Page 69 of Perfect Night

“As soon as you can get here.”

“Do you need Charlie as well? He’s sleeping.”

“No. Mr Davidson isn’t required right now. It’s just you we need to see.”

“I don’t really want to leave him on his own.”

“It’s in your best interests to get here as soon as possible, Mr Steele. I think you’d prefer that to us having to come and get you.”

Sebastian knew what he was getting at. They were going to arrest him and were giving him the option to come in to the station with no fuss.

“Do I need my lawyer?”

“That would sensible, Mr Steele.”

Simmons gave Sebastian details of the station he needed to attend and he committed to be there within an hour. His next call was to Bex, who guessed, as he had, that Brandon was pressing assault charges. Bex offered to come over and stay in the apartment to keep Charlie company, but he needed her to get a lawyer sorted. Their regular lawyer was corporate, not criminal. He called Deacon, who was happy to come over and watch Charlie.

There was no point in worrying Charlie about this yet. He was protecting his partner, who had been assaulted by Brandon. This should be a formality, but he had to go through the motions. Charlie was fast asleep, and he didn’t want to wake him up, sohe left him to it and waited for Deacon to arrive. He was there within ten minutes.

“Charlie’s asleep,” he whispered. “If he wakes up, just say I had to go down and make a statement.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah, there’s no point in stressing him out. He’s been through enough.”

“Okay. I’ll let you know if he wakes up. How long do you think you’ll be down there?”

“Hopefully only a couple of hours.”

“What if they hold you overnight?”

“Let’s cross that bridge when we come to it. Oh, did Hunter get home okay?”

“He lived with Brandon which was a no go obviously, so I dropped him with a friend he called.”

Sebastian nodded and grabbed his jacket, keys and phone before leaving. He had twenty minutes to get to the police station.

Arriving at the police station, he was shocked to see his friend Max Brady. They hugged.

“What are you doing here?”

“Did you forget your friend was a shit-hot criminal lawyer?”

How could he forget that? Max hadn’t even entered his head as an option. He was panicking and had just asked his sister to sort it, which it looked like she did.

“Wait. Are you allowed to represent me, given we’re friends?”

“Yes, it’s fine. Be different if we were more than friends, but as I’ve told you before, you’re far too old for me.”

Sebastian laughed. Max was twenty-nine, and part of his single friend group. They’d met one night. Max was estranged from his family and had been celebrating passing the bar exam on his own. Sebastian had experienced a dreadful week at work as their first deal for the Seattle region had fallen through. Theyweren’t each other’s type, but had got chatting, and had been friends ever since. Max was always the one to drag Sebastian out to get laid if he was becoming too grumpy. It was astonishing how chilled-out Max was, given what happened to him when he was younger. Sebastian regarded him as a role model. Age had nothing to do with it. Max had earned that title.

“Before we go in, I need to tell you something about Simmons.”

“What? He’s a homophobe?”

“You’re not far off. He’s one of us.”

“So, he’s closeted?”

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