AllFreeNovel
Share Us
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. Ipromise.”
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 side, 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.
