Page 119 of A Taste Of Darkness

My jaw ticked with anger. “Yeah, I got that.”

“Great.” He ripped his phone away from me. For a split second, I thought he was going to beat me up, which I would’ve deserved, but he just stepped away from me again. “Then do something about it, Marucci.”

As if I hadn’t been trying. “Can I go see her now?”

Kai shook his head almost immediately. “Sterlie is safe there. I have a bunch of people at the hospital to watch her. She knows you won’t come, and she believes it’s better that way. Sterlie needs to rest. And if you go to the hospital, that woman from your family will know she didn’t succeed in killing Sterlie, and she’ll try again.”

I suppose that made sense… in a way. It felt awful though. All I wanted was to go find Sterlie and hold her in my arms until she was okay again. But deep down, even I knew that I had to get rid of Adriana first.

62

WELCOME BACK

Sterlie Adams

I wanted to get out of here, but I didn’t know how to.

More importantly, I wanted to steal one of Kai’s guys’ phones to call Milo. I wanted to tell him that I missed him and that I wanted him with me even if I knew it would’ve been the worst idea ever.

He was probably beating himself up over what happened, and I couldn’t even be sure Kai told him the whole truth. Lord knew Kai would make stuff up to mess with Milo. For once, I could only hope Kai did the right thing, despite Milo and his differences.

Then again, Kai didn’t even tell me the truth.

While I was lucky enough that I only had mild carbon monoxide poisoning and I could probably go back home—or Milo’s penthouse for that matter—in an hour or two, and breathe some more fresh air, Kai still insisted the doctors kept me here for observation. I didn’t know someone could insist on a hospital stay.

Flora sat on the bed next to me, painting my nails, pretending I wasn’t worried about my boyfriend.

Kai never elaborated on why his security was surrounding me. All he said was that they’d be watching me until I could go back home. Since his security was a requirement, I had a strong feeling that the carbon monoxide outburst in my apartment wasn’t a coincidence.

“What a great way to be welcomed back, eh?” Flora said. She concentrated on my nails, not bothering to look at me. She probably knew more than she led on, but I was too tired to fight her for answers.

My eyes rolled. “Yes, I’m delighted.” Who wouldn’t want to come back home after a couple of months, only to end up in the hospital the same night? “Flora?”

“Yes?” She looked up, smiling softly.

“Did you ever encourage Milo to get close to me?” I asked. I’d been wondering for a while, but I never dared to ask.

Milo loved me, I knew that, but if he only took steps toward me because Flora made him, then I wanted to know. I had the right to know.

Would I still feel the same way about him if it turned out that my sister made Milo and me happen?

“Encourage?” She chuckled. “I mean, I told him it wasn’t fair of him to not give you a chance of getting to know him, because, who knew? Maybe you two were soul mates or something and he was robbing you of the opportunity to figure that out by avoiding you. But that was two years ago, and I didn’t hold a knife to his throat or anything.”

A lazy smile crept onto my face at the thought of that. I knew Milo liked me for a while, but I never imagined he ever admitted that to my sister before.

“Do you think he would’ve ever tried to get to know me if it wasn’t for his family?”

Flora closed the nail polish, taking her sweet time to reply. “Honestly, I doubt it.” She took my hand, careful not to smudge the nail polish. “You know he’s loved you since… I don’t think anyone knows.”

She was wrong. I knew since when he loved me. I knew many things about Milo that my sister never would.

For once, I wasn’t the one who was left out of secrets—it was her, and I’d never been happier in my life.

Perhaps it was wrong of me to feel that way, but I couldn’t help it. I loved Flora, but having lived my whole life as her shadow just wasn’t cutting it anymore.

I was my own person. I didn’t need my older sister to protect me. I could take care of myself, and I deserved to be taken seriously. I wasn’t her right-hand man; I was my own.

And while secrets were hardly as valuable as the family decisions I was left out of because I’d been too naïve, it was a victory in my book. After all, Milo was her best friend, and yet he trusted me more than he did her.

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