ground. All thirty thousand feet. He narrows his eyes. Enzo makes a gurgling sound, weakly reaching up to bat Nathan’s hand away.

  Nathan twists the knife, meeting my eyes in the same instant. “I had to,” he says brokenly. “He would have killed you.”

  A fountain of blood pours from Enzo’s mouth, some of it landing on my shoes, and I can’t stay here anymore. I put my hands on the first free stretch of carpet I see and crawl. Up past the meeting table. Up past the single seats. Up to the cockpit door.