Untitled (New York Unraveled #4)

Chapter One.

AJAX.

Every set of eyes swiveled to look at him walking down the aisle like he owned it. It wasn't just because he was excruciatingly late to his own family's funeral but also because of how alluring his personality was. In a leather jacket and torn jeans, he looked like he was ready to walk on a runway, not in a funeral. His hair was messed up like he couldn't bother to have combed it when he woke up in the morning and fell in his eyes in a way that intensified his already mysterious persona. His high cheekbones and square jaw looked like it had been chiseled by Michelangelo. His beard was as unkempt as his hair but he was one of the few people who could pull it off so perfectly, it made you doubt your own reality. His face was deeply tanned into a royal bronze, accentuating his ruggedly handsome movie star looks. The only part of him that displayed how the deaths were affecting him was the dark shadows under his exhausted eyes.

There were three corpses, one of a very dear friend, lying behind me in their coffins. I had spent the whole night organizing a hasty funeral when I should have been grieving, ignoring my kids, my work, my sanity, and he had the audacity to be late. I understood where he was coming from but that didn't mean I had to like it.

He walked straight up to me, his eyes narrowed slightly on my face. "Ajax Myron?" he asked.

I nodded and extended my hand. "That's me. I'm assuming you're Emmett Delcour."

One corner of his luscious lips lifted in a slight smirk which I would, within good time, come to associate with his signature smile. "Thank you for the patience."

"It did take a lot of patience. It's a good thing I'm such a saint." My lips pressed together in a straight line at the reminder of the hellish torture, quickly snapping my brain away from the holy hotness in front of me. The amount of growls I'd had to bear from Elena's cousin, Evan Saunders, only I knew. First, he wasn't ready to bury Elena along with Stuart in the same coffin. It took a lot of persuasion from me and threats from his wife, Rayne, to convince him. They had died together like a Shakespearean tragedy, their dead bodies wrapped up in each other's arms. It was only fitting to bury them together too.

Since Stuart's only family who lived here, his mother, died the same day too, there was no one around to organize the funeral. I had to step up and take the responsibility of handling everything until Emmett, his brother, came back from his posting in Afghanistan.

Stuart had been an intern in my orphanage and I had tutored him for his exams many times. He even brought Elena along for one of the classes. The love they had for each other shone in their eyes. Somehow, in a very twisted way, it made sense that they died together.

I was probably the only person Stuart could call a 'friend', owing to his lack of a social life and I adored him like a brother, not just a mentee. The news of his death came as a shock to me. But the bigger shock was how he, his mother and Elena, along with three other dead bodies of unrecognized men were found in an abandoned underground subway site. No one knew exactly what had gone down and it would always remain a mystery because the people involved had died along with the answers, and the dead can't spill any secrets.

The minister shook Emmett's hands, visibly relieved that we could finally get on with the service. We had waited for two hours for him to arrive. He requested the gathering to take their seats and introduced the service.

As I led Emmett to his seat, I asked him, "What took you so long?" Blame me for being pissed. You would be too if you were handling a pissed off NYPD detective. Everyone called him Evan. I just liked to think of him as an asshole.

"I didn't want to come," he shrugged. "I was trying to blow it off but you guys won't get the show moving without my sweet ass."

I bit my tongue to hold back the many curses and settled for glaring at him. His family was dead and he wanted to blow off their funeral. If I hadn't been so pissed, I would have understood that that was precisely why he didn't want to attend it. Again, I got it but I wasn't too pleased about it.