Page 128 of A Taste Of Darkness

“He’s dead because of you!”

“Who’s dead?” Quite a few people actually, but I doubted she was talking about any of the guys in this room or the ones she’d killed.

“My father.” Adriana walked over to the security dashboard, pressing button after button to get the cameras working again.

“How is his death my fault? If neither of you had come for me, uh… Luca wouldn’t have had to kill him.” It was so strange calling him Luca.

“No!” she snapped, groaning. “A long time ago.”

What was she talking about? Didn’t Milo just recently kill their father?

“Why isn’t this working?!” She aimed her gun at one of the screens, shooting. “It’s not working!”

“No, shit. And, FYI, shooting the screen isn’t going to make the cameras work again.” How naïve of me to assume everyone was smart enough to know that.

Obviously, Adriana was getting frustrated with the whole situation. Kai and Milo were in the building, it wasn’t going to be long until they found us and I bet she knew it. She could’ve run or at least tried to harm me while they were looking for us, but she did neither. It was so odd.

She directed her gun toward another screen, ready to shoot when I spoke again.

“Shooting another one of the screens isn’t going to make the cameras work again,” I said, laughing at her in my head. My voice was shaking slightly, but I’d learned to cover up fear when I spoke a while ago. “I assumed you learned the first time you tried, but clearly, you didn’t.”

Adriana glared at me.

Flora stirred next to me, and all of us flinched when the door swung open.

Milo aimed his gun at Adriana, barking out what I assumed were orders in Italian that she appeared to listen to. She dropped her gun without hesitation while Kai rushed over to Flora.

I understood why he was more concerned about Flora than me, but damn, a quick “You okay?” would’ve been nice.

“Darling.” Kai pulled Flora into his lap as he sat down on the cold floor, holding her in his arms as she began to open her eyes.

A moment later, two shots fell, and I watched as Adriana sank down the wall, cursing out words, and gasping in pain. She wasn’t going to die yet, but she also couldn’t run away anymore because Kai shot her in both of her legs.

Milo turned around, glaring at Kai. “That was my job.”

The moment Adriana hit the floor, everything that happened today hit me like a wrecking ball. My shoulders began to shake as tears rolled down my face and I was desperately trying to force air into my lungs between sobs.

Milo was by my side within a second, picking me up and wrapping his arms tightly around my body. I must’ve been covered in blood seeing as I’d been sitting in a puddle of it for the past twenty minutes, but he didn’t care.

“Are you okay?” he asked, stroking a hand through my hair. I felt him press a kiss to the side of my head as I nodded.

“I should’ve stayed with you.”

Milo stood me back down on the floor, but his hands stayed on my body. “No, cuore mio. We couldn’t have known. This isn’t your fault.”

He cradled my face with his hands, sliding his thumbs underneath my eyes to remove my tears.

My eyes fell to the three dead men on the floor. “I killed them.”

Milo followed my gaze, softly bobbing his head. “All three of them?”

“Yup.”

“Fuck, I’m so proud of you,” he said, and I laughed because, in some odd way, it made sense that he’d been proud of me for that. “I was supposed to teach you how to use a knife as a weapon, but you might have to teach me.”

I leaned my head against the front of his shoulder, closing my eyes as I tried my best to stop myself from continuing to laugh. This wasn’t the right time for laughter.

“I’m going to get Flora checked up,” Kai said and laid a hand on my shoulder to get my attention, but he didn’t wait long enough for me to look up and respond before he was already out the door.

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