They found that out, they’d strike.

He had no choice but to let her go to work every day with that threat hanging over their heads, a threat she didn’t fully understand.

But with his access cut off to the House of Shade, and Sylvie and Creed just back from Phoenix and on the job, Nick was keeping closer tabs on his woman.

So yeah, she didn’t reply, he got worried.

Now, with spotty reception, he felt relief when she answered. He also immediately decided to put a man on her, everywhere she went, unless she was with Nick.

“Sebring,” she said in greeting.

“You okay?” he asked.

“Not really,” she answered.

He jogged faster. “What’s happening?”

“Not for the phone,” she stated, her voice breaking up as he got deeper underground, but he heard her.

Fuck.

She knew her cell wasn’t tracked. He’d told her after his boys went over it.

She still had something she couldn’t say on the phone.

Fuck.

He pushed through the door. “I’m coming home. Where are you?”

“Sucking back melon shit and vodka at your bar.”

“Be there in twenty.”

“All right, sweetheart.”

He disconnected, got in his car and probably pissed off a fuckload of people as he made the thirty-minute, rush-hour drive to his place, doing it in twenty.

He jogged up his steps taking them two at a time.

He pulled open the door, shut it behind him, bolted it and strode swiftly into his unit to see her at his bar, tight skirt still on, high heels kicked off, the evidence of her recent activities littering his kitchen, hand wrapped around a green drink.

“I’m cooking and you can’t argue since it’s mostly done,” she declared.

It smelled awesome which probably meant each bite was going to shave a year off his life.

“You’re home early,” he noted, making his way to her.

“Even though my father thinks he owns me, I do tend to be allowed to make my own hours. So today, I gave myself the afternoon off to go to the grocery store, get the provisions and beat you here to start cooking because our monthly meeting about the family business was postponed due to unexpected circumstances.”

He stopped close and she tipped her head back to keep hold on his gaze.

Watching her hair glide off her shoulders and fall down her back, seeing how soft her slim-fitting sweater looked up close, having her mouth right there, he wanted to kiss her.

But he didn’t quite get what was in her eyes.

“What’s makin’ you not really okay, Livvie?” he asked quietly.

“I have good news and…I think…good news,” she announced.

He felt his head jerk.

Then he warned her he was losing patience by saying, “Liv.”

“My guess is that you know Drake Nair.”

Nick felt his body go solid.

He knew Nair.

He knew Nair as an adversary of his brother’s.

He also knew Nair as a total and complete asshole.

He further knew Nair was mixed up with the human trafficking business that got Hettie dead.

Last, he knew in all the getting to know you and figuring things out he and Olivia had been doing between fucking and just being together, he’d not figured out how to explain he intended to destroy her father, kill a family henchman and he’d first met her through carefully planned machinations because he intended to use her to start that plan in motion.

What he did not know was why Olivia seemed aloof while bringing Nair up out of the blue.

“Yes,” he confirmed tightly. “I know Nair.”

“Well…” she flipped out a hand, “he’s dead.”

Nick stared at her.

“Say again?” he asked.

“Around about the time he told Dad that when Valenzuela chewed him up and spit him out then put me on the auction block and Nair was going to buy me, come all over me and then put me out for sale, Dad blew his head off with his .45. He could have picked his nine millimeter, which would have been far less messy. But Dad doesn’t do the clean up or even order it, so he doesn’t mind messy.”

Nick felt the muscle jump in his cheek as his hands formed fists.

Although stunned at the suddenness of it when Nair had been a pain in the ass for a fucking long time, Nick was not at all pissed Nair was dead.

The guy was a dick. He’d fucked with Knight in seriously shitty ways. And he was a memory that Nick didn’t like having since Nick had used the man back when he was an asshole to try to drive his brother and his woman apart.

But he was pissed because he felt grateful to Vincent Shade for taking him out due to all of those reasons but especially because Nair spouted that shit in front of Nick’s woman.

And he was pissed because he didn’t like feeling grateful to Vincent Shade at all.

“A rare, as in unique demonstration of fatherly affection,” she declared, lifting her drink and taking a sip. She went on after she lowered it again. “That being said both in terms of it as the first demonstration of fatherly affection I remember in, I don’t know…ever and blowing a man’s head off with a .45 is just a jacked-up, crazy, lunatic way to demonstrate affection.”

“Are you okay?” Nick asked, his voice still tight.

“Yes,” she answered casually. “I was far enough away. No blood or brain matter hit me.”

“Livvie,” he whispered, his warning gentle this time that her bullshit needed to stop.