Page 10 of A Taste Of Darkness

I thought said killer didn’t just target one niche, and if he did, eventually he’d get bored and target another one. But he never did.

Then two years ago, when my sister just learned she was supposed to marry Kai, I met Milo for the first time. He was surprisingly open about his life. About what he did.

It turned out, the man I’d feared for so long was a random rich guy who owned a club. Not just any rich man, one of the richest men in Canada.

That day, he confirmed that he’d never harm innocent people, only those who harmed others. His main target was rapists, but that didn’t stop him from killing those who murdered and faced barely any consequences as well.

He wanted justice for those who deserved it but didn’t get it. Milo put his own safety, his own life on the line just to rectify something the juristic field messed up.

So, yes, his work was admirable.

“You know what’s also admirable?” I asked and smiled at him. “Letting your best friend’s sister stay with you for the night when she’s a complete stranger to you.”

5

TENANTS AND LANDLORDS

Milo Marucci

“I’ve always wanted to sleep underneath the stars,” she told me. “Like, outside, somewhere on a field. Not like camping or something boring, you know? On a soccer field, for instance. That’d be cool.”

“A soccer field?”

She hummed a confirmation.

While Sterlie was too busy watching her dog play with the pool water, making sure Soup didn’t fall into the pool, I was plenty distracted watching her. How she lay there on one of my lounge chairs, soaking up the moonlight.

The moonlight illuminated her skin and cast shadows to draw attention elsewhere, but mine lay on all of her. Shadows and highlights.

She’d been the most beautiful person I’d ever seen. If someone asked me to give them a definition of perfection, I’d show them Sterlie.

“Do your neighbors hate you?” she asked. “I feel like they hate you.” Her head suddenly whipped around. She reached for her glass of pink lemonade on the accent table beside her, then sat up to take a sip. “So?”

Right, she asked a question. “Uh, I don’t think they do.”

“I would,” she admitted, brushing her long hair behind her shoulders. “If I lived in this building and there was only one person who had a pool on their terrace, I’d be furious. So, yeah, I’d hate that lucky person.”

“I’m the only one with a terrace, too,” I said. “The tenants only have semi-big balconies.”

“One more reason to hate you.” Sterlie set her glass back down, then stretched. Her shirt rode up to the middle of her waist, exposing her skin more than before.

She’d taken off her skirt an hour ago, said it was a crime to sit by a pool in more than a bathing suit and maybe a long shirt for a little cover-up. I didn’t mind, though she did almost send me into cardiac arrest when I had to realize that her idea of a bathing suit was her lacy underwear.

Granted, she didn’t have any other clothes here other than the ones she came with, but I didn’t consider that before she asked if it was okay with me if she lay here half-naked.

It was my luck that it was nighttime and the sun was far gone. If she’d been trying to sunbathe in just her underwear, I would’ve died on the spot.

I’d seen more of Sterlie in the past couple of hours than I had in the past eleven years.

“Do you think this building has an apartment up for rental? Maybe I could move in. This building seems so much more protected than the building I currently live in,” she said, then immediately shook her head. “No, wait, don’t answer that. You probably think I’m weird for even considering this.”

God, she was absolutely adorable.

“There are no empty apartments here, unfortunately.”

Sterlie turned to look at me and eyebrows dipped into a frown. “How do you know?” She gasped out loud. “Oh, my God! No, you know everyone who lives here, am I right? That’s why they don’t envy you. It’s because you’re totally friends with everyone here.”

“Not quite.” I didn’t have any friends other than Flora. For some unknown reason, she was the only one who’d won my trust. “I own the building, cuore mio.”

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