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“I’d love to come.”
31
NICO
“Nico?”
“Da, zolottse?” Barely awake, he answered in his mother tongue out of habit. “What’s wrong?”
“There are sirens.”
“Sirens?” The covers slipped down to his waist as he sat up in bed. “An alarm?”
He strained his ears, but all he could hear was the waves breaking against the shore. The sound lulled him to sleep every night, a sedative, and it was one of the reasons he’d decided to build a hotel here. Back in Russia, he’d been restless in bed, but now he slept like the dead.
“More like the police. I’ve heard them go past three times, and I thought… I don’t know what I thought. Cesare couldn’t have found me so fast, could he? I wouldn’t put it past him to wreak havoc as a distraction. One time when he torched a building that belonged to a guy who’d upset him in some way, he staged a car crash to block the street so the fire trucks couldn’t get through.”
Now Nico heard a siren too. Not close, but definitely in Baldwin’s Shore and heading north away from Main Street, which ruled out an incident at one of the two bars. Baldwin’s Shore was a sleepy little town, or at least, it had been until a year ago. Since then, Brooke had been plagued by a stalker, Brie had brought her own drama, and two members of the Baldwin family had gone to prison. Yes, those Baldwins. Their estate lay to the north, but there were only five of them left, and three of them seemed relatively normal. Could the twins be causing trouble again? There was a reason Nico had banned Kayleigh and Lillian from the Peninsula.
“Let me make a couple of calls.”
Without thinking things through, he rolled out of bed, lifting his phone off the nightstand and turning on the light as he went. He only realised there was a problem when he saw Kaylin’s face. The shock.
“What—” He glanced down. Oh. Blyat. “If you just… Uh, let me put on a pair of pants.”
Mental note: sleeping naked wasn’t the best idea when you had a female houseguest. Kaylin spun around, and at first, he thought she was crying, which wasn’t ideal. But…hold on…
“Are you…laughing?”
“Sorry. Shit, I’m sorry.”
“What’s so funny about my dick?”
“Nothing! I swear, there’s nothing funny about it.”
“Then why are you giggling?”
None of his exes had voiced any complaints. One brunette, a woman who’d had a strange fondness for historical re-enactments, had even nicknamed it “broadsword.”
“No reason, it’s just that when you looked down…” She snorted, then clapped a hand over her mouth. “Your expression when you saw it swinging there in the breeze.”
“What breeze?”
“Uh, that was a figure of speech. Do you have pants on now?”
“Give me a second.”
Nico grabbed a pair of sweatpants from his walk-in closet and pulled them on. Kaylin was still facing the window, and although she was silent now, her shoulders were shaking. She, of course, had clothes on. A T-shirt and… Hold on a moment.
“Are you wearing my boxers?”
Oh, now she stopped laughing, and when she turned, her cheeks were quite pink.
“Uh, maybe? I forgot to buy sleepwear, and they’re comfortable, and… I’ll launder them in the morning.”
“Keep them.” It came out as a growl, and Nico realised that he really fucking liked seeing Kaylin in his clothes. And also in his bedroom. Damn, he was an asshole. “Let me make those calls.”
Luca wasn’t answering, but Colt picked up for long enough to tell Nico there had been a shooting at The Lookout, that the situation was still unfolding, and to stay inside. So, it was about the Baldwins again, but that didn’t stop Nico from unclipping the hastily installed child-safety lock on his nightstand drawer, removing the semi-automatic that lay inside, and tucking it into his waistband.
