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“Mr. Larlaith, you are listed as the emergency contact for Mr. Smith Edwards. Do you know him?
“Yes, of course. He’s one of my business partners.”
I looked around the club. I could swear I’d seen him just a minute ago. Or had it been an hour ago? Anyway, I was sure he was in the gallery somewhere, hopefully making new friends.
“I’m sorry to tell you, Mr. Larlaith, that Mr. Edwards has been in an accident.”
I started pushing through the crowd, searching for Smith. Where the hell was he?
“I think there must be a mistake, officer. He’s here with me, at a party in Soho.”
“He’s been in a car accident on the West Side Highway, sir. He was rushed to the hospital, where they did everything they could. I’m sorry to tell you, he didn’t make it.”
Was that supposed to be a joke? “Officer, he’s here with me.”
“Mr. Larlaith, he may have been with you earlier in the evening where he became intoxicated, but he unfortunately got behind the wheel of his car.”
I continued pushing through the crowd and climbed the stairs to the loft, where I could get a bird’s eye view of the party. Could he actually have left? And when would he have left?
“Are you there, sir?” the officer asked.
I didn’t see Smith anywhere. My stomach churned and I sank into a chair in a dark corner, forcing a couple deep breaths to see if that might help my shaking hands.
“Yes. Yes, I’m sorry I’m here. I was just running around the party to see if I could find him. But he’s not here, like you said.”
“Mr. Larlaith, we’re going to need you to come to the hospital to identify him and make arrangements for his remains.”
What. The. Actual. Fuck.
And that was where the odyssey of putting Smith to rest began. And even though I was exhausted from having been up all night and then going directly to work, I was in an Uber on my way to pick up Gio and then on to Avril’s. She’d invited us over for dinner—all four of us guys—because she wanted to talk to us about some things.
Things, she’d said.
Since she left it kind of vague, I asked Gio when he’d hopped into the car, if he knew anything. I knew he and Ash had taken her home the night before. And probably spent the night.
Which I thought was hot as hell. But I couldn’t focus on that now, as much as I would have liked to.
“Gio, how’d things go last night? Our girl okay? I’m dying to know what she wants to talk about,” I said.
“Well, amico, she was making noises about selling the gallery, if you can believe it. But Ash and I tried to talk her out of it. Not sure we’ve convinced her yet. Looks like she told Blu the same thing. He called, thinking I didn’t already know.”
The streetlights flashed over Gio’s face as we drove across the city. Bright, then dark, then bright again.
“Well, it’s her choice,” I said. “But I don’t want her to be hasty about any decisions.”
“Si. We can always find another place for Kink Lab. I just hate to see her walk away from her passion. She loves art.”
We arrived at Avril’s, and the doorman let us in.
I had to wonder for a moment what he thought of the men who’d been visiting her recently. New York doormen were a famously discreet group. They saw a lot and said very little.
Exactly how it should be, and why they received huge Christmas bonuses.
“Hey, have you heard the latest about Avril’s ex, Devon Crane?” Gio asked once we were in the privacy of the elevator on our way to her penthouse.
Discreet doormen aside, there were just some things you said only in a very private space.
“Yeah. The bastard’s going down. Can’t say I’m sorry,” I said.
