I scratch at it with my nails and after a moment it springs open. The pilot has the door open with one arm.
“Miss Capulet? I—”
“Help,” I croak. It’s harder to talk than I thought it would be. My throat must be bruised. Damaged. “We need help. We need the police.”
“Jesus Christ.” He looks beyond me, back into the plane, and his face goes white. “We’re almost ready to land. Find a seat to strap into and hang on—”
Nathan’s arms wrap around me from behind, lifting me from the floor, and the pilot’s voice in the cockpit is steady and smooth. This is something he knows how to deal with. An emergency landing. Nathan takes me to the first big seat up front, where we can’t see Enzo, and folds us into it. I can’t breathe. My neck hurts, my throat hurts, and my lungs aren’t big enough to take in the air. I have to breathe, because I have to see Rome again. But I can’t. Tighter, I want to say, but nothing comes out.
The plane descends, going down toward LAX, and I’m fading out. Fuck, I don’t want this. I need to be awake to get back to Rome. God knows what–or who–Enzo sent after him once we were safely in the chopper. We bump down onto the runway.
“It’s all right, Aves,” Nathan murmurs. “It’s all right. We’re almost there.”
I see red and blue reflecting on the ceiling of the plane. I hear the outer door popping open. Loud voices. Paramedics rush by, heading for Enzo. I bury my face in Nathan’s chest as the stretcher goes by. The cops are out there, too. The lights—the sirens. They’re out there, too. Another stretcher comes, this time for me. A paramedic with kind eyes reaches for me, assuring me it’ll be okay. I open my mouth to reply. But I’m out of time, and I’m out of oxygen, and the world fades into a gentle gray, then black.
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
AVERY
The sound of running water doesn’t tell me a damn thing about where I am, but it’s the first thing I hear. The first thing I feel is an aching ring of fire around my throat. I put a hand underneath my throbbing head. It feels like a sofa. Whose sofa? They don’t have one like this on the plane, so I’m not there. I wouldn’t be lying on a sofa if I were in the hospital. Think, Avery. The plane landed. There was...there was a car ride. My head screams in pain. Ah, yes—it made contact with a lot of hard surfaces today.
Water splashes in a nearby sink.
I force my eyes open, one at a time, and almost pass out again from the sheer relief.
Nathan’s apartment.
He stands at the kitchen sink, in profile to me, his mouth twisted, eyes puffy. I must have been misreading his expression before, on the plane. He stabbed his own father for me. He might have even killed him for me.
“Hey, Nate,” I croak.
He startles a little. No smile, just a dazed nod while he gets himself together. He scrubs his hands gently up to his elbows and back down again. He’s still washing his father’s blood from his skin. I watch his Adam’s apple bob as he swallows.
Nathan steps back from the sink and pulls his shirt over his head. The scars from when he was abused as a child still shine there, red as they ever were, and it makes me want to cry. His life was hell before he was adopted by the Capulets, and now it’s another kind of hell. It’s an endless circle and it breaks my heart.
I push myself off the sofa, standing on trembling legs, and slowly hobble into the kitchen. I’m still wearing the gauzy white dress Indigo gave me, but now it’s stained with Enzo’s blood and ripped in several places. I look like the Bride of Chucky. I don’t care. I’m alive. And Nathan is the one I have to thank.
Nathan stands still and lets me throw my arms around him. He’s warm, and alive, and this horror show is over. I could cry. He slings an arm around me and I only let myself take one glance at his face. Tears shine in the corner of his eyes.
“I’m so grateful to you,” I say fiercely, hugging him tighter. “I’m so thankful. You saved my life.”
We stand there in the kitchen for a long while, and eventually Nate leans down and kisses the top of my head. “Laundry.” He holds up the bloodied shirt and steps out to the big laundry room off the kitchen. When he comes out, he rubs a hand over his face and leans against the counter. “Listen, I sent the jet back to pick Rome up and bring him to you. And I got you this.”
He twists, picking up something off the counter.
A piece of paper, spattered with blood, held together by about fifty different pieces of sticky tape.
The marriage license.
I take it from his hands like it’s the most precious thing I own, because it is. Nathan’s going to mend my broken heart, that’s what he’s going to do. He might be the only Capulet on the planet who’s capable of it.
“Thank you,” I whisper, and hug him so long it gets awkward.
“Okay, Aves, don’t get carried away.” He steps back with a sad smile on his face. “You’ve been passed out for a while. You want something to eat? I got food delivered, just in case.”
“Yeah, I need to eat.” I push my knuckles into my eyes to try and relieve the pain. “I’ve got a massive headache. Do you have some Tylenol?”
“I have everything you could possibly want.” Nathan winks at me. “You go sit down. I’ll bring everything to you.”
“I’m covered in blood. I’ll ruin your sofa,” I protest. He shrugs. “I put a blanket over it before I laid you down before. It’s fine.”
Back on the sofa, I pull one of his throw blankets over my legs–since the thing is already stained with blood–and sink into the blanket-covered cushions. Nathan joins me a few minutes later with two plates of food. Mac and cheese. Green beans soaked in butter and salt. Mashed potatoes. A can of Diet Coke. He knows me too well.
“Here, start with these.” Nathan tips two little round pills into my palm. They don’t look like the usual gel caps I keep at home, but at this point, I don’t care if it’s generic. I wash it down with a crisp sip of Diet Coke. Bliss.
“Give me a minute, okay?” I lean my head against the armrest. “I’ll eat in a sec.” Hungry as I am, it just feels like too much work to hold a fork at this moment. When the Tylenol kicks in I’ll be up to it. “Nate, what the fuck? Enzo hired people to kidnap me? It makes no sense.”
He swallows hard, shaking his head. “It makes no sense.” Nathan looks back up at me, eyes shining with pain and tears. “How am I supposed to tell my mother what I’ve done? The cops only let me go because I agreed to go back for an interview as soon as I got you settled here.”
Fatigue drops over me like a heavy blanket, starting at my toes and working its way up until it’s over my head. I let my eyes flutter closed and open them again with a start. “Shit, Nate.” A big yawn escapes me. “I don’t want to go to sleep. I’m too hungry.”
“I can reheat it. It’s no problem.”
“No, I—I’m hungry. I just—” My heart is beating too slow. Too slow to even lift my head fully off the arm of the couch. My stomach still growls. It doesn’t know that I’m about to sink back into a deep, deep sleep. It calls to me, that darkness. It wraps its arms around me and pulls me down so gently. So sweetly. I could just sleep right now, sleep forever—
“Here. Taste this.”
Nathan’s fork floats in the air in front of me. He would do this—he would feed me. He’s all I have left, other than Rome. I pick up my head an inch and try to concentrate on Nathan’s hand. The mac and cheese, which I desperately want.
The silver fork.
The scarred bite mark between his index finger and thumb.
Recognition, cold and brutal, stabs into my gut.
I’m tied to a chair. I’m starving. I’m dying. One of the captors crouches in front of me, guiding a fork to my lips. I don’t fucking want the food, don’t want to take it, but my body betrays me until it gets enough calories to fight back. I have one chance and I take it. I bite. I bite him, right at the soft, fleshy part of his hand, between his finger and his thumb. I get him good. I break the skin.
No. No
no no. He can’t be.
But he is.
He’s the second captor. I bit him. I left a scar.
I snap my lips shut, but I don’t have the energy to drag myself away. I see the light change in Nathan’s eyes as he follows my eyes to that spot between his thumb and forefinger, as he realizes that I know.
“Nathan,” I whisper. I can feel my heart breaking.
The world is crumbling, falling. My heart struggles to find its rhythm. Nerves on fire, trying to get me to run, but I don’t. I can’t. My limbs are too heavy and my mind is too tired. Those weren’t Tylenol he gave me, were they? I’ve been drugged.
“I wish you hadn’t found out like this, Aves,” Nathan says, his voice devoid of emotion. “I wish you hadn’t found out at all.”
He’s a fucking sociopath. He’s the man in the mask–one of them, at least. He’s my cousin, my best friend, my confidante.
My kidnapper. My torturer. My rapist.
“But I loved you,” I protest mournfully.
Nathan leans over me, reaching gracefully to the side to put his plate back on the coffee table. Then he gets close. He must know my vision is already blurred and wrong. He waits until I’m looking into his eyes. “Well, now you’re going to love me like I’m your husband. As far as the world is concerned, at least.”
Adrenaline gives me one last rush, one last burst of energy, and I leap off the couch. The door, get to the door. My legs aren’t working, but I try my damnedest, one step after another, I can still get there, there’s still a chance—
A weight slams into me from behind, knocking me off my feet and taking me down to the carpet. Oof. He’s stronger than me, and heavier. Nathan wraps his arms around me down on the floor and squeezes. Tighter, I think, but he’s not Rome, and he’s not trying to save me. I kick my feet, a weak parody of an escape attempt, as Nathan forces the last of the air from my lungs.
“Shhh,” he says, his voice almost gentle. There is a tenderness in violence. “Everything will be okay.”
The night closes in again.
And this time, I’m not sure if the sun will ever rise.
* * *
THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR READING VENGEFUL QUEEN!
Rome and Avery’s story concludes in
VIOLENT REIGN
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About the Author
Lili St. Germain is a USA Today bestselling hybrid author who writes books about vengeful girls, villainous men, and forbidden love.
Her books have sold over a million copies worldwide since January 2014.
The Gypsy Brothers series focuses on a morally bankrupt biker gang and the girl who seeks her vengeance upon them. The Cartel series is a prequel trilogy of full-length novels that explores the beginnings of the club and the drug kingpin who dictates their every move.
Aside from writing, her other loves in life include her gorgeous husband and beautiful daughter, good coffee, Tarantino movies and spending hours on Instagram.
She loves to read almost as much as she loves to write.
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SOCIAL LINKS
Also by Lili St. Germain
The Gypsy Brothers series
Seven Sons
Six Brothers
Five Miles
Four Score
Three Years
Two Roads
One Love
Zero Hour
The Cartel series
Cartel
Kingpin
Empire
The Cruel School series
Cruel Beginnings
Cruel Boys
Cruel Girls
Also by Lili St. Germain
Gypsy Brothers
Her innocence stolen. Her father murdered.
Six years ago, Juliette Portland was viciously attacked and left for dead by the very people she trusted. The men who killed her father and stole her innocence. The Gypsy Brothers.
Now, she's back.
And she's about to make them pay. Slowly. Painfully.
Seven graves for the seven men who wronged her so violently - but will one of those graves end up being her own?
Download the first book in the series for FREE now!
* * *
Cartel
Mariana Rodriguez is the eldest daughter of a Colombian drug lord. Growing up in Villanueva, Colombia, she has never wanted for anything. Private schools, a lavish lifestyle, and the safety of the Cartel that her father works for.
At nineteen, she's got her entire life mapped out, and what a good life it's going to be: graduate from college, move to America, and finally be free from the stifling grip of the Cartel.
Only, her father messes up. A shipment of cocaine - a very large, very valuable shipment - is seized by the authorities whilst under his care and he becomes liable for the debt. Half a million dollars' worth of cocaine.
Half a million dollars he does not have.
But he has a daughter, a very smart one, a daughter who would give up her very existence and offer herself as payment for her father's sins, to ensure her family survives.
But falling in love with the man who owns her isn't part of the plan ...
Purchase Links here.
* * *
Kingpin (Cartel, #2)
They say love conquers all.
It's a lie.
For eight years I had been the property of the Gypsy Brothers Motorcycle Club. I laundered their money so well they'd never let me leave. My only glimmer of light was the man I loved. The man who had saved me.
Dornan.
His love had been the only thing that kept the demons at bay. But he'd become so immersed in the cartel's brutal business that I hardly knew him anymore.
Dornan had been my salvation, but he was also my undoing.
Would he pull me down into the darkness until he destroyed me? Could I save him?
Did I even want to?
Purchase links here.
* * *
Empire (Cartel, #3)
The heart-pounding finale to the USA Today bestselling Cartel trilogy.
People aren’t born monsters.
They’re made that way.
They’re created, fuelled by one singular moment in time when their universe shatters.
I’d been with Dornan Ross for the better part of a decade. Slept in his bed, sewn up his wounds, tasted his blood, seen inside his soul.
But even I wasn’t prepared for what he did.
I should have known it would always come down to this, from the very moment I laid eyes on him in that motel.
I should have known his salvation was too good to be true.
Because it’s all gone now, the dark secret love I had for him bleeding away in the violent reality that came afterwards.
Now, there’s only hate.
Now, I just want to escape.
Even if it means I have to kill him to be free.
Purchase Links here.
Copyright
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy.
Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance it bears to reality is entirely coincidental.
Produced by Lili Saint Germain at Lili Saint Germain Publishing
Cover Design by HANG LE
Photography by Regina Wamba at Mae I Design
Models Gabriel Kamas & Madison Del
aney
Copyright © 2021 by Lili Saint Germain
All rights reserved.
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