Page 107 of Sweet as Sin (Bad Habit 1)
Disaster.
Overturned furniture littered the floor. The coffee table lay on its side in the living room, glass top smashed, legs kicked in. The sofa spewed pale stuffing from ragged, gaping slashes. My bookcase lay on its side, its contents spilled in rainbow colors over the rug. In the kitchen, my wood dining table had been destroyed, smashed to a splintered mess. The refrigerator door stood open, shelves empty, everything once inside now scattered over the tile floor, comingled with all the plates and glasses from the cabinets, which were shattered into jagged pieces.
I cried out in shock, stumbling forward with my hand clapped over my mouth.
Directly behind me, Barney cursed. He pushed past me, set a hand on my shoulder, and said, “Stay here.” He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a small silver handgun, then quickly searched each room in the house. When he found no one, he made a brief phone call, his voice low and indistinct from the other room.
All I could focus on was the feeling of extreme violation eating through my guts. How could someone do this?
And why?
In my bedroom, the duvet and sheets had been ripped from the mattress and tossed into a corner. The mattress itself was slashed from corner to corner, the cuts forming an x. Broken glass crunched underfoot as I moved forward in a daze, smelling a potent confusion of flowers and musk lingering in the air.
All my perfume bottles on the bathroom vanity had been shattered, thrown hard against the mirror. They lay in piles on the marble and in the sink. Everything from the drawers beneath the sink had been dumped into the bathtub.
In the master closet, my clothes hung in shreds.
Someone had taken a knife to every piece of clothing I owned.
Stunned, I began to violently shake. My heart twisted, my stomach knotted. All that paled in comparison to what I felt when I turned and saw the blown-up black-and-white photograph stuck to the wall above the dresser with a carving knife.
The picture was of Nico and me, kissing.
It had been taken by the paparazzi the night we’d met, when he’d come to Lula’s and sat at a table with Chloe, Grace, and me. Featured on the cover of Star magazine, it was the picture captioned by the awful tagline, “Nico Nyx and His Harem!”
An angry, red marker line was slashed across our faces. Because my face had been obscured by shadow, whoever did this knew that the woman Nico was kissing in the picture was me. Every nerve humming with fear, I sank to the ruined mattress. For the first time, I understood that Nico’s concerns were founded on more than mere paranoia.
He must know exactly what his brother is capable of. He must have proof.
“Kat.” Barney stood in the doorway, his expression grim. “Let’s go.”
My head was a fog of jumbled thoughts. “But . . . I need to . . . there’s paperwork here . . . my things . . . I can’t just leave it like this.”
“I’ll come back later and get whatever you need. Right now we need to go. It’s not safe for you here.”
Tears welled in my eyes. I whispered, “It was him, wasn’t it? It was Michael.”
Barney nodded. “Most likely.”
“Why would he do this?”
Barney crossed the room, took my hand, and gently pulled me to my feet. With an arm around my back, he ushered me out of my ruined bedroom. “Because he’s damaged, Kat.” His voice darkened. “And damaged people are dangerous.”
I stumbled through the mess in the living room, leaning heavily on Barney’s arm. “We have to tell Nico—”
“Already called him,” Barney cut in. Something in his voice told me in no uncertain terms that it hadn’t been a wonderful conversation.
In the distance, sirens wailed.
Barney said, “Gonna have an escort back to the house, at Nico’s insistence. They’ll talk to us there.”
“Oh, God.” I knew what that meant. I could only imagine how ballistic Nico would be when we arrived home.
Nico was pacing in front of the fountain in the driveway when Barney and I pulled up at his house. His head snapped up, our eyes met through the windshield, and I went cold.
“Shit,” muttered Barney. “Brace yourself, Kat. This won’t be pretty.”
Barney cut the engine. The two squad cars parked, one ahead of us, one behind, and the officers got out. They headed toward Nico, but he was already striding toward the Escalade, his hands clenched to fists. His dark hair was in disarray, as if he’d been pulling at it.
