Knight knew. And what he knew was that Olivia was there when that shit went down. She was a witness to her father shooting Drake Nair. A witness that didn’t come forward. Murder covered up, that made her an accomplice.

She was vulnerable.

“Not a word, Nick. Nothin’ about Olivia,” Knight assured him.

“Sylvie and Creed findin’ anything for me with the Feds?”

“Nothin’. All clear. So fishy it smells bad, it’s so clear. This includes them not seein’ any link from the Feds to the Shades. Georgia picked a solid crew, none of them are stupid, none of them are fuckups. Not like the dad. It’s a new dawn for the House of Shade. She played the long game and cleaned up along the way. Though, she tied shit tight, Sylvie and Creed have heard Valenzuela is not pleased with Georgia’s recent activities. He was amusing himself with her, thinking she was a joke like her father. Her getting her feet under her, he’s not amused anymore.”

“Shit, shit, fuck,” Nick muttered.

“Shit’s hot, brother,” Knight told him something he knew but he did it quietly.

“I don’t know what’s goin’ down, I just know whatever goes down from here on out might need to be fast, Knight. Lightning speed. You got my back on that?” Nick asked.

“Don’t piss me off with stupid questions,” Knight answered.

Nick drew in a breath and let it go, parking in the first spot he found close to Olivia’s house, a parallel job one door down.

“I’m at her pad, gotta go.”

“You need me, I’m here and I’ll put out the alert in case we need to break a sound barrier.”

Nick wanted to be amused.

He was too worried to be amused.

“Gotcha. Thanks.”

“It’s gonna be okay, Nick. If it isn’t right now, we’ll make it that way,” Knight told him as Nick knifed out of his car.

That felt good. Having Knight at his back, that felt good.

But he didn’t have a good feeling about this. Liv knew he wanted her communicating. He reached out, she knew to reach back. Her non-response was more than a little troubling.

“Thanks, brother, I’ll check in soon.”

“Right. Later.”

They disconnected and Nick tore his eyes from Liv’s house when he heard his name called.

He looked to the car where Jed was sitting across the street.

“Stay or go?” Jed called his question.

“Stay,” Nick called back. “And get another man here. Eyes everywhere. Anyone approaches this house, they’re stopped and I’m notified.”

Jed nodded and closed his window.

Not giving a shit, the jig was up because, with shit going down at the House of Shade, he was not going to let Olivia out of his sight, he walked right up to her house.

He tried his key.

It didn’t work on the front door.