Page 70 of His Little Secret in Discretion
Keeping the peace with Killian bought me time. Nothing more. I paced the room once, twice, the note burning in my palm. My chest ached like my ribs could barely cage it in, and the only thing I could think of over and over was,She’s mine.
It also bought my little Sunshine a little time to come to her senses. Because when I found her… I wasn’t asking. I wasn’t begging. And I sure as fuck wasn’t coming back home empty-handed.
Chapter twenty-six
Maia
The door groaned on its hinges as I shouldered it open, balancing a grocery bag against my hip while Uncle Wes came in behind me. He was lighter on his feet these days, skin pale from too many nights under hospital fluorescents, and still reeked faintly of cheap cologne and the same soap he had always used ever since I was a kid.
It had been three weeks since I’d left Blaine’s penthouse. Three weeks of forcing myself not to look at his name in my phone.
I told myself I was busy. That someone would call me back for the jobs I’d applied for recently. That busying my mind at the dance studio morning to night would serve me better than think about him over and over. But every time I stopped, even for a moment, it was there… the hollow feeling in my chest where he used to be, the gnawing reminder that I had walked away from the only person who had ever made me feel seen.
God, I sounded so pathetic. So naive to think any of it meant something. Even if it did… it couldn’t amount to much more than this.
Uncle Wes set his bag down with a sigh, shaking me from my thoughts. He took mine before I could protest, setting it gently on the counter.
“You sure about this, kid?” he asked, voice careful. “I don’t want to be in your way. You’ve already done too much.”
“It’s just for the weekend,” I said, forcing steadiness into my tone as I started pulling items from the bag. “Get you out of that place for a little while. Fresh air. Normal food.”
His mouth tugged into a small smile as he gazed around my apartment, which barely even had any windows or adequate circulation in spite of my frequent candle-lighting. “Fresh air, huh?”
That earned him a quiet laugh from me, one I hadn’t felt in a while. “Better than hospital walls.”
He lowered himself onto the couch with a grunt, hands resting on his knees. His eyes followed me as I unpacked the bag—cans, a loaf of bread, cheap coffee… It wasn’t much, but it was what I could manage to hold him over for the weekend. Truthfully, it was all I could manage, period. Rent was due soon, and the stack of rejection emails sat like a weight in the back of my mind.
But I smiled anyway. Because that was easier than admitting I was drowning.
The apartment was too quiet when I pushed the door open.
My uncle’s bag was still propped by the door, his jacket slung over the arm of the couch. For a second, I thought maybe he was napping, that I’d find him passed out with the TV humming just like old times. But the air in the apartment felt empty, like he’d stepped out some time ago.
I stepped farther in and froze. My mail sat on the counter, splayed out in a messy fan I didn’t leave it in. Rent notices, past dues, all the little failures I usually shoved out of sight. And in the middle of them, like a knife in my gut, was a familiar piece of paper: the note I’d buried somewhere deep in my mind. My feet moved before my brain could catch up as I snatched the note from the counter.
I thought I’d shoved that note out of my life when I hid the cash, when I tried to forget and hideall of it—but it was sitting there, plain as day.
He was looking. He knew what happened.
Which meant—
I spun toward the bedroom. Drawers cracked open. Shoes Blaine had bought me shifted, tissue paper torn. He’d gone through everything. Searching.
My throat closed as I stumbled into the kitchen. My eyes finally registered how he’d left it. The cupboards were left just a little ajar, but not as noticeable as my room. Regardless, I dropped to my knees in front of the sink, already knowing the truth before I pulled the door open. The busted blender. The box of expired pasta. Both shoved aside. And behind them… the space was empty.
Gone.
The cash. My one terrible, desperate safety net that Felix had “gifted.”
My hand braced against the cabinet wall as the room tilted. “No, no, no…” The whisper escaped me before I could stop it.
This is my fault.
He must’ve seen the note. Must’ve known exactly why I’d kept it from him. Must’ve gone searching for it in the hopes I’d kept it for whatever reason. And now… he was gone.
My chest caved in.This is my fault.If I’d burned the note like I should have, if I’d never hidden the money, if I’d told himeverything instead of keeping it a secret, hiding it like a coward… maybe he wouldn’t have slipped. Maybe he wouldn’t have gone back—
The thought cut sharply in my mind as the spiraling thoughts silenced. My tears had slowed for the split second, and something inside me snapped.
