Page 111 of Kill Your Darlings

“What?”

“Geo told him I was dead.Let him think…”

I said in disbelief, “Let him thinkIkilledyou?”

Milo nodded.“You were long gone.It didn’t matter.”

“Didn’tmatter?”

“It’s not like anyone was going to the police.Or Baldwin wouldn’t have come up with this crazy revenge scheme.”

“No, God forbid anyone try to handle this through legal channels.So now what?Geo’s planning to kill me so that I can’t disagree with his version of events?”

“Of course not!”Milo seemed authentically indignant.

“He slashed my tire in the hopes I’d drive off a cliff.Did he kill Troy Colby?”

“You’re crazy.My brother wouldn’t slash your damned—”

The door to the master bedroom flew open and banged against the wall.Georgi Argyros charged out like a bull rushing into the arena.

Him, I would have recognized anywhere.Anywhere I could get a good look at him.Big and burly, with a face like a much-pummeled boxing glove.There were more grooves in his face, his shaggy hair was silver now, but those were the only real changes.

I’m not sure why, until Geo showed up, it hadn’t occurred to me that I’d placed myself in a dangerous situation.Maybe because I hadn’t placed myself in the situation, so much as sleep-walked into it.

Despite everything, despite hearing Milo’s self-serving excuses, despite knowing Milo was capable of violence, I hadn’t been afraid.Shocked.Sickened.Saddened.Not afraid.When Geo burst out of the bedroom, I was afraid.

In fact, I’d always been wary of Geo.Not that he’d ever done or said anything threatening to me.But something about the way he looked at me, his grim silences always reminded me of my father.

“Whywould you tell him that?Whywould you talk to him at all?”he shouted.“I can’t believe what I’m hearing!”

“It’sover,” Milo shouted back.“For chrissake!How many times are we going through this?You’re on the security cameras.It’sdone.This is what I’ve been trying to tell you.There isno way out.The only thing left is to come up with a believable reason—that doesn’t implicate me—for why you thought drowning that asshole was a good idea.”

I felt unobtrusively for my cell phone—and realized I’d walked out of my hotel room without it.I went cold.The only way out of this suite was the foyer door, and Geo and Milo were blocking my access.

“How about because he was going to tellhim.”Geo jabbed his finger at me.

“So what?Hecan’t go to the police!He’s as culpable as I am.”

I hadn’t thought Milo could say much more to shock me.The realization that he understood perfectly well the jeopardy he’d placed me in—oh, maybe not at first, maybe not back in the day—but for a good long while, was like getting punched in the gut.

“Like hell!”Geo was glaring at me.His face was scarlet with fury.His eyes were red-rimmed black holes.“I’m not confessing to anything.”

“Yes.And you know why.Otherwise, there’s an investigation andIget dragged into it.And then the money stops.You want to ruin Ma?You want to ruin Thea and Cora and Zoe?You want to destroy our whole fucking family?”

I was increasingly afraid of how this was going to end.Milo clearly thought he was winning the argument.But Geo had never been a big brain kind of guy.He did not look to me like someone who was going to let cooler heads prevail.To me, he looked like someone who would kill me and, if he saw no other way, his brother, before he’d go back to prison.

It was not a quiet confrontation, though, and as I listened, ears straining for any sign that neighbors were getting concerned, I thought I heard the low murmur of voices down the hallway—radio static, clipped commands.

Or maybe that was wishful thinking.

“I did this for you,” Geo insisted.“My little brother.If his Honor knew—”

“The hell, Geo!I never asked you to do any of this.You did it all to keep the money flowing.Well, that still holds true.”

Someone knocked with practiced force on the suite door.Milo and Geo froze.Finn called loudly, “Keiran, are you in there?Answer.”

Even as my heart leaped in relief, Geo tried to grab me.I jumped back, putting the length of the glass coffee table between us.“Finn!I’m in here!”I yelled.

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