Nico stood at the gate with Lucas, watching the taillights of Robert’s car shrink into the dark until the road swallowed them whole. The night felt heavier than usual, like it already knew what was coming.
"Did you do it?"
The question hung there for a second before Lucas answered. Earlier, Nico had told him to slip a tracker onto Robert’s closest lieutenant, just in case the meeting with his father went south. It had.
"He was a tough one, but yes, I was able to chip him."
Lucas pulled out a phone and held it up. The tracking app’s home screen glowed between them, a single red dot pulsing somewhere close.
The dot moved in slow, steady loops, proof that whoever wore the tracker had no idea it was there. Lucas’s hands hadn’t shaken once doing it.
That kind of steadiness was rare, even among the Ashford guard. It was part of why Nico kept him close, closer than most men who’d sworn loyalty to the family name.
Nico took the phone, studied the blinking light for a moment, then passed it back. He turned toward the mansion without another word, already thinking three steps ahead.
"Things are gonna get difficult from now, Lucas. We have to be prepared." Nico said, walking towards the door. "Double the town’s security, no. Make it triple. And if anyone so much does little as plotting against my family, kill them."
"Understood, boss." Lucas replied. "I do have feedback on the occult group."
Nico stopped mid-step and turned, one eyebrow raised, the question written plainly across his face before he even asked it.
"You’re just telling me that now?"
"It’s a work in progress, really." Lucas explained. "I was able to trace their activities back to the city’s cemetery—"
Nico’s jaw tightened. Of course it led there. Where else would something like this start.
"Of course. That’s how they were able to reanimate Stefan."
"No, it’s not just Stefan." Lucas’s face contorted. "There were other bodies that’d been desecrated and stolen. Six of them, at least. I checked the records and figured out that all six had something of an unsettled score with you in the past."
"What?"
Lucas hesitated, choosing his next words with real care, and for good reason.
"One of those stolen bodies was the body of Leanne Paulman, your ex-girlfriend."
The name landed like a fist. Nico’s eyes stayed wide a beat too long, longer than he wanted anyone to notice. Leanne was a name he’d buried deep and never planned on digging up again.
And now some occult group wanted to drag her back into the world. Or worse, they already had.
"I’d earlier had my suspicion, but I think it’s clearer now, boss." Lucas continued. "Whomever is coming, they seem to be coming for you particularly. I tried my best, but I couldn’t exactly trace them back to their hideout."
Nico’s mind was already moving faster than caution allowed. If they wanted him, he’d give them exactly what they wanted, on his own terms.
His brother wanted the family seat. Some faceless occult wanted his blood. Either way, Nico had grown tired of waiting around for other people to make the first move.
"Then we lure them out." Nico input sharply. "We use me as bait and lure them out. Since they want me so bad, they’d probably come running to get me."
"But boss, that’s too risky. Occults have very powerful ancestral abilities—"
"I was already in for the risk ever since I took this seat." Nico cut him off. "Besides, we already have a lot risk on our plate, don’t we? We could as well hunt two wild birds with the same fucking gun."
Lucas went quiet. Agreeing that his boss’s life was worth gambling with wasn’t something that came easy, no matter how the numbers lined up.
"Depends on the gun." He said, eventually.
"It’s a fucking cluster gun, Lucas."
Nico gave him a dry smile, the kind that didn’t reach his eyes, and walked back inside. In the dining room, Jeff was clearing the table, wiping up the mess Robert’s appetite had left behind.
"You shouldn’t make dinner for me tonight." Nico said to him. "I lost my appetite."
"You too, boss?" Jeff turned to him with surprise. "Is there something wrong with my cooking lately? The mistresses also unexpectedly turned down dinner."
Nico’s attention sharpened at that.
"They did?" Nico met his eyes. "Why?"
"Beats me too, boss. Really."
Jeff’s answer came out tangled, half-formed, the kind of thing a man says when his own thoughts are still fighting each other. He kept glancing at the untouched platter like it had personally wronged him.
"Where are they?"
"In Mistress Nira’s room, all three of them."
"Alright."
Nico crossed into the bar room next door and ran his fingers along the row of old bottles until he found the bourbon. He grabbed it, along with four glasses, then turned back to Jeff.
"By the way Jeff, nothing’s wrong with your cooking. If I agree with my father on anything, it’s that your cooking skills are better than before."
"But...what’s the bourbon for then?"
Nico lifted the bottle, gave it a quick look, then set it down and met Jeff’s eyes instead of answering directly.
"Some nights just demand being hungover."
He left it at that and walked off.
***
Upstairs, Nico knocked twice on Nira’s door. Kira’s voice cut through before he could knock a third time, sharp and already annoyed.
"I think we made ourselves clear the first time, Jeff!"
He didn’t wait for an invitation. Nico pushed the door open and stepped inside, and the three girls jolted upright from the mattress where they’d been curled together.
Kira reacted first, sitting up straighter, startled and clearly not expecting him.
"What in the world are you doing here?"
Nico said nothing at first. He set the drinks on the bedside table, crossed the room to draw the curtains shut, then dragged a couch over until it sat right beside the bed.
"Being a bother. What else does it look like?" He sat as he sat. "Okay, let’s see. Three undeniably sad faces, a sibling cuddle, and a decline of dinner."
Nico got comfortable on the couch.
"Let’s hear it. What’s wrong?"
Kira scoffed, arms crossing over her chest like a wall going up.
"Really, you’re just gonna go ahead and ask that. What’s wrong? Really?"
Mira’s hand shot up to cover her mouth, cutting off whatever she’d been about to say. Nira answered in her place instead, her voice quiet as usual.
"Are you really going to fight your brother to keep the inheritance." She asked slowly. "Even if that means dying while doing it?"
"Oh, so you heard..."
He didn’t add anything else. Instead he twisted the cap off the bourbon, poured a glass, and drank the whole thing in one go, like the answer might be easier to find at the bottom.
"This is going too far, Nico." Mira said, actually calling his name for the first time. "We really don’t want another member of the Ashford family dying because of us."
"It’s not about you girls, okay? It’s just...family politics. I’ll be okay."
The words didn’t land the way he wanted them to. If anything, they seemed to make things worse.
"That’s probably what you thought before that psycho shot you down two nights ago." Kira’s sounded actually mad. "I don’t know how you got lucky, but don’t count on a second try."
"You should call it off." Mira suggested. "It’s not too late, if you call your father and apologise, he could listen."
Nico’s expression hardened at the suggestion, the humor from earlier gone completely from his face.
"I won’t die."
Nico said it firmly, switching gazes between each of them.
"But I’m going to pretend you didn’t say that apologising to my father is a good idea. If I do that, you girls end up in the hands of my psychopathic brother for marriage."
He exhaled slowly, letting some of the tension drain out of his shoulders before he spoke again.
"No. You aren’t getting rid of me that easily."
Silence settled over the room. Nico used it to pour himself a second glass, unhurried, like the quiet didn’t bother him at all.
Kira broke first. She groaned, low and frustrated, then pushed off the bed and dropped into the seat across the table from him.
"Pour me a drink, I guess."