Author's Preface
Does he know where Lacey is?
Sevan’s eyes drifted upward to the bed beside him, then to Meika’s face. Abruptly, he clapped his hands together. “Hey! Don’t fall asleep.”
Long eyelashes parted a little, and those dark eyes lowered to where Sevan was sitting on the floor. Meika’s head barely turned to see him. He said nothing.
“If you start falling asleep, I have to give you another dose,” Sevan muttered. He glanced at the time on the sleek alarm clock on the nightstand, then at the delicate leaves of the pothos beside it. There were a lot of plants in this room.
Sevan leaned back against the nightstand, the back of his head hitting it with a soft thud. “So, it was oxy you took?” He glanced at his seemingly nonverbal patient. “Is that…normal for you?”
Silence.
Were you trying to kill yourself? Again? Sevan made a bridge between his forefingers, then dropped his hands. The silence was ringing in his ears. Nina had left after bringing extra Narcan. Farren was also gone, though likely not far.
“Do you know Lacey Cutts? Lacey Montego? Lacey Kang?”
Silence.
Meika was conscious, but hardly alert.
Sevan looked up at him and met Meika’s dark eyes again. Those perfect, full lips parted faintly. One dark brow dipped just a little. “Lacey…” Meika began in a faded voice.
And then his head slipped against the headboard. His eyes rolled back and shut.
Sevan scrambled off the floor and seized another dose of Narcan off the nightstand. He lifted Meika’s chin and delivered the dose, then tossed the applicator aside.
A breath of relief escaped Sevan’s chest when Meika’s eyes flickered dully open again.
How long do the effects of oxycodone last? Sevan wondered. Then, immediately after: That woman’s not going to try to hack into my phone while she has it, is she?
* * * *
“Psspsspss.”
Sevan woke to a strange whispering noise. His eyes opened to sunlight pouring in from the window at the foot of the guest bed he had been directed to sometime in the hours before sunrise. Frowning at the bright light, he nudged back the blanket and turned toward the door.
A start seized Sevan’s body. There was someone staring back at him through the few inches the door was open, crouched low to the floor as if to be discreet. Supernova.
Sevan pulled himself upright on one elbow and stared in disbelief at Meika for several seconds. He was awake. Up. And doing something…weird.
The flicker of an embarrassed smile touched Meika’s wildly attractive face as he stared back at Sevan. His hair was pulled back in a half-up ponytail, shorter strands framing his face. His chin pressed with apparent effort to keep a straight face—and then he simply smiled. He pointed to the foot of Sevan’s bed.
A full adrenaline rush hit Sevan with the force of a sledgehammer. He bolted out from under the covers, stumbling to his feet and yards away from the bed before he even took another breath. Then he stood there, paces from the door, shuddering, as he made out the shape of an animal the size of a labrador retriever stretched out on the same bed he had been sleeping in.
But it wasn’t a lab. It wasn’t a dog. It was a very large, very fluffy cat. One that looked like a furrier version of a jaguar and absolutely capable of killing something bigger than a mouse.
“Jeez…” Sevan whispered, suddenly light-headed. He watched, paralyzed, as Meika stepped into the room and quickly put himself between Sevan and the cat.
“She’s not mean,” Meika said. His round, concerned eyes met Sevan’s blue ones for a moment.
“That thing is huge,” Sevan breathed, a hand unconsciously lifted to his chest.
“She’s a Maine Coon,” Meika said quietly. He walked to the bed, stepping on his toes like there might still be someone sleeping in the condo.
And Sevan realized this might be the first encounter he was having with the sober version of Meikhyel Callisto.
Is he sober? Sevan double-took the long-haired man lifting the gigantic cat off the bed. I need to ask him about Lacey.
It was a lot of multi-color dappled fur Meika lifted into his arms. He looked good. Steady. Sevan’s eyes darted across the delicate flowering vine tattoo on Meika’s right hand. He was only wearing one ring this morning, on his right middle finger.
Little vine flowers on his hand. A sunflower on his shoulder. Most of the ink on Meika’s arm was covered by the long-sleeved shirt he was wearing. Simple white. Simple like the black jeans he was wearing, plain gray socks.
He looked so small in person compared to how he appeared on the banner in front of the RedViolet corporate building.
“Nina sleeps in here when she spends the night,” Meika explained quietly. He had buried part of his face into the fuzz of what had to be a heavy cat. “That’s probably why she came in here. She’s Nina’s kitten.”
Kitten? Sevan blinked. I should say something about what happened last night. But that felt like a difficult topic. A topic Meika’s therapist had more business bringing up than Sevan did. His part was done—overdone, as far as his actual qualifications were concerned. I need to ask about Lacey. Now might be my last chance.
But then Sevan was only watching in silence as Meika exited the room with “Nina’s kitten.”
He was so pretty.
And when that thought hit, so did the frustration. Inwardly kicking himself, Sevan stood up and lifted his slide sandals off the floor. Running a hand through his hair, he walked out of the bedroom and into the hallway.
The condo was flooded with natural light. Sevan passed under another ceiling window he hadn’t noticed the night before and followed more daylight toward the living room.
Voices became audible from around the corner.
“Is that what you’re wearing?” The woman with the purple manicure from the night before—Sevan recognized her sharp voice.
A small laugh followed in response to the question, faintly masculine. Possibly Meika. Then: “No…” Definitely Meika.
“Jesus, go get dressed. You look like a hobo.”
“Yeah…hobo was my inspiration for this outfit.”
“You’re ridiculous.” There was a pause. “I actually have no idea how Lara handles you. You know, I canceled two appointments for you this morning? And now we’re five minutes out from when you need to be on your way to San Diego, and you’re too busy joking around to get your head out of your ass.”
That seemed like an overly bold way to speak to the celebrity who presumably owned this apartment. But the next moment, Sevan found himself wondering what was in San Diego. A medical professional, hopefully. Or a mental health one.
Or maybe it didn’t matter, because Sevan had no reason to care.
Sevan stepped around the corner and passed Meika right at the entrance to the living room. A question about Lacey again rose to Sevan’s lips, but it got lost somewhere in the scent of expensive fragrance that brushed the air as Meika passed. Meika gave Sevan a smile and walked by without a word.
His smile. Easy, perfect. An artist couldn’t have improved it. He was incredibly magnetic. Almost dumbfoundingly so.
Fighting the annoyance that again mounted in his chest, Sevan looked around the space. A window similar to the one in Meika’s bedroom built one angular wall of the living room, and a sliding glass door on the other side of the dining space ahead let yet more daylight in.
There were more plants. And as Sevan passed a thriving collection of miniature palms, he realized he had yet to spot a plant that didn’t look well cared for.
The woman with the purple manicure was standing close to the sliding door, a plain white coffee mug in one hand as she scrolled on her phone with the other.
Shit, I’m going to be late for “work,” Sevan realized with a glance at the window wall. “Excuse me,” he called to the woman. “Can I have my phone back?”
She looked up as if to check who was speaking. “What for?”
Sevan’s brow dipped. “To call a rideshare. To get back to my apartment. To change and shower. To go to work.” He swept a gesture across the T-shirt and pajama shorts he was still wearing. “Because it’s my phone.”
She looked up at him again, studied him top to bottom for a few seconds. “Pardon? Lara had you doing actual work over there?”
Sevan’s lips parted. “N…No…” he started.
“Good. Then you’ll stay to check Avis’s condition when he gets back this afternoon. Lara can decide what to do when she returns from San Francisco today.” Then, like an afterthought: “I’ll send someone for your essentials if there’s really something you need.”
Holy shit, this is really going too far, was Sevan’s first impulse. But something different came out of his mouth. “Fine.” He shrugged stiffly. “Can I have my phone anyway?”
Again, she glanced at him—this time brief and disinterested. “Not while you’re here.”
Excuse me, what the hell? Sevan’s arms met across his chest—tight, stiff. “You…” literally can’t do that. The full thought never came out of Sevan’s mouth. Someone appeared in the hallway behind him, and he stepped quickly aside as Farren passed.
The security guard stopped in the living room and turned back to look at Sevan. He was wearing all black and a body armor vest—probably what he had been wearing the night before, but Sevan’s mind was too full of chaos to remember.
He was big, Sevan noticed all over again. Wide, muscular. His biceps burst from his short sleeves like he were a living, breathing gym commercial.
Farren gave Sevan an expressionless nod. “Thank you for your help last night.”
“Farren, tell Avis his car is here,” the woman by the sliding door said, eyes still on her phone.
Farren’s stare lingered on Sevan for an uncomfortable succession of seconds.
And then Meika appeared from the hallway. He stopped shoulder-to-shoulder with the person Sevan finally realized must be his bodyguard.
His male bodyguard. Sevan double-took them both. Meika, his riveting physical features—the balance in his pure beauty and softly masculine traits. And Farren: a perfect sample of the conventionally attractive man.
“Farren moved him,” Nina had mentioned the night before. And standing beside his hulk of a bodyguard, Meika looked…quite moveable.
He also looked good. Nothing about his appearance or composure suggested he had overdosed on oxycodone the night before.
Or that several nights before, he had walked off the edge of the eighth floor of a parking garage…
Farren raised two fingers and lightly smoothed a strand of hair back from Meika’s face. Tenderly, a little PDA-like.
Meika’s dark brown eyes met Sevan for a single instant, and Meika smiled.
Even if it’s just a rumor, Sevan heard in his mind, I can see where it came from.
“Hm. A bit better,” the woman by the sliding door decided with a glance at Meika’s outfit. “Be nice, be good. Do not be late,” were her final words of advice before Farren put his hand lightly on Meika’s shoulder and guided him to the front door.
The woman lifted a tiny handbag off the kitchen counter and started toward the door after them.
“Please, I need my phone,” Sevan tried again.
“You can have it back when you leave,” the woman responded blandly.
“You can’t withhold my phone,” Sevan said quickly, right as she reached the front door.
“You can have your phone and walk right out of here if you’d like,” she said emotionlessly. “You’ll be out of a job as well.”
“Where even is it right now?” Sevan asked stiffly. His eyes flashed across the woman’s pocketless outfit and purse the size of a wallet.
She didn’t answer. The woman gave Sevan three seconds to decide if he wanted to quit his job, then exited the condo.
A lock clicked shut behind her. And Sevan was left alone in the luxury apartment to silently realize that, if by no other evidence than the sheer number of people attending to him, “Avis” was certainly not one of the two hundred.