Page 169 of Poison Vows

Complicated emotions cross Grandfather’s face, but he doesn’t look away or put on the mask he’s always worn.

“Before I knew it, I became devoted to her and only her. One moment, I was a reckless man who was fearless, and the next, I fell deeply in love and kept falling so much that my life immediately revolved around Narcissa. Her happiness. Her well-being. Her safety. Her comfort… all that became my obsession.”

“Is that why you never married after her?” I finally ask the question that has been nothing but an unspoken rumor in the Italian underbelly.

Grandfather looks at me, and nods. “Narcissa and I struggled to have children, I’m sure you already know that. A child was needed for the next line of succession in the Easton Family so when your great-grandfather brought that woman, I never married her.”

That woman, of course, is Emilio’s mother.

“Is that when you had the big falling out with your father?” I ask silently.

Grandfather’s stare focuses on me once again. “You really do know a lot of things.”

“I do.”

“Yes. There was no way I was going to let go of Narcissa. I was never going to divorce her in favor of a woman my father found, but that woman was also an opportunist.”

The fury that filters through his words is enough to make the toughest of men back off, but I just sit there, knowing where this is going.

“One night, I was so drunk and out of my mind, I didn’t even realize I’d been drugged. That tramp came to my room, dressed as Narcissa…”

“That’s how Emilio came to be,” I mutter, finishing the words for him. It was also after this that Grandfather never touched a drop of alcohol to this day.

“Yes,” he says after a while of tense silence. “Weeks later, I also learned that Narcissa had fallen pregnant with your mother. It was like a blessing and a guillotine had all been granted to me.”

The sudden but sad smile on his face completely transforms his hardened features to someone approachable.

“Actually, the guillotine was always meant for me, but God had remembered the goodness of your grandmother’s heart and blessed her like Hannah in the Bible. Your mother was born andNarcissa was the happiest I’d ever seen her, raised our baby girl with the utmost love and care, but then…”

Grandmother was killed in the most brutal way possible… by Emilio’s mother’s family.

This matter was never hidden, as Grandfather went on a rampage that is still being whispered about in the shadows, decades later.

Emilio’s mother’s family was completely massacred, and while Emilio’s mother was ignored until she killed herself, having seen what became of her family due to greed and jealousy, this act was completely vicious.

Giovanni and Angelo both have different mothers as well.

Neither were loved by Grandfather; it was just their backgrounds and family names he wanted.

“For your grandmother, I went to war with a clan that had been our ally for decades and severed them completely. It’s just that, in the end, I still lost the love of my life and was left with a daughter that cried for her mother every night and a son born out of treachery who resented me for his mother’s plight.”

The son he’s talking about is Emilio… who went on to partner with his other brother, Giovanni, to kidnap my mother.

“Why didn’t you stop them?” I ask the question that has been tormenting me my whole life. “You knew your sons loathed your daughter, so why didn’t you stop them?”

The pain on his face is severe, the regret evident.

“It wasn’t that simple,” he says after a while. “I thought since Daphne was my firstborn, and how brilliant and kind she had been to them, that they would come to respect her when she took over. Who knew they’d set traps for her like that…”

“Say it clearly,” I snap. “Your sons, together with that shithead Theodore Hughes, kidnapped my mother, drugged her silly, tortured her, and then sold her on a trafficking site. Thatwas the worst form of punishment ever, reducing a powerful woman to such…”

I can’t speak any more, nor can I stand still, so I grab the Japanese-forged sword and strike the war table down.

And this is what’s eating at me.

I found this all out when I met my father three days ago. I woke up and he was there, waiting for me.

“I’m sorry, Alesio,” the old man says soberly. “If I could’ve exchanged my life with hers…”

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