“Are you leaving?”

“Yes.”

“Can’t you stay? For a little while? We don’t... We can talk.”

“I don’t want to talk,” Kingsley said.

The boy scrambled to his feet and pulled his jeans on. He sat on the bed and spent longer than necessary buttoning his shirt. Kingsley finished pulling himself together. He’d shower back at the town house. Nothing worth bothering with right now. All he wanted to do was drink himself into a stupor and sleep until he woke up dead. As usual.

“You’re young,” Kingsley said. “You’ll heal fast.” He wasn’t speaking about the welts.

He gave the boy one more smile before turning his back and heading to the door.

“My name’s Justin,” the blond called out after him.

Kingsley turned around and looked at him. A square of light from the window lay across the boy’s face like a white mask.

“I’ve only been with a guy once. It wasn’t like this. I didn’t even come. If my parents knew I was gay, they’d kick me out. I just... I wanted you to know those three things.”

“Anything else?” Kingsley asked, keeping his face composed, his voice devoid of emotion.

“You’re beautiful,” Justin said. “I feel stupid for saying that to another guy, but I can’t find another word. And what you did to me was everything I’ve always wanted. So...thank you.”

“You’re thanking me?”

“They teach us manners in Texas.”

Kingsley could taste the boy on his lips. Walk away. He knew he should walk away.

He pulled out his wallet and, from it, took a slim silver card with black ink.

“My name is Kingsley Edge. Not entirely, but it’s what I answer to. I’m French. That’s the accent you hear. And if your family kicks you out—and you’re right, they might—come back to this city and find me. I can help you. I’m not saying I will help you. But I can if I’m in the mood.”

Justin took the card and held it in his fist.

“Why did you pick me tonight? Only gay guy in the club?”

“There were three if I counted correctly.”

“Then why me?”

“You’re blond,” Kingsley answered truthfully. Justin gave a little laugh.

“You must really love blonds, then.”

“No.” Kingsley smiled tiredly. “I hate them.”

Without another word or a kiss goodbye, Kingsley left the room, left the hall, left the club and walked into the rainy streets of Manhattan. He should have called for his driver to come for him and take him home. But after so much sadism, a little masochism would do him good. The rain had turned the night near freezing, and Kingsley dug his hands deep into his jacket pockets burrowing for warmth. He walked fast, lengthening his strides as the late-winter rain soaked him to the skin. After two miles he arrived home to his town house. He paused outside and looked up. After six months living here, he still couldn’t believe he owned a Manhattan palace. Three stories—four if one counted the pool in the basement—black-and-white facade, wrought-iron balconies, a glass conservatory on the roof and luxurious bedroom after bedroom after bedroom...

Any one of his bedrooms would do him right now. He wanted to be warm and naked and drunk this very second. He ran up the stairs, opened the door and shut it behind him. He didn’t lock it. He never locked the door. Someone was always in the house, always coming or going. And people only locked their doors to keep the barbarians at the gate. He was the barbarian. Why would he keep himself out?

As soon as he entered the house, he pulled off his jacket and tossed it on the floor. Someone would take care of it. Someone always did. He heard music coming from within the house. Blaise, he guessed. She’d taken to staying here most nights, even the nights he didn’t fuck her. She seemed the sort to like piano music—or at least to pretend she liked it.

He trudged up the steps but paused before he reached the first landing. The music...it didn’t sound as if it came from a stereo or a radio. No, it sounded close, and live. Alive.

“Fuck.” Kingsley stormed back down the stairs. He had one rule in his house and one rule only. No one touches the grand piano in the music room. No one. It was to be looked at and never touched, never played, never even acknowledged. Whoever dared touch his piano would be thrown into the street and forbidden from ever crossing the threshold of his house again. The person who defied Kingsley’s one law would curse the day he’d ever learned to play the fucking piano.

Kingsley threw open the door to the music room.

He stopped.

He stared.

He did not breathe.

It couldn’t be...

But it was.

The room was dark, but Kingsley could see who played his grand piano. And even if he couldn’t see, he would still know it was him. Only one man he’d ever known could play so skillfully without sheet music, without even seeing the keys. A sliver of streetlight penetrated the room and cast a circle of light around the pianist’s hair.

His blond hair.

Søren.

Frozen in place, Kingsley could do nothing but stand and listen and watch and wait and wonder. Why? How?

The music—Beethoven, Kingsley believed it was—set the room afire, and the sound moved like smoke over the floor, up the walls and across the ceiling. Kingsley breathed it in like incense.

The piece ended. The final note rose like a burning ember before falling to the floor and fading into ash.