Both Kira and Nira snapped their eyes toward Leanne the instant she let that last word hang in the air. Nico caught it immediately.
Leanne had pushed far enough that even Nira, who usually drifted through conversations half-listening, looked genuinely unsettled by whatever was unfolding at the table.
Kira, meanwhile, seemed one bite away from losing it completely. Her expression had gone rigid. Her fingers curled around her fork with a grip that looked dangerously close to snapping the metal.
She chewed like every mouthful had personally wronged her, jaw grinding so hard the tension carved lines along her cheeks.
That alone should have told Leanne everything. Nico was certain by now that she’d noticed neither girl wanted her anywhere near this table.
She kept going anyway, apparently determined that dinner wouldn’t pass in silence.
"So, how did you guys meet?" She asked after a bite, looking at Kira. "Seeing as you two are married to him, I’m guessing it’s not a date first, marriage later sort of story."
"Nothing of such." Kira replied. "And we’re three actually. Triplets. Did he not tell you anything about us?"
Leanne turned toward Nico and let her eyes do the asking instead.
"It’s a family bonding thing."
Nico replied, looking anywhere else but her face.
"That’s all you need to know."
"Family bonding, huh?" Leanne tilted her chin slowly, considering the words like they tasted wrong. "So no emotional connection, no spark. Just a formal harem?"
Kira had reached her limit. She slammed her fork down against the table hard enough to rattle the plates, and turned to Leanne with a smile that had gone sharp at the edges.
"Marriage." She corrected coldly. "We’re his wives. Not a harem."
"Sorry, my bad."
The apology dripped with sarcasm, but it was also the last thing Leanne said for the next five minutes. Nico ate faster, chasing whatever scrap of quiet he could get before it broke again.
He clung to the plan he’d made earlier. Get through dinner, pull the occult information out of her, then walk her straight back out through the mansion gates.
That was the plan, at least. Then she opened her mouth again, and the whole thing came apart in a single sentence.
"By the way, Nico. I was going to ask you if I can stay here for a while."
"What?" Nico choked on his water glass. "Why?"
"The thing is, it’s been two years since I was last a resident in Fairmont city. My apartment’s probably been renovated and sold out. I have nothing on me and nowhere to go."
"I can get you a new place to stay."
Nico suggested, but she simply shook her head, unmoved.
"That said, it’s not safe for me. I think someone may be after me to kill me."
Mira and Nira were both paying close attention now, though neither of them seemed able to connect the pieces into anything that made sense.
"I’ll see what I can do." Nico replied, unfazed. "But I don’t think it’s a good idea to let you stay here..."
"What’s wrong with it?"
Kira cut in fast, her smile sharpening into something with teeth behind it.
"If the lady says it’s not safe for her, then let her stay. Right, sister?"
Nira had her mouth full of bone marrow when Kira called her name. She glanced up at Nico, hesitated a beat too long, then gave him an unsure little nod.
"I guess?"
Nico read the real message written across Kira’s face without any trouble at all. Underneath that thin, polite smile, her expression had hardened into something close to stone.
She didn’t want Leanne staying either. Not even a little.
It only made things worse that Leanne took the moment as clear approval. She tugged at Nico’s sleeve, pressing the point home until it rang in his ears that she needed to stay.
It took nearly a full minute of this, but eventually, worn down further by Kira’s quiet pressure from the other side, he gave in.
"Alright, fine." He said. "You can stay in the guest house. I’ll have it prepared for you."
He didn’t wait around for her to respond. He already knew that somewhere behind Kira’s calm expression, she’d started planning exactly how she meant to make him pay for this after dinner.
So he stood, wished them all a quiet goodnight, and headed upstairs without waiting for anyone to answer back.
He slowed as he passed Mira’s door, wondering for a moment if she was doing okay. He’d left her somewhere close to tears earlier that afternoon, after botching what should have been a simple apology.
He stood outside her door longer than he meant to, but couldn’t bring himself to knock. He could try, and get dismissed all over again, the same way he had earlier. That one word had already carved deep enough into his pride.
Giving up, he turned and walked the rest of the way to his own room.
***
Nico spent the next hour training his shadowform ability, letting the quiet of the room settle around him as he worked.
By now, he’d gotten the hang of selective control, close enough to perfect that it barely took conscious effort anymore.
He could reach through solid objects while staying completely intangible, and somehow still hold on to whatever he grabbed, no matter how heavy it turned out to be.
He’d pushed his abilities hard over the past weeks, and the more he trained, the more he realized just how much further he still had to go before he could stand against what was coming.
Damon alone was a monster in his own right. And the occult behind him had already proven itself capable of far worse, raising the corpses of people who’d carried grudges against Nico long after their deaths.
What worried him most, sitting there in the dark, was his wives. Especially now that he’d let Leanne stay under the same roof as them.
Leanne was a puppet, that much was obvious to him. Whether she knew it herself or not didn’t matter. He wasn’t willing to gamble his wives’ safety just to find out for certain.
Right now, the occult was the one threat that outweighed every other concern in his mind. Leanne’s return meant they had a plan already in motion, and it didn’t help that she refused to say a word about it, reducing everything to herself simply being hunted.
Nico pulled his knees in and let out a long breath.
Then, without permission, his thoughts drifted back to Mira.
’I wonder what she’s doing right now.’
Maybe she was curled up on her bed somewhere, writhing and cursing his name for being so stupid. He wouldn’t blame her if she was. He’d thought the exact same thing about himself more than once tonight.
Just like Jeff had warned him, he’d overstimulated her.
He wanted to check on her, if only to see with his own eyes that she was alright, whether or not she was ready to hear an apology from him. But he was fairly certain she wouldn’t let him within a step of her door.
Then the idea surfaced, quiet and simple.
He could use his shadowform to slip into her room without a sound.