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.

f.u.c.k.

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.

f.u.c.k.

He pushed through the door. "I'm coming home. Where are you?"

"Sucking back melon s.h.i.+t and vodka at your bar."

"Be there in twenty."

"All right, sweetheart."

He disconnected, got in his car and probably p.i.s.sed off a f.u.c.kload 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 circ.u.mstances."

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 a.s.shole.

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 f.u.c.king 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 a.s.s for a f.u.c.king long time, Nick was not at all p.i.s.sed Nair was dead.

The guy was a d.i.c.k. He'd f.u.c.ked with Knight in seriously s.h.i.+tty ways. And he was a memory that Nick didn't like having since Nick had used the man back when he was an a.s.shole to try to drive his brother and his woman apart.

But he was p.i.s.sed because he felt grateful to Vincent Shade for taking him out due to all of those reasons but especially because Nair spouted that s.h.i.+t in front of Nick's woman.

And he was p.i.s.sed 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 bulls.h.i.+t needed to stop.

"Who does that?" she whispered back and he saw it happening deep in her eyes.

She was losing it.

Nick s.h.i.+fted closer.

"Georgia just called Gill, ordered a cleanup and asked when we could reschedule our meeting. Now who does that?" she asked.

He lifted both hands and framed her face.

"Nair was awful," she said. "Everyone knows he's awful. But now he's dead and I'm just supposed to go to the grocery store and go home and make dinner and that's it?" She shook her head in his hands. "A man is dead."

"Livvie-"

She lifted her hands too, curling them tight around either side of his neck.

"I don't want this to be my life," she whispered fiercely. "But now, I don't want it in your life. Don't you see? Don't you see now why I can't do this? Why I can't have you? Why I can't have anybody?"

Before he could react to that, as in put a stop to where she was heading, she let him go, pulled out of his hold, jumping off the stool and taking a big step away. Throwing an arm out wide to take in his kitchen, she kept talking.

"Honey, I'm home," she called out sarcastically. "Oh good, sweetheart. Taco extravaganza for dinner and, oh, by the way, this afternoon, Dad murdered someone in front of me."

"Liv-"

She bent toward him, the movement so abrupt it appeared painful.

"That's insane," she hissed.

"Baby-"

She leaned back. "And what do you do? You can't call the cops. Or you can. Then, as retribution, my dad makes you dead or I'm dead or your brother's dead or the mother of his children is dead or-"

He took two strides to her, yanked her in his arms and ordered, "Livvie, stop."

She held herself stiff then sagged so deep he had to take most of her weight.

"We can't do this," she said into his chest.

"I'm getting you out," he declared.

She went stiff again.

Then her head jerked back and she asked, "What?"

"I'm getting you out."

"Nicky," she whispered, her hands coming up, going into his jacket and curling into his s.h.i.+rt at the sides of his waist.

She did that but said no more.

His family called him Nicky when he was a kid. He loved it until it was the time in a boy's life to hate it. No one had used that name for years. Decades.

He loved it again from Olivia.

"I don't know how I'm gonna do it, I'm just gonna do it," he stated. "I'm gonna do it so you're safe, I'm safe. Everyone's safe. No worries. Just free. You just gotta give me the time to figure it out. And as much as I'd like to see that happen right now and do that by callin' the cops and lettin' them know your dad committed homicide today, I'm thinkin' my plan's gotta be more intricate than that. So we brave it out, suck it up, eat taco extravaganza, whatever the f.u.c.k that is, and I'll get you safe as soon as I can."

"I'm not sure that's possible," she replied.

"I am," he returned quickly and firmly.

Her eyes registered surprise.

Then her mouth whispered, "You believe that."

"Absolutely."

It took a few beats. It came slow.

But that was when pure beauty entered her gaze.

"Why is it that you believing makes me believe?" she asked in her gorgeous, delicate voice.

"Because I'm the man who's gonna eat taco extravaganza, whatever the f.u.c.k that is, just because you made it. I'm also the man who's gonna put the effort into making you come for me after, more than once, even though it's highly likely taco extravaganza is gonna sit in my gut like an anvil. And I'm also the man who knows every day I wake up you mean more to me than you did the day before. And I'm the man who knew you meant a f.u.c.kuva lot to me yesterday, so you meaning more today means everything. And I'm the man who's got two priority missions. To get you free of a life you hate and to get you to a place that you smile, frequently and easily."

The beauty in her green eyes didn't leave.

But it did get watery.

So Nick had no choice but to lift a hand to her cheek so he could catch the wet that leaked out with his thumb.

"Right, that's why you believing makes me believe," she said, again with that soft, sweet, gorgeous voice. A princess voice. His princess's voice.

"That's why," he confirmed.

Wet leaked out of her other eye where he didn't have a thumb to catch it. Seeing as he didn't want to take his arm from around her, he had no choice but to sweep it away with his lips.

This he did.

She slid her arms around his middle and held tight.

Since he was there, he dropped his forehead to hers.

She took in a deep breath that hitched.

He just stayed close.