Page 47 of High Stakes and Soulmates (Fanged Mistakes #3)

EZIO

Of course he’d try to ruin Cyrus’s life. Of course he’d latch on to him and fuck with him until he has no idea what’s happening. It was much like how he’d turned me just so he could continue to torture me for years longer than my human lifespan would have allowed.

Cyrus looks like his world is crashing around him as I try to understand how Louis has literally taken the place of his brother…

but his brother is alive; I saw him… was Louis keeping him away and using Cyrus’s confused state of mind after the attack to pretend to be his brother?

How much of Cyrus’s past does he really not remember that Louis was able to do this?

Did he manipulate the memories he did have?

“Please,” I beg, hating the way his hands wrap around Cyrus, like he’s claiming him for himself.

“It’s been hundreds of years but we’re right back to the very same fucking spot, aren’t we?” Louis asks with a grin. “You trying so hard to save the life of another, and me about ready to show you that you will never have anything to love ever again.”

“Why do you hate me so fucking much?”

“At first it was because Arturo was mine. I owned him, and then you came along, and I hated the way his eyes were constantly on you. You threatened to take him from me and made me out to be a fool when I heard whispered words of him trying to figure out how to leave. There really wasn’t even anything special about you, so why would he even dream of leaving?

Ezio, I do not like to share. Once I own something, it’s mine until the day it dies.

And now? Now, it’s because I’m fucking bored after having been alive for hundreds of years with nothing to do, and fucking with you and him has been quite fun.

He just loves me, don’t you?” Louis asks Cyrus.

Cyrus shakes his head like he’s still fighting to understand any of this. “But you’re my brother. I remember you. I fucking remember you!”

“He’s so confused. But that’s okay,” Louis says with a laugh. “It made it really fucking easy to manipulate him. He was horribly alone and devastated. He just wanted someone to show him an ounce of kindness, and the moment I did, he latched on to me.”

“Cyrus, your brother is still alive. But this man isn’t him. He’s been keeping your brother from you.”

Louis cocks his head. “Cyrus’s brother? I killed him… ohhhhh, you mean him . Ah right, right. You know I made him into a vampire to keep you happy,” he says to Cyrus. “But he’s so fucking annoying. How can you even like him?”

Cyrus tries jerking away, but Louis is too strong, and he simply shoves him down to his knees.

“Here’s the thing, Ezio. I’ve had a lot of fun with all of this. Even waited years until you two fell in love. But now… I have such a hard decision. Which of you two do I kill? I love ruining your life, Ezio, but I also love my sweet little brother.”

“Kill me,” I beg. “Please. Just let him go.”

Cyrus looks at me in shock. “Ezio, no!”

“Your groveling annoys me, but maybe it annoys me enough to kill you. I suppose I’ve grown tired of you. Go ahead. Get on your knees. Drop that tiny little knife and get on your knees,” Louis says.

I drop the knife and hit down on my knees as Cyrus looks horrified. “NO! No, no, please! Please don’t hurt him. Please. I’m begging you. All of that… everything can’t be a lie, right? If you actually cared about me, you wouldn’t hurt him.”

“That’s the problem, isn’t it? I cared about you too much, and all you do is leave me again and again. It doesn’t even matter how many times we try this.”

Louis throws Cyrus to the ground before appearing behind me. I don’t move as he grabs my hair.

“If I let you kill me, how will I know you’ll keep your promise?” I ask.

“That’s the funny thing. You won’t,” he says before leaning down to me.

“Please!” Cyrus begs.

“Stay where you are or I’ll kill him,” Louis snarls, and Cyrus stumbles to a stop.

Louis tips my head back, displaying my throat.

“What drew you to him? After hundreds of years, what made you decide Cyrus was the one you loved? I’ve watched you, Ezio.

I’ve watched you for years, hoping you’d fall in love with another so I could tear you apart, but you waited so long I almost got bored. But Cyrus… you love him, don’t you?”

“I do. I’ll do whatever it takes to make sure he’s safe.”

“Why him? I want to hear what makes him worth dying for.”

“He makes me feel like I’m someone worth loving.”

“That’s so sweet!” Louis says with a mocking tone.

“But do you love him more than you loved Arturo? You left him that day; you left Arturo who you loved so much. You hear this, Cyrus? He left the man he loved bleeding and broken. And now he’s moved on!

I didn’t know it was so easy to claim you love someone and then leave them. ”

I shake my head, refusing to believe his words. “You killed him.”

“No, I didn’t. Oh no! Did you think he was dead when you left him? That’s heartbreaking. And he cried for you. I took him back home where he begged for you. He wanted death over living with me, and then eventually, he just stopped. He was a husk of his former self.”

“You lie,” I snarl.

Louis laughs. “I don’t think I do.”

My chest is constricting. “He was dead. I saw him die.”

“And as he fell apart day by day, wanting a man who was never going to return to him, you moved on with your life. How funny.”

“You’re lying. He died on that ship.”

“Oh, you’re right. A huge part of him died that day when the man he loved left him there.”

He’s getting in my head. He’s fucking with me.

I remember that day so vividly. I remember every moment of it better than I remember anything else.

“No, no, you’re lying,” I yell, panic eating at me.

He was cold… he wasn’t breathing. He’d been stabbed through the heart…

but I was in so much pain, I was near death myself. Could I have missed something?

Louis jerks my head back so I’m staring at Cyrus as his lips hover close to my ear. “If he died that day, then who is standing in front of you?”

I feel like he’s punched me in the stomach. “You’re lying.”

“Am I? Do you not even recognize the man you love? Did you even love him at all? I mean… you must not have if you left him in my care for so many years. You abandoned him to the very man he risked his life to flee from.”

“You’re lying, you’re lying. You lying piece of shit.”

Cyrus is just staring at us, unsure of what to do or say.

“He’s not a vampire,” I say.

“Clearly,” Louis agrees.

“He’s a human.”

“That he’s not.”

“He’s lying to you. He’s trying to fuck with you,” Cyrus says. “I’m pretty sure I’d remember if I was Arturo.”

“Would he? He can’t even remember what his brother looked like.

He took whatever memories he has and wrote me into them because I was a familiar face.

Yes, I was there when his family died, but it was because I killed them.

This really couldn’t have worked out any better if I’d planned each step myself.

” Louis laughs as he shoves me to the ground.

“Maybe the reason he doesn’t remember anything is because the tragedy of you leaving him fucked with his mind. ”

I stare at Cyrus while he shakes his head. He looks so much like the man I lost but he’s a blood relative, so I never questioned it. He looks older than Arturo. Arturo was only twenty-four and Cyrus looks like he’s in his thirties. But most of all, Cyrus isn’t a vampire.

“He’s not a vampire.”

“He’s not!”

Is he a werewolf? But even werewolves wouldn’t live that long. They have slightly extended lives, but two hundred years? No…

“Fucking hell, this is delightful. I just…” Louis kicks me so hard I feel ribs break. “I just… love it. I really love it. I love it so much.”

I need to kill him. I need to stop this… but how? He’s faster than me. It’s just the three of us, and if I make a move toward him, he’ll go for Cyrus. I know he will.

“Please, stop hurting him,” Cyrus begs.

“Why? He gave himself to me. He said I could have him. I’m thinking I’m going to tear him apart piece by piece. First, I’ll remove his legs so he can never leave me. So he can watch me destroy your life some more. It’ll be easy. Everyone you love will be dead.”

I can’t fathom a life where I’d left him with this monster all these years. He’s in my head and I feel like he’s tearing it apart.

Louis freezes and the smirk on his face falls as he cocks his head. “Fucking hell,” he snaps, jerking back from me a moment before a pipe slams into the floor near me, embedding into the floor.

Louis snarls, turning to look as Casimir and Atticus step into the room. They look exhausted. They look like they’ve lost too much blood, but they’re here.

I rush forward, grabbing Cyrus who I tear back just as Louis moves. He drives a blade right toward Cyrus, like he wants to recreate the very day I lost Arturo all those years ago, but I turn to protect him, leaving the blade to be driven into my back.

“No! No, no,” Cyrus cries.

I push him away from danger and lift my arm up just as the blade goes for my neck.

He cuts halfway through my arm, striking bone and shattering it as Casimir lunges for him.

He draws back just in time. But Casimir isn’t moving as fast as he normally does.

While Louis’s countless vampires weren’t enough to stop him or Atticus, they obviously wore both of them down.

My arm hangs useless at my side while I hold Cyrus tightly.

“It’s okay. It’ll be okay,” I say, but I don’t even know if I trust my own words.

Louis has done nothing tonight besides taunting us.

He’s fresh and ready to slaughter anyone who gets in his way, and when Atticus makes the slightest fumble, Louis is there to drive a stake into his chest. Casimir slams Atticus back before it kills him, but it puts Casimir in line of Louis’s next attack.

Louis throws his arms up like he can’t believe that we’d even try to fight back. “You all are just dragging this out,” Louis snarls as I see movement behind him. I watch while Cyrus’s real brother, the one I’d run into outside the club, rushes him.

Louis is pissed and the man isn’t moving fast enough to avoid his strike.

Louis nearly cuts his head off before the man reaches him, but it’s the brief moment of distraction that Casimir needs to grab the pipe he’d thrown and drive it through Louis’s back and into his chest. He gasps as he staggers and looks down at the pipe protruding from his chest. It’s almost like he’s shocked more than anything. Shocked that someone finally hit him.

“You… you fucking…”

“Stay back,” I tell Cyrus as I rush to help them, but before we can continue, those who are left of Louis’s children fill in around us.

“Kill them and bring those two to me,” he snarls, and just like that, he breaks through the window and disappears. Of course he’s gone. Of course he’d flee right when the tables begin to turn.

I try to follow him, but the woman who’d been there the night my brother died slams into me. Anger tears through me as I scoop up the knife Cyrus had given me and slit her throat before finishing her off.

It doesn’t take long to kill the vampires who flooded the warehouse—there weren’t many left—but it’s long enough for Louis to get away.