got drunk at a gala and embarrassed him in front of an investor.”
“Something that could’ve endangered his career?”
He scoffed. “I doubt it.”
“What about the PT?”
“Luca. I thought he mainly took the job because he wanted to fuck me. Turned out he actually wanted to work on my fitness goals. He came to an appointment, and I was high.”
“Michael.” I sighed.
“See, I do need babysitting. Twenty-four seven.” He winked at me. “Anyway, it was just pot.”
I rolled my eyes. “What did Luca do when he realized you were high?”
“The first time he left. The second time he yelled at me in Italian. He quit. But damn, I’d never been yelled at quite like that. I should’ve filmed it.”
God, he was driving me crazy.
“What about the exes. Anyone who got aggressive?”
He took a deep breath. He must’ve realized he wasn’t getting out of the conversation. “I don’t know. My relationships are complicated at best.”
“I have no idea why,” I muttered. “Give me some names, Mikey.”
“Ian was the worst, I think.” Michael studied his almost empty plate. He picked up a fork and pushed a potato around with it.
“Ian who?”
“Ian Hannity. We’d been together for a couple of months, but that was, like, a year ago? We weren’t exclusive, so I don’t know what the big deal was. He turned up at one of the parties in my apartment and made a scene.”
“Was he violent? Did he threaten you?”
“Ian?” Michael sneered. “No. He’s a wimp. Creepy, but a wimp.”
“What does creepy mean?” My mind was on high alert.
“He used to ask me to describe the sex I had with other men while he fucked me. Shit like that. He was into pretty ugly humiliation, and that’s not my thing. It weirded me out, so I stopped seeing him. He turned up at the party, coked up, yelling I was a whore, so I had him escorted out. After that, he sent a few messages, but eventually, he gave up. I haven’t heard from him since.”
“What was in those messages?” I pushed. His obvious discomfort was even more of a reason to explore the possibility.
“Just fantasies. No real threats.”
“Be specific, Michael.”
He pinned his green eyes on me, and with obvious disgust, he gritted out, “He wrote detailed descriptions of how he’d make me eat my own shit and then fuck me with a baseball bat. When I blocked his number, he wrote from another. I never replied. After some time, he stopped messaging. Are we done now?”
“Does he have the means to hire a professional killer?”
Michael chuckled, but his laugh sounded nervous now. Insecure. “He’s a high-flying broker. He could afford even you. But he’d never kill me. It’s too much of an effort for him.”
“Mikey, it’s easy to kill someone when you don’t have to do it with your own hands.”
Michael looked at me for a while, and I could see the wheels in his head turning.
“Want me to tell some people to look into Ian?”
“Yeah. Whatever,” he said quietly. His anger gone, he looked defeated. Drained. He stood from the table, took his plate, and turned toward the kitchen corner.
I grabbed his wrist. “Mikey, it’ll be okay. You’ll get through this.”
“Yeah, sure. I just… I know I’m a spoiled brat and an irresponsible idiot. I’ve done some pretty fucked-up shit in my life. You have no idea.” His voice got softer. Vulnerable. “But I have never intentionally hurt anyone, you know? Not enough to deserve to…”
He squeezed his eyes shut, his lip curled in an obvious attempt to hold back tears. Oh, Michael. I took the plate from him, put it on the table, stood, and gathered him in my arms.
“You don’t deserve this, Mikey. You really don’t.”
I held him, and he clung to me for a long while.
After dinner, Michael lounged on the sofa with his sketchbook. He seemed calmer now, engrossed in his drawing. I went through the reports my people sent me, like I did every night. The decoy was now set, and the FBI was hopeful. I had my doubts, but I wouldn’t share them with Michael. He had enough on his plate as it was. I sent the request to check on Ian Hannity, a New York broker, to my investigator and asked him to notify Agent Madsen from the FBI. It might be a wild goose chase, but I wasn’t taking any chances.
When I was done, satisfied we were still as hidden as I wanted us to be, I noticed him watching me.
“Can I see?” I