Page 166 of Poison Vows

My God.

I thought all my moves were hidden and undetectable, but apparently not.

“If you knew all along, then why did you play along?” I demand. “By allowing Vaughn’s request to delay the decision, you hit several birds with one stone.”

“I was only doing what you wanted.”

I can’t help but react to this. “You… knew?”

“Of course I knew! Your mother often used those kinds of strategies, encouraging the enemy to act. They might thinkit’s their own initiative, not knowing they are being set up, influenced from within by a carefully calculating hand.” Grandfather watches me with narrowed eyes. “But you lack the mercy my Daphne had. You’re entirely too ruthless, encouraging your cousin and uncles to kill you just so you could create the present situation where you justifiably wipe all of them out!”

And this right here is the crux of the story.

From the beginning, I wanted to create this situation of war, rebellion, and mutiny.

I wanted to move my uncles… but first, I needed to use the circumstances of having Angel announce to the family that she’s marrying Vaughn to make them feel confident enough to try and kill me.

But then the game changed.

At first, I didn’t care about this, but then, like a bolt from the blue, I found out that someone from the Hughes family had made contact with my Angel.

They even went as far as to entice her to come out to New York in the guise of meeting the long-lost parents she had been looking for.

This move was obviously to get me to act.

“This is what you wanted right from the start, isn’t it?” I ask him slowly as the pieces start falling into place.

The newspaper Ripley showed me months ago in Italy that had Senator Hughes’s candidacy news as a headline… I thought Rip was just tipping me off, but instead, Grandfather had moved already.

“You had already calculated everything before the night you told Vaughn and me that you were testing us, didn’t you?”

Grandfather watches me, then he chuckles.

“It took you this long to figure it out? I’m surprised,” he mocks.

“Why did you do it?”

“I told you already. My intention has always been the same since you were born, and it will remain till the end of my life.”

“What’s your fucking intention? To fuck me over?”

“To protect you!”

I fall silent, not sure if I heard that correctly.

“My intention has and will always be to protect you, ensure your life is better than mine, than your mother’s, and is more secure, come what may!” Grandfather’s voice is a low, deadly tone that makes me grow still in the chair.

The look in his eyes is burning with an inner flame that tells me he isn’t lying.

“You’ve been doing all this to protect me?” I’m stunned.

“If I don’t protect you, then what?” he snaps.

“Then why her?” I demand. “You should’ve left her alone! You abandoned her that night.”

“If I hadn’t, she would’ve died and you know it!”

My lungs seize from expanding at this confirmation. “Yes, it’s cruel that I abandoned Ivy, but I truly had no idea that she had been hurt. All I knew was that I had to act quickly to save the girl. Who knew how fate was going to play things out?”

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