Page 14 of High Stakes and Soulmates (Fanged Mistakes #3)

“I… don’t think that’d be advisable. Sadly, we didn’t find them until about a week after their deaths. If you are adamant about it, you would be permitted. But take it from me, it’s best to remember them how they were,” I tell him.

He’s quiet for a moment before nodding. “Okay. Thank you.”

“Of course. You have a place you’re staying?”

“Yeah, just that hotel connected to the casino. I was advised that staying at one of Casimir’s hotels would be best.”

“Great. If you need anything, here’s my number and Ezio’s as well.”

“Thank you,” he says.

“You want my number too?” Yorick asks, even though… I’m not quite sure why he’d need Yorick’s number.

“Uh… sure?” he says, probably feeling like it’d be rude to tell him no. Yorick is all too happy to give it to him.

Once Phil is gone, it’s just the three of us.

Yorick looks between us, eyes narrowing more and more as he does his best to scrutinize us.

“So… I would love to hang around, but the two of you have some shit brewing and I think it’d be best if you two just laid it out there, yeah?

If you don’t need help spewing it out, I’m gonna head to Julian’s.

He promised me that he’d teach me how to paint.

How fun, yeah? I’m going to paint a big middle finger and send it to Atticus.

If you two get done, come join us. Ta-ta. ” And he’s gone.

And while I vaguely remember not wanting him to join us, I now very much want him to come back.

I hurry back to the car so I don’t have to talk about this in front of any of the officers who might overhear—or maybe I’m just hoping that getting to Casimir’s as fast as I can will end this awkwardness. Ezio gets into the passenger seat and looks over at me.

“I’m so sorry,” he says the moment he sits down.

“You were involved?” I ask.

“Yeah. I was. I’m so sorry.”

He really was involved… but Ezio ? Ezio actually was…

My stomach tightens. It feels like someone has just ripped a hole right into my guts and is squeezing them, twisting them. I can’t breathe. Did I really go this long without asking him because I was terrified this would be his answer?

“It really wasn’t my jurisdiction, but the chief was a human who was married to a vampire who thought I could possibly help,” he says.

I freeze before slowly looking over at him. “Help?”

“Yeah. I mean… at that point in time, I was kind of wandering a bit before settling here, so I didn’t really do much with the police, but he wanted to know if I could figure out anything he might have missed.”

My world is crashing around me, and I can’t seem to comprehend a single thing he’s saying. “Were you involved in their deaths ?”

Ezio’s expression shifts. “What are you talking about? Wait… You thought… You know me as well as you do, and you thought I was off killing your family? Fucking hell, Cyrus. Is it wrong for me to feel a bit upset that you think I had a hand in the death of your family? I would never hurt you. I would never hurt anyone who loves you. I’m not a monster.

I’m a fucking killer… but I never wanted to be.

And even after over two hundred years, one of the people I care about the most still suspects that I could be a monster.

Fuck… I’m sorry. It’s wrong of me to get upset.

I apologize. I’m sorry about your family. ”

He pushes open the car door before I can say anything else and disappears into the night.

Fucking hell.

But he’s right, isn’t he? There was some rumor he was involved, and I was so convinced that it meant he was involved in their deaths that I never even realized they could have meant that he was involved in their case .

I just hated vampires so fucking much it never dawned on me that one could be helping me.

They were monsters. They ripped my family apart.

They destroyed my life. They nearly killed me.

How could one of them be good? How could one want to help me?

But now that I know Ezio—now that I know that not all vampires are monsters, that there is good in them—do I really see Ezio out there killing my family?

Fuck.

What the hell is wrong with me? Why can’t I just believe someone cares about me without some ulterior motive?

Why do I have to question everything he does, even though he’s shown me again and again that he’s nothing like the man who slaughtered my family?

Why do I have such horrible distrust in vampires?

Yes, one destroyed my life, but does that make them all bad?

They just make me feel so fucking vulnerable.

They make me realize how little control I have over my own life.

But why the fuck did it take until this moment to realize that?

I’m a fucking detective. I don’t assume all humans are bad when one kills.

I’ve literally watched Julian stand at the front of the room and preach this, and isn’t he living proof?

Vampires tried killing him and still he chose to love one.

Ezio was upset and quiet because he was feeling bad for me . And I was over here convinced he was feeling guilt for what he’d done to me.

My stomach aches as I lean over and grab it. I just don’t know what to do. I don’t know what I’m doing.

Quickly, I try calling him but the phone goes right to voicemail.

“Ezio, please, I’m sorry. I just… was confused.

And someone told me you were involved and…

it’s fucked up that I assumed they meant you were involved in their deaths and not the case, but I didn’t know you at that time. I want to talk. Please call me back.”

I send him a text that begs him to call me back. Then I decide I’ll go to Casimir’s where Ezio will have likely gone. I start the car and glance into the rearview mirror before freezing.

I saw something… didn’t I? I saw something in the darkness.

Chills creep up my back when I twist in my seat to look, but the darkness stretching out behind the car is impenetrable.

I’m not even convinced something was there to begin with. It’s probably my useless mind making up shit in my vulnerable state. Backing the car out of the parking spot, I head for Casimir’s as that weird feeling makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up.

I decide to call Joaquin; otherwise, I’m confident I’m going to get lost in my fears.

“Hold on, hold on. Can you hold on a second? We’ve almost beaten this boss. You know, SweetBabeBoobs6969 and me,” he says in a teasing voice.

“Yeah,” I respond.

“Fuck. Ha ha… beat it. We’re the best. I don’t care if she’s got man boobs and not woman boobs. We’re pretty damn good… Cyrus, you there?”

“Yeah.”

“Hey… did something happen? You should have told me something happened.”

“No. I’m just… in my head. Fucking up with flair. I asked Ezio about his involvement. And then we got interrupted and the look on his face… I was convinced he was involved, and here he was helping the fucking cop on the case.”

“No shit? What did he say? Does he know anything that never got released to the public? They were extremely vague with you. Very dismissive. Like they thought that they’d just sweep it all under the rug because of the vampire involvement.

They just wanted to keep it from spreading that something like that happened.

It would raise questions… but we just wanted answers. ”

“Uh… I didn’t quite get to ask him those questions. He was… a bit upset that I thought so little of him that I assumed he’d do something like that.”

Joaquin is quiet for a moment. “I mean, did you explain to him that’s what we heard? Isn’t that the way Donovan made it sound? Of course, he also admitted to knowing very little.”

“I know, but you don’t know Ezio like I do.

You don’t know how clear it is that he’d never just go slaughter a whole family.

And I really didn’t think he was the one who did it.

It was more like… I had this idea that he was involved in some other way.

Fuck if I know. It’s really fucking stupid to even think that, isn’t it? ”

“I’m sorry. And I really haven’t been taking this as seriously as I should. What if we go talk to Donovan tomorrow?”

“Sure. I wanted to ask him about some other stuff as well pertaining to this case.”

“Alright. Sounds like a plan.”

I pull into Casimir’s driveway, so I hang up with Joaquin and hurry up to the front door. I knock once, even though they’ve told me to let myself in without any need to knock since Casimir can hear who it is before I even reach the porch.

I push the door open, hoping this means that Ezio hasn’t run because he’s already heard me.

“What do you think?” Yorick asks as soon as I walk in. He’s got an extremely well-done outline of a hand with a middle finger pointing up that he seems ecstatic to show me.

“I didn’t know you were actually really good at art,” I say.

“Thanks. I know. I’m good at everything I put my mind to.”

“Especially lying,” Julian says.

“Fine, fine, Julian drew it for me to paint on. It’s because my last attempt at a hand was called ‘Creepy as fuck’ by Casimir.”

“I’ve seen Casimir draw a dick and I have to agree… your hand was creepier,” Julian says.

“Is Ezio here?” I ask.

Julian glances over at me. “No, he’s not with you?”

“I said something shitty to him and he left.”

“He left?” Casimir asks as Gustov prances at my feet, asking for attention. “We’re talking about Ezio, right? The guy who literally puts up with anything you do or say.”

“Casimir,” Julian warns.

But boy, does that fucking hit me. “I know I’m an asshole. I never asked to be involved with any of this. I never?—”

“Stop,” Julian says as he rushes up. “You seem to think that making yourself feel like shit is going to fix this. It’s not.

You’re not a bad person. Have you been a bit closed off at times?

Maybe. But all of us, Ezio included, can tell that you really care about us.

To me, it reads more like you’re trying to keep us at arm’s length because of reasons you haven’t yet disclosed.

And that’s okay. It’s okay to have those feelings.

Can you explain what happened with Ezio? ”

“A while back, before I even knew Ezio, I… received some information that he played some part in the death of my family. I was… you have to fucking understand that vampires destroyed my life. I was convinced that he was just another monster, and my mind thought that what they meant by ‘involved’ was that he was involved in the murder… not the case. I fucked up. He got really upset, said stuff about how he’s a monster no matter what he does, and I just…

do you know where I can find him? I assumed he’d come here. ”

“He might have gone home,” Casimir says.

“Ezio would never have been involved with killing your family. He can fight and he can kill, but I can tell you that he does not handle it well. It’s been a long time since killing bothered me, but Ezio…

I don’t know that he’s ever handled killing someone well.

He never chooses to do it. To my understanding, he was in the army and used to assassinate people.

He hated it immensely, even though they weren’t good people.

There’s no way he was involved in the death of an innocent family… especially yours.”

“Why especially mine?” I ask.

Everyone refuses to answer that question, but I do notice the way they look away from me.

“Try his house, and if we see him, I’ll let you know,” Julian says.