Page 87 of A Taste Of Darkness

Honestly, I didn’t want to speak as I was a little afraid that they’d recognize my voice, but I was physically incapable of ignoring Sterlie’s discomfort.

I turned her to face me and cradled her beautiful face with my hands. “What’s up?”

Tears pooled in her blue eyes, rimmed with redness. She shook her head and kept quiet.

“Do you remember anything?”

She nodded, then shook her head once more just to look at my cousin again, who then realized he actually heard someone speak so he looked up.

He looked at Sterlie first, his forehead creased with something disregarding. He didn’t remember her, and why would he? He was only ten.

But then his gaze fell on me, and his eyes widened instantly with recognition. The sound of his phone dropping onto the counter merged with the sound of his gasp.

“Che c’è, non riesci nemmeno a reggere il telefono in mano?” [What? You can’t even hold your phone in your hand?] Davide, the other cousin present said, laughing at his brother.

“Stai zitto.” [Shut up] Matteo looked from me to his brother, who was just as engrossed in his phone as Matteo had been a second prior.

“Oh, ti faro zittire io per l’eternità se emetti anche solo un altro suono,” [Oh, I’ll make you shut up for all of eternity if you make one more sound] Davide replied.

“Davide!” my aunt called, to which he groaned and got up. He kept his eyes on his phone, and he walked away.

The moment one cousin was gone, Matteo looked back to make sure nobody could hear us. “How… what?”

Matteo was probably one of the less dangerous people in my family. His mother hated violence, and that was exactly what she taught her youngest of three kids—violence was no answer. It came in handy for once.

Sterlie moved closer to me, fear radiating off her and I wanted nothing more than to throw her over my shoulder and get her out of here.

“I thought you died?” Matteo looked at Sterlie again, and I suppose a lightbulb finally went off in his head because he looked almost afraid now. “That’s… the girl you—Are you crazy?! If Mamma sees her and recognizes her… she’ll be dead!”

“What’s he saying?” Sterlie asked, keeping her voice low.

Right, she didn’t understand Italian. Didn’t know how that slipped my mind.

“Nothing important, my love,” I replied. It wasn’t important because even if my aunt suddenly found her evil bone, nothing would’ve ever happened to Sterlie. Not as long as I was still alive.

Matteo switched to English. “Did you run away to marry her?”

Suddenly, I wished he just either kept his mouth shut altogether or at least didn’t know a single English word. He could’ve said everything… everything but that.

I didn’t reply, and neither did Sterlie, who, luckily, was a little too anxious to find any of this funny.

“Oh, my God. Luca, you do realize I’ll have to say something, right?” Matteo pushed a hand through his hair. “If any of them watch the security tapes and find out I knew, I?—”

“I know,” I said. Actually, I didn’t think of that before he just mentioned it, but it made sense. However, I was sure I could work with that. “Did they ever repair the camera system?”

He shook his head. “I don’t think so, why?”

I nodded once. Thank fuck nobody in my family really cared about this place. We only had it to punish those who misbehaved by having to work here. So repairing the security camera’s speaker system wasn’t important.

Which meant whatever I said, even when they watched the tapes, they couldn’t hear.

“Matteo, I need you to tell me everything you know. And I need you to find out if anyone else knows that I’m still alive. Arlo is?—”

“ARLO KNEW?!” He slapped a hand to his mouth, looking back at the open door that led to the backrooms. “You let us believe you were dead, Luca. What makes you think I’m going to help you with whatever you’re plotting now?”

I cocked my head at him. He definitely grew up. Seven years ago, he wouldn’t even have questioned me, wouldn’t have dared to.

“As I told Alessandro the other day, my dad never renounced my title. That means I’m still the one you answer to.” Even if I wasn’t sure that was actually true, it worked on my brother, so why wouldn’t it have worked on my cousin?

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