Page 9 of A Taste Of Darkness

“You can check the label or try them, but I’m being serious.”

“Where did you buy them? They’re so hard to find! I found a pack of ten the other day, but they wanted a hundred dollars for them.” I practically rushed to snatch one of the lollipops. “It’s my favorite flavor.”

“Is it?” Milo walked away, and I followed because, frankly, I had no idea what else to do. I didn’t know my way around here, didn’t know how comfortable I was allowed to get either. Or how comfortable I wanted to get as this wasn’t my home.

“It is,” I confirmed as we entered his kitchen. There was a huge floor-to-ceiling window, and my breath got caught in my lungs when I noticed the view.

Milo must’ve had the most amazing view over Toronto I’d ever seen. The only other place with a better view than this one must’ve been the CN Tower.

There were so many lights. So many apartments with people living in them, having stories to tell, doing their own thing, and living as an individual. So many different colors. Clubs. Bars. Late-night cafés. And I could see it all from his kitchen window.

My apartment offered a great view of the building across from mine, granting me a view of that perverted man who’d always jerk off directly by his opened window.

But Milo’s view was… wow.

“Sterlie?” His voice broke through to me. I blinked once, still focused on the lights. “Hello?” Milo waved a hand in front of my face, and only then did I jump out of my little trance.

A sigh left me immediately. “God, I did it again.”

“Did what again?” He faced me, eyes filled with confusion and curiosity. There was no way Flora was being honest with me about Milo Marucci, unless she knew a different one, of course. Because the man before me was nothing like the guy she’d been describing to me for years.

I’d met Milo a handful of times before, and each time he’d been nothing but kind to me. Alright, maybe he had his moments in which he was cold and cruel, but never to me.

I wondered why.

“I space out sometimes,” I told him and shrugged. “Flora absolutely hates it because she’d be talking to me about something important and I’d just be… gone.”

He pushed a hand into the pocket of his suit pants. “She’s not much better at listening either, so Flora has no room to talk.”

“RIGHT?!” I grinned up at Milo, then reached for his free hand to pull him after me as I forced him to give me a tour. Well, while I went exploring his penthouse and he made sure I didn’t get lost. I wanted to see every inch of this place, no longer caring if that was strange. “And I’m sorry for saying this, but recently, all she ever has to say has to do with Kai. If I have to listen to another second of her telling me how adorable Kai Auclaire has been today, I will lose it.”

“Well, she spares me with that, so…”

“I’m happy for them, you know?” We stepped into a library, but not a normal one. There was a billiard table in the middle of the room. Quite something. “It’s just, I don’t like Kai. He’s great to Flora, no doubt, and Lola is the sweetest. But the guy creeps me out. He’s so…”

“Antagonizing? Provocative? Someone who can’t pay off his debts?”

I nodded, though I felt guilty doing so. I loved seeing the good in people, and while Kai had many good qualities and I was sure he cared about me in some forced ways, I knew it was all just because he was doing it for my sister. He loved Flora dearly, but he couldn’t have given any more fucks about me or anyone else in Flora’s life.

At least he tried, right? For her.

“I don’t know about debts, but yes. In some odd ways, you’re right.” I sighed. “Does this make me a bad person? The fact that I don’t like my sister’s husband?”

Milo chuckled. “You’re asking the wrong person, cuore mio.”

“Right.” I looked up at Milo, suddenly wondering what he called my sister when he already had a nickname for me—I’d translate it later—and he didn’t even know me. Not really, anyway. “Actually, I think you’d be the perfect guy to judge it.”

“How so?”

I shrugged. “I admire your work. It takes a lot of hatred to do something you do, and your call for justice is truly admirable, even if some people would love to disagree. So, yes, Milo, I think you’re one of the very few people who weigh out the odds before coming to conclusions. If you say my hatred toward Kai makes me a bad person, it’s the truth.”

Milo kept quiet for a split second, then pulled on my hand that lay in his so I’d follow him as he continued the tour of his penthouse.

“Admirable is quite the heavy word,” he finally said as we stood in a long hallway. There was a total of four doors. The last ones.

If I’m being honest, when I first heard what Milo did when he wasn’t currently busy running his nightclub, I was shocked. For years I thought a serial killer was running around Toronto, one who was too good at what he was doing. Someone who could possibly shapeshift. Nobody had ever seen his face, or even anything suspicious. There were no clues as to who went on murder sprees every other night, and the police had been on the lookout for so long that they eventually stopped expecting to catch the guy.

I was afraid.