California Apartment Lease?

We currently have a lease in Chico Ca for an apartment that expires in Sept. I had to move to Reno, NV for a job. My wife and daughter are currently still in Ca., but planned to move here (Reno) in June. We expected to lose our deposit of $1800 but now management is saying they will also charge us 3x the rent in addition to keeping the deposit ($2829). That is a total of $4629! Can they do this? And, because of me having to take a job in Reno, is there anything we can do?