Page 15 of High Stakes and Soulmates (Fanged Mistakes #3)

EZIO

Seriously? I just ran away like a fucking teenager?

I sigh when I flop down on my bed and decide that if I’m going to cry like a teenager, I might as well pout like one too. And take a fucking nap like one while I’m at it.

I pull my pillow over my head as I wallow in my misery before realizing that I really want to go apologize to Cyrus.

He was over there grieving his family, and I had a fucking pity party because some information he got led him to the wrong conclusion? It’s not even like he came to it himself. Who knows if someone was trying to set me up.

What a shitty reaction.

I groan and rub my head before pushing myself up to my feet. I really do need to apologize. He said he misunderstood, so I can’t blame him for doing that, can I? I’m sure I’ve misunderstood shit in the past. I was just taking my own insecurities and letting myself get upset over them.

I hurry into the kitchen to find my phone so I can see if he’s gone to Casimir’s. Maybe I can meet him there?

But before I can even grab it, I hear footsteps leading up to the door. Rushing over to it, I yank it open before Cyrus can even complete his knock. He’s standing there, hand raised, looking a bit startled by the force I’ve used to open my front door.

“I’m so sorry,” I say. “I’m really sorry.”

Cyrus looks surprised. Maybe I should grovel more? Because I will. I’ll do whatever it takes to get him to forgive me.

“What the fuck are you sorry about?” he asks, voice full of disbelief.

“Why do you let me stomp all over you and you just forgive me constantly? I’m a shitty-ass person.

I feel like I’m going through life in this fucking tunnel of depression, and like…

I’m trying to protect myself from caring about you and keeping you from liking me by being shitty to you, and you just forgive me constantly. ”

“You’re not shitty to me.”

“I’m definitely not the person I want to be.

But I feel like my whole world is constantly spinning out of control.

I got so fixated on figuring out who killed my family that I let it consume me.

And like… I see others moving on, other…

family members just… moving forward, and I’m still stuck back there.

I’m stuck and sometimes I think it’s because I barely remember my parents.

I was… the vampire threw me so hard that the damage to my head fucked with me.

I only remember pieces of the life I lived.

It’ll just be random things like my mother taking me out into a field of flowers.

My brother and I making these stupid little dolls…

and these games we played. But it’s like this monster wasn’t happy merely taking my family, he wanted to take all of me.

I miss those moments with my family. I miss our dinners.

The games we played. The holidays. I miss my family, and he took them all from me. ”

“They thought you were never going to wake up,” I say. “I don’t think anyone thought you were going to live and yet… you pulled through.”

“I did, but my life was in fucking shambles. Everyone I loved was just… gone. That man took it, but why? Why my family?”

“I don’t know,” I admit. “I wish I knew. Trust me, I tried to figure out who did it. I searched for a long while, but there was absolutely nothing that stood out about why your family was targeted. Do you know?”

“There were… rumors that the killer was after my brother Joaquin.”

“Why? He seemed like a normal kid. He was working on his doctorate and visiting home, right? Why him?”

“I don’t know… I’ve spent four years not knowing.”

“If this has been eating at you so much, why didn’t you ever ask us for help? I never brought it up because I didn’t want to dig up bad memories for you. But if you’ve been dragging this after you everywhere you went, why not tell us?”

“Because I didn’t trust either of you. I didn’t trust any vampires or weres or anything.

And then Julian came into my life and you guys started drawing me into it.

And still… I was obsessed with this idea that I couldn’t trust anyone.

I wanted to make myself the bad guy so I couldn’t ever make the mistake of opening up to someone I could lose. ”

“I know how that feels,” I say. “I know what it’s like to have your whole world torn apart. I know you said I shouldn’t apologize, but I still feel sorry for what I said. I was taking my own frustrations and my own thoughts about myself out on you. For that, I really am sorry.”

“Please don’t. You’re right. I was looking for an excuse to keep you at a distance.

Of course I didn’t know what kind of person you were when I met you, but I do now.

And I know that you would never kill my family for some fucked-up reason.

In the back of my mind, I knew that. Why the hell else would I even let you into my life?

But still, I said some hurtful things. And I’m sorry. ”

“It’s okay. I’m sorry that I never told you that I knew about your family.

That wasn’t very fair of me either. I just…

I didn’t know how to bring it up. Or if you never wanted me to ever bring it up.

And since we’re just laying it all out there, the reason I knew about you…

is because I’d checked in on your family here and there throughout the years.

Not to the extent that I really knew any of you or conversed with you, but just like a ‘How are they doing?’ kind of thing.

I was… very close to a man in your family about two hundred years ago. ”

Cyrus gives me a confused look. “What do you mean?”

Fuck. I really didn’t even want to tell him.

I feel like he’s going to assume my interest in him ties back to Arturo.

And it’ll just be another reason to think I’m shitty.

But I know it’s better to get it out there now while we’re being honest. Now, when he might still be able to forgive me for not being honest from the beginning.

“You just going to stand in silence and awkwardly stare at me?” Cyrus asks.

I shrug. “That’s the plan. Is it working?”

“Did you like have some vendetta against my great-grandfather or something?”

“Ha ha… no. I did not. I simply fell in love with your great- great … uh… a few more greats-uncle. Ha ha…”

“Excuse me, what?” Cyrus asks as his eyebrows shoot up like he’s doing his best to comprehend this. “You’ve just been keeping this little tidbit to yourself?”

“I didn’t want you thinking the reason I liked you was because of him. You are literally nothing like him. He was all bubbly and like, ‘Ezio, you are so sweet and funny and handsome. And oh my gosh, you are just delightful .’ And you’re all, ‘If you live… I will speak to you.’”

Cyrus cracks a smile. “I’m not that evil. I very much care if you live. I’m just… in shock that you’re simply moving down the family line.”

I try not to laugh. “I’m not moving down the family line!

If I was, do you think I’d have waited hundreds of years to snag someone else from the line?

Instead, I picked the most stubborn one to like.

I really do like you, Cyrus. And I understand you don’t overly like me, which is fine.

But just… don’t think I’m over here killing people, either.

I… had to do shit in my past that I’m not proud of.

I was told again and again that they were bad people, that we were saving others from a horrible fate, but it was really hard for me to kill them no matter who they were. ”

“I didn’t know you were much of a fighter,” Cyrus says.

“The type of killing I did was more along the lines of assassinations than fighting like Casimir does.”

Cyrus’s eyebrow quirks. “I… see that even less.”

I can’t help but give him a short laugh. “Right?”

“So you were in the army?”

“I was.”

“How did you meet this… ancestor of mine?”

“Do you want to sit down or keep standing in the foyer? It’s not the shortest of stories if you’d like to know how I met him.”

He shrugs. “Yeah, I could sit.”

“Are you hungry? I have food here for when Julian stops by.”

“No, no, that’s okay.”

“You sure? You ate dinner?”

Cyrus kicks his shoes off before sliding them into the corner and I have this weird mental image of him kicking his shoes off every day when he gets off work. How nice would that be?

“Define dinner,” he says.

I give him a look and hurry into the kitchen, thrilled he’s here. Thrilled he doesn’t hate me. I will cook him a fifteen-course meal if he’ll stay. Sadly, I don’t have fifteen courses.

“I have some pancake mix and eggs? I try to keep stuff that doesn’t spoil quickly. So I really don’t have much.”

“That’s fine. I’ll make it.”

“NO! No, I can make it. I’ll make it. Have a seat.”

“You really don’t have to cater to me like this.”

“I have to show off my housekeeping skills. Feel free to look at the beautiful vacuum marks in my carpet. Look at those vacuum lines. Don’t you wish you had lines like that in your carpet? Because I can come vacuum your whole house.”

Cyrus seems amused by this. “So… you’ll just come over and clean my house just for fun?”

“I never said it’d be fun, but it’d be clean. I can wear a little apron if you like. Clothes under it can be optional.”

“You’re ridiculous. Stop being so damn nice. You’re a vampire. Act evil.”

“Ha. I tried acting like Casimir when dealing with Zach. Weirdly, I couldn’t pull it off.”

“He really is a nice guy if you’re interested in him.”

I hesitate as that sentence sinks in. “So that means you’re one hundred percent not interested in me?

” I ask, feeling quite disappointed. “That’s fine.

You don’t actually have to answer that. That wasn’t a real question.

That was just like a… joke question. How many pancakes do you want? I’ll make you like ten.”

“I never said that,” he says, voice quiet.

“That you want ten? Fifteen, then.”