Page 168 of Poison Vows

I’m so speechless and shocked, I just stare at him incredulously.

“You…” I trail off, my mind racing. “You did all that just because you thought I was in love with a girl who rejected me?”

“Yes!”

“What the fuck is this?”

He did all the research into my life, my movements, and behavior around Angel… and yet his conclusion is that she rejected me? Seriously?

“Grandpa, she…” I trail off, not knowing what to say now or how to explain it.

Angel never rejected me… but I hurt her deeply.

She’s always been braver than me. She has always been up-front and honest about her feelings, never hiding any of it.

That Christmas two years ago, she even grew the courage to confess to me, but I…

“Why do you look like that? Did I really misjudge the situation?” Grandfather asks quietly, looking at me as I pace in front of the fireplace.

“Oh, you did more than misjudge!” I snap.

“Well, I… I do believe the plan worked very well, Alessio, calm down,” he says, trying to placate my anger. “I was watching her, and it seems she isn’t indifferent to you.”

“How the fuck did you know?” I demand, needing a stiff drink at this point.

“Naturally you aren’t asking about how I found her. You want to know how I knew she was the one you fell for,” he says, eyeing me with a mocking light in his cold eyes. “You are, after all, my grandson. You’re more like me than you realize.”

“I’m nothing like you!” I grit out.

“It’s understandable that you wouldn’t like being like me, but some things can’t be helped,” he says in a tone that suggests resignation.

I frown. “What does that mean?”

He’s silent for a few seconds. When he speaks again, his voice is low and soft, with fond but sad nostalgia clear in his eyes.

“When I saw your grandmother for the first time, I fell for her that very second,” he starts. “That in and of itself is bad news for men like us. Because when us Easton men fall in love, it’s resolute, final, eternal, and immutable.”

Hearing these words feel like a freight train just ran me over.

“It’s only ever that one person that we give our all to but as men standing at the apex of this society, power, influence, wealth, and danger, that love becomes our one weakness.” I watch him shift in his chair as if trying to get comfortable.

Then his eyes train onto me unwaveringly, glowing with a warning. “The curse is that while men like us only have one weakness, that weakness is fatal enough that when exploited or attacked in any way, we lose completely.”

I hold his gaze, knowing exactly what he means.

“I won’t lose,” I state, my entire body coiled with a tension far greater than when I face death.

Grandfather looks at me, maybe with pity, or is it understanding? I don’t know, but the look makes me feel uncomfortable.

“Your resilience and confidence are truly rare. I admire you, Alessio. But I’d be doing a disservice to you as your grandfather if I didn’t remind you that sometimes no matter how you plan, or how much you prepare, how you go all out, you might still fail in the end. And that failure will destroy you.”

This isn’t the first time Grandfather has talked to me like this, but it’s the first time he’s revealed the heavy emotions he’s kept hidden all these years.

I hear the sadness and potent anger in his words, as well as the regret and bitterness.

“All this that we do,” he says, gesturing at the strategy table. “Where we come from. The blood on our hands. The pile of bones we stand on. The enemies we have… it all makes us unfit for any sort of stability and normalcy for such incredible things like love. We’re unworthy, and so the worst realization of my life was when I knew that I had fallen in love with Narcissa.”

A very strange feeling falls in the room as he talks about my grandmother who I never knew as she was murdered when my mother was young.

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