Page 201 of Poison Vows

I hold Emmett’s dark gaze.

“I refuse to be in this warped vortex with you,” I tell him, my voice cracking, but this is the only way now.

“What?”

I hold his gaze, letting him see everything I’ve tried and failed to keep masked.

“Emmett, I wanted to die when we left Westbrook Blues because it physically ached to be so far away from you, but I didn’t dare throw my life away, do you know why?”

His jaw clenches tight, enhancing his incredibly chiseled jawline. The bone structure of this man has made me imagine kissing him countless times. Now, no more.

“I had attached myself so intensely to you in a way that was unhealthy because I believed you loved me too. I held on to you because I naively believed you were never far from me. It’s just that in the end, I still died.”

And this right here is the truth I’m just realizing.

“When you finally told me you’ll never feel for me what I felt for you, I died, and since then, I’ve not been alive at all. I’m a walking casket, not thinking, not cautious, pretending to be brave but waiting for destruction. Hating you, but still waiting to be rescued… I died loving you.”

With that, Emmett’s hold on me starts weakening, the look in his eyes completely broken as he stares down at me.

“You wanted to punish me,” I croak. “I think you did a spectacular job. You destroyed me so effectively that there’s nothing else left. You won, so please, let me go, Emmett Easton. I’ll no longer appear in front of you again. I won’t ever bother you nor will I cause you distress. I can’t take any more. This unrequited love ends here and now.

“One day, someone will love me, not in half measures or imprisoning me through faux acts of affection, but today is the day you and I part. Now, let me go.”

“No.”

The coarsely worded syllable hits me in the gut like a punch.

“What do you mean no?” I demand.

“No means no, Angel. This doesn’t end, ever. Not even after I’m gone!”

I can’t believe he just…

“Did you not hear what I said just now?”

“I did,” he says with a shrug. “And all I heard is that you’re still deeply in love with me. It can’t be helped.”

“Am I joke to you?”

He holds me even tighter, his hooded gaze on my lips, then my eyes.

“You, Ivy Marie Easton, you’re my evidence that God exists and that He loves me.”

With that, he kisses me… as if to shut me up.

I kiss him back just as fervently, kissing my husband for the last, pouring everything I have into the kiss.

I wanted him to tell me… but he’ll never tell me what I want to hear.

“You don’t get to seduce me into submission. Not anymore,” I whisper, pulling away. “I want you to sign those papers. As for a baby, one day I’ll be a mother. I don’t need you.”

With that, I pull away and leave the room, knowing I won’t be able to leave tonight, so I go check on Scar and stay in her room the entire night.

The next few days, there’s a somber atmosphere in the residence.

Giovanni’s murder put everyone on high alert… but the raging, livid head of the Family has everyone even more unsettled.

At one point, it was so silent in a room full of maybe eighty men, all of them tense, watching the man who sat behind a desk, cursing them out for being bad at their jobs.

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