Page 6 of Poison Vows

“Guess what we found on the other shitheads your man was meeting up with,” he cuts me off, glaring at me.

“What?”

Spider responds by aggressively shoving something in my hand.

Not daring to be offended, I unfold the crumpled-up paper, only to see from the quality and feel that it’s a photo.

A foreboding sense of alarm and panic sweeps through me as I slowly flatten the photo.

I move closer to the light, but I think I already know what it is.

It’s a picture of Angel…

A very recent picture judging by the clothes she was wearing when she landed earlier today.

The thing in my chest stops entirely. I know exactly what this means.

“There were four Russians,” Spider starts, not caring about my distress. “Of course they decided to quit breathing, but Iespecially brought this bastard here for you to see that I was right for not trusting you!”

“Spider—” I start, but he holds up a hand. I clamp my jaw shut as a storm brews in me.

“No, this isn’t the time for you to explain anything. This is where you listen and act!”

I clench my fists and stand still, bracing for what’s coming.

“These past few years, you expanded all your efforts to track me down without your granddaddy finding out,” Spider starts. “Why?”

He glares at me, demanding that I fess up my most hidden secrets, but I can only stare back, unable to say anything.

“You could only find me because you knew I’m the only one who knew where Ivy was and your goal was to see her, wasn’t it?”

My jaw tightens, but I can feel a shiver going down my spine. Spider shakes his head.

“You hounded me for four fucking years! Four years of you constantly nagging me to see my sister! Hell, I was so fucking moved by your diligence and when I found out that you had been secretly protecting my grandmother, I felt bad for you and almost caved to tell you where she was, or at the very least, have you do a fucking FaceTime call with her since you almost died three times in these past four years!”

I freeze.

“You didn’t tell her about that, did you?” I quickly ask, my voice low, revealing the tension within.

“Tell her that you were desperately hungry for a glimpse of her or that you were lying at the gates of hell three times in quick succession? Which do you fucking mean?”

I’m not in any position to tell him to calm down, seeing as all of this is my fault, so I remain mute.

“I never told her shit. I believed it was none of my business, so after that last gift you gave and the promise you made meof her safety, I brought her back, against my fucking better judgment! I brought her back to this shit town, but guess what?”

Spider doesn’t shout.

He doesn’t throw a tantrum.

He doesn’t swing at me as he should.

He just looks at me with a hard glare, his anger perfectly valid.

“Within sixteen hours of my sister being back, your crap family who want her dead already got to work to kill her!”

“That’s not?—”

“They even got a picture of her!” Spider seethes. “Who’s to say the mastermind isn’t gearing up to try and eliminate her yet again?”

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