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She handed it to me, and I added Seth to her contacts. “I’m adding him to your list so you can call him if something happens with Nikolai.” I gave her back her phone, and she sighed as she slid it back into her pocket.
“I hate this.”
“So do I,” I agreed, draping an arm over her shoulders. “What do you think of the snow?”
She smiled but the emotion didn’t touch her emerald eyes. “I love it. But changing the subject isn’t going to get you out of this.” She looked up at me. “What did Seth want? I heard you say something about the bantamweight champion. What does Kali have to do with your conversation?”
Sliding my arm away from her shoulders, I stared at her for a few seconds before answering. “I’m hoping nothing. He first asked if I was coming back to Vegas.”
Her eyebrows lifted. “And you said?”
I cupped her cheeks. “I said no. But that’s not what concerns me right now. Ripp mentioned before that he noticed Seth paying a lot of attention to Kali. She doesn’t need to get involved with him or his people. We all know what happened to Reagan when she did.”
Peyton jerked her face out of my hands. “Oh my God, Ethan, that’s not good. What are we going to do?”
“Weare not going to do anything. Ripp is still in Vegas and I’m hoping he, Kase, and Hunter can handle it.”
Peyton turned away from me and huffed. “Is this ever going to end? There’s always going to be one of us in danger.”
“Not if someone puts an end to Nikolai. It’s the only way to be free.”
She jerked around. “Please tell me you’re not going to volunteer yourself. He almost killed Carter and my brother. I can’t let him get to you too.”
“Hey,” I said, grabbing her around the waist. She tried to pull out of my grasp, but I held her tight. “I’m not going to lie, if I ever got the chance, I’d take it in a heartbeat. But I’m not stupid, Peyton. I’m not going to seek Nikolai out.”
I could see the fear in her eyes. “You promise?”
Keeping my eyes open, I kissed her, hoping she could see the truth. “I promise.” And I meant it. I hated Nikolai for everything he’d done to my family. He’d threatened to kill my parents and used my sisters as pawns in his vile, twisted games. The guy deserved to die. I just hoped I was there to witness it when the time came. Peyton shivered and I wrapped my arm around her. “Come on, let’s go inside. Maybe we can watch one of those girly-ass movies you like.”
Peyton perked up and I was glad to see a smile back on her face. “I better not hear you complain. It was your idea.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” I grumbled as we headed off the dock to the house.
Her phone beeped and she pulled it out of her back pocket just as we got to the door. I took her mug of hot chocolate so she could get to the text. Her smile swiftly dropped, replaced by terror.
“Peyton, what’s wrong?” I demanded. She stared at her phone, unable to move. I took it from her and read the text.
Unavailable:Two . . . there is nothing you can do.
“What the fuck?” The number was unavailable. “Do you get texts like that often?”
I gave Peyton back her phone and her hot chocolate. “Not likethat,” she said, shaking her head. “I’ll get telemarketers sometimes but never anything cryptic and weird. But I did get one similar about a week ago.”
“What? Why didn’t you tell me? What did it say?”
She looked away. “It said . . . ‘One is the beginning.’”
I didn’t like it.
“Maybe we should call my aunt Brooklyn and see if she can have it traced.”
Peyton gasped, her eyes piercing into mine. “No. I don’t want to make a big deal out of this. If I get another text, we can call her. It’s probably nothing.”
It didn’t sound like nothing to me.
Chewing her lip, Peyton stared at me. “You don’t think it could be Nikolai doing it, do you?”
I wouldn’t put it past him to do some stupid shit like that, but Nikolai wasn’t the type of guy to resort to texts. He would’ve called her outright.
