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The pieces flew everywhere, all over the floor, and scattered. I didn’t bother to watch them roll before I was in this old fuck’s face.
“I don’t want anything to do with you,” I said calmly, strategically. Grandfather hadn’t moved an inch, only watching me. He appeared nothing if not intrigued by my rant, and that only made me want to punch his old ass more. “I never did. This was a lie.”
His blink was rather slow. “A lie?”
“Yes.” I pushed off the table. “I used your ass, old man. I did, and now that I got what I needed regarding my uncle, I don’t want anything to do with you.”
I watched the words play on my grandfather’s face. His poker face was a good one. I couldn’t tell if anything I said meant anything to him.
At least, at first.
Sitting up, he tapped the chess-free table. He nodded. “I know.”
“You know?”
He nodded again. “I know you haven’t been coming here because you particularly liked me, son—”
My teeth gnashed.
His head bobbed once more. “Dorian. I know you don’t want to be here and only came here because you did need help with your little problem.”
My heart raced, my vision red. He called my uncle’s death a little problem, and it was only the man my mother raised who kept me from punching a seventy-year-old man.
My nails dug into my palms, probably enough to draw blood, but it was all I could do in order to stand there when my grandfather got up.
He placed his back to me, going to the roaring fireplace. He took the poker, tending to the fire.
“You needed me for something,” he said, tossing the embers. “You did, and it brought you to me. I didn’t care your reason. It brought you here. Got you to get to know me.”
“I don’t want to fucking know you.” My fists unclenched, and only then did he turn around. He had his cigar still in his hand, puffing out thick smoke.
“I think you know more about me than you think,” he said, studying my hands clenching and unclenching. Thick smoke clouded around him. “We had a mutual exchange, and I forgive you for taking advantage of the situation.”
I smirked again, coming over. I shot a finger in his direction. “This ends today. I won’t be coming up here anymore. Playing chess or smelling your funky-as-shit-smelling cigars.”
To prove that, I took it from him. I broke it in two, then tossed it into the fire, the thing going up in flames.
Grandfather did nothing. He said nothing when I got in his face again.
“I hated you from the moment I found out you existed,” I said, my throat working. “You’re a monster and an abuser. The only thing keeping you from the title murderer is because you didn’t technically kill my aunt Paige.” He’d covered it up, which was as good as him being one as far as I was concerned. “You stay away from me, and you stay away from my family.”
Grandfather studied me as if I was a child, and he was merely entertaining my presence. Without missing a beat, he pulled another cigar out of his jacket.
He lit it up in my face.
“Now that you’ve proposed your terms, I’ll state mine,” he said, blowing smoke in my face now. He smiled like an arrogant fuck. “Only fair, correct?”
What the fuck did I give about being fair when it came to him? Even still, he continued on, placing his back to me again. He walked over to the window our chess set had faced, a perfect view of his gardens and fountains. In fact, it looked so much like our property back home in the backyard it made me sick.
What he had out here was about three times larger. Like he was trying to outdo my father’s childhood home and the gardens my biological grandmother planted. Grandpa Prinze soiled her name with this whole phony-ass display.
Probably on purpose.
“You know, you’re so much more like me than he ever was,” Grandfather said. He grinned. “Your father? What you call abuse, I call toughening him up, making him a man.”
I saw red, seething, shaking. I almost couldn’t see through the haze of red.
He faced me. “I’m sure he never used my tactics, but you still managed to be stronger than he ever was.”
