Birds in Paradise

Part 12

"Drugged? Are you sure?"

"Why do you keep asking me that?" Pete demanded. "It's been five days since they pumped out your stomach."

Five days of sweat-inducing stomach pains. He didn't have to sound so cheery about it. Apparently, pumping out a stomach causes muscles to contract. Add a stab wound into the mix. Well...I don't really want to think about it.

As a result, I wasn't at my best. Pete had taken advantage of my weakened state and not in the good way. He hadn't asked. He hadn't even bullied. He'd simply checked me out of the hospital as soon as I was strong enough to sit up and, suddenly, we were driving toward the beach—toward Pete's home. And I was finding it hard to breathe. Over the past few days I'd become convinced that if I stepped foot in his home that I'd become a pathetic shell of myself...hopelessly pining after a man who didn't want or need my love.

"Once again, you're lucky to be alive, Kyra. Not many people survive drinking water laced with arsenic."

"But who would do that to me?"

"I think the more important question is why does someone want you dead? You need to start being honest with me. You need to trust me to protect you." He turned the car down a palm-lined boulevard. The houses on this street were set far from the road and reeked of money. "We're almost home," he said.

My heart thundered in my chest. Every breath was a battle. I couldn't do this. I couldn't live under the same roof as Pete and pretend I didn't love him.

"Wait!" We still had a pile of issues as high as Diamond's Head crater to sort through.

Pete glanced in my direction but kept driving.

"It...it...was Mr. Fu. The man who stabbed me had said that I needed to keep out of Mr. Fu's business."

Pete eased the car onto the side of the road and turned in his seat toward me. "Are you sure?"

Words poured out of my mouth like rain rushing down from the mountains after a monsoon. I told him all about the mysterious shadow man dressed all in white, and how I'd tried to lose him, but somehow he'd found me, and had stabbed me and had left me with a message to keep out of Mr. Fu's business.

"Why didn't you tell me this days ago?"

"Because...because I wanted to talk to Mr. Fu first. He's not a criminal." I could tell by the way Pete had raised one dark sexy eyebrow that he was surprised as I was about this turn of events. Mr. Fu had helped us out several times. And we'd helped him. Didn't that make him a friend...of sorts? "I don't know what to think anymore. Maybe I'm wrong about him. But if I am, I want to hear from his own ungrateful mouth why he is so anxious for me to die."

"I don't know, Kyra. It sounds too risky. I don't think it's a good idea to expose you—"

"But we're talking about the same man who said we were the best things to ever happen to him. He'd called us his guardian angels, his children."

"Situations change. People change."

"I can't believe Mr. Fu is behind any of this." Pete was nodding in agreement, so I pushed my luck. "Will you take me there...now?" Facing the devil would be better than going to Pete's house and immersing myself in those unresolved issues I had with him. Besides, I didn't think Mr. Fu was the devil. He was simply a kindly old man with a tough reputation.

I was certain of it.

Sure, I was.

I was staking my life on it, so I must have been pretty confident that Mr. Fu wasn't going to kill me on sight, right?

Well, facing Mr. Fu was better than going to Pete's.