title: Vengeful Queen
author: St. Germain, Lili
description: Sometimes, we lose ourselves in the devastation of love.
  But sometimes, we find ourselves there, too.
  ROME
  Avery Capulet.
   The forbidden fruit. The apple of her Daddy’s eye. The newly-minted Queen of California’s criminal underworld. And now, the missing girl nobody can find.
  I know where she is, though. Kneeling before me, tears spilling from her eyes as the last bit of her dignity bleeds from her. I don’t want the pound of flesh that the girl who betrayed me delivers, but I don’t have a choice.
  Avery Capulet.
   Moaning underneath me, as pain merges with pleasure, skin to skin as we do what we can to survive. In the dark, in the wild, we’re like animals. I try not to love her. I try so damn hard.
  But the war waged inside my heart was won a long time ago.
  By a girl who should have known better than to trust a man like me.
  AVERY
  Rome Montague.
   The boy from my past. The man in my nightmares. The dark, secret lover who makes me feel things I never knew I could feel.
  Love and pain can both drive you insane. I fight, and I fight, until all I can do is surrender. Be pulled under. Submit, until I barely recognize myself.
  Rome Montague.
   When he looks at me, I forget the lies that destroyed our past. When he makes me come apart underneath his touch, I forget where we are, and that a faceless enemy pulls our strings like marionettes.
  The outside world beckons bright, teasing us with mirages of safety and respite.
  But the light of day is a cruel lie.
  Because once we find a way out of the dark, we both realize that our nightmare has only just begun.