“Aww, is he? Couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy.” Yanni holds the drugs out to me, and like my momma always used to say, I’m tempted. Drugs are the devil, Perry. They tempt you, and they’ll turn you into another person. You have to say no because one day, you’ll be trying a harmless little bud, and the next, you’ll be selling your body for crack cocaine. I’m not totally sure this is what she meant, but when it comes to making a guy paranoid, she succeeded there. Still, Yanni looks totally fine after smoking this thing, and I could use some of the calmness he’s swimming in.

“I’d say yes, but I get the feeling my mom would come back from the grave to kill me if I did.”

He chuckles again. “It’s a little pot.”

“That’s where it starts though, isn’t it? A little pot, a little party favor, and then you’re face down in a toilet cubicle, drowning in your own vomit.”

He blinks at me slowly. “One of those puritan types, huh?”

“Not sure I know what that means, but we should go back to talking about Colin. You know, since I’m the one with a gun.”

Yanni sets his hand on his hip, very obviously nudging back his suit jacket and showing off the gun at his side. “Don’t get too ahead of yourself, kid. Now, why don’t you get that thing out of my face, and we’ll talk like men?”

My gaze darts between the gun and his face a few times because Arlie didn’t train me for anything like this. What if I lower my gun and he draws like some western cowboy and shoots me point-blank? Feels risky, but then it also feels rude to keep pointing this thing at him if he hasn’t done anything wrong.

“To be clear, you didn’t have anything to do with Colin disappearing?”

“Haven’t seen him.”

“And you don’t want St. Clare dead?”

He gives me an odd look. “Why would I?”

“Because they opened a rival club?”

He lifts his hands in a shrug. “And why would I give a fuck about that? It’s a free country. I might have tried to delay the opening a bit, but I’ve seen clubs come and go over the years that another preppy one on the block doesn’t mean much to me.”

That … actually sounds like the truth, but bad guys are notoriously good liars, so this probably isn’t one of those situations where I can trust my gut.

“How do I believe you?” I ask, lowering Judy a fraction.

“That’s up to you. I didn’t come into your workplace and hold a gun to your head.”

“Fair point.”

“Besides, I know exactly who’s after him. He took a loan out with the wrong guy.”