AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Hate to break it to you, but the engagement’s off. I’m not getting married.”
“Not to Joshua Grayson. To Nathan.”
I’ve been disconnected, floating on a high and then getting pummeled into the ground by trauma and fear. Enzo’s words bring me back to earth with a bone-crushing impact. Nathan feels it, too. I can tell by the way he gapes at me, stunned. Horrified.
“What?” I can’t believe he’s saying this. I can’t believe he’s saying this like it’s completely reasonable.
Enzo clears his throat, straightens up. Just like he has in a thousand meetings before. For a thousand deals. This one’s different, though.
“The marriage would be purely for show, of course. The purpose would be to salvage your reputation. To pacify the shareholders. And to tide the board over until you can earn their respect back.”
No,I want to say.Not a fucking chance.
“That’s not happening,” Nathan spits. “I’m in love with someone else.”
I meet Nathan’s stricken gaze before returning my eyes to stone-faced Enzo. “He’s my cousin. That’sincest.”
Enzo has turned himself into a human steamroller. Nathan’s complaint goes down without so much as a whisper, crushed along with my objection. “He’s your adopted cousin. You are not blood related. There’s nothing illegal or incestuous about it. In case you’ve forgotten, you didn’t even meet him until you were twelve years old.”
He says it with such certainty and confidence that it pins me to my seat. Nathan opens his mouth, then shuts it again.
“And there is the matter of Rome Montague.” Enzo looks me in the eye. “Let me be perfectly clear, Avery. You will do what I say. If I tell you to fucking jump, you’ll sayoff which building, dear uncle? I’ll do whatever it takes—and I meananything—to ensure that you never see Rome Montague again. And if you defy me, I’ll make sure that little punk is thrown back into maximum security for the rest of his pathetic life.”
Nathan gets up from the windowsill and storms out. He can’t slam the door after him because they’re specially designed to close quietly, so his exit is marked by a hushed click. To me, it sounds like a thunder crash in the distance. Deep. Booming. Final.
“It’s for your own good,” Enzo says. “One day, you’ll thank me for this.”
I look across the desk at my favorite uncle, who stares back at me as blankly as if I were a temp who’d messed up a financial report. A shudder goes through me, cold and strong.
Can you trust him?A little voice in the back of my head says. All my life, I’d have said yes. Yes without a moment’s hesitation. Uncle Enzo? Of course I can trust him. I could trust him with my life.
Can you?It asks again.
And this time, I don’t know.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
AVERY
There’s no time to sit around and wait for life to keep swinging. There’s no time for inaction.
No time at all.
If Enzo’s big plan is for me to marry Nathan, then things have gone seriously off-track. At the conclusion of our meeting, which ends with Enzo looking back down at his paperwork as casually as if we’ve just been talking about the fucking weather, I grab my purse - now gun-less - and get all the way to the employee garage before I remember that I don’t have a car. Mine is still at home, where it’s been since before I was kidnapped. Usually I’d have a designated driver in lieu of my own vehicle, but that didn’t happen today, did it? No. Because today, I was being driven around by Nathan, then Detective McRae, before finally bribing a priest to borrow his car. And where is that car, now? I can only hope Elliot had the forethought to somehow return it to the church in one piece.
As far as days go, this one’s been long. I’m exhausted, and angry, but the rage Enzo has lit inside me keeps me going. I wonder if he knows how much I wanted to leap across his desk and slash his throat with his goddamned letter-opener.
It doesn’t take long for me to call up to reception to arrange a chauffeur-driven car. Five minutes later, I stew inside a cream leather interior as I let the air conditioning in the brand-new Mercedes cool what feels like a raging fever. When my ride pulls up in front of the Capulet mansion and I step onto the paved circular driveway, I’m steady, if not a little shaken.
There’s no time to be shaken.
This ismyhouse. It’s time to reclaim it. These people need to get the fuck out of my space before this twisted game goes any further.
I go in through the massive front doors. The clean scent in the foyer still smells strange. I wish it would smell normal again, but maybe that’s one of the things I lost in that dungeon. Halfway up the stairs to my bedroom, the sound of voices filters up from the kitchen.
Enzo.
He beat me here.
