Garret was already halfway up the stairs before I could move. Cursing, I ran after him, the other guy whose name I didn’t know right behind me, our guns at the ready. At the top of the stairs, he started kicking in doors. Knowing he was going to get himself shot if he wasn’t more careful, I took point behind him.
The number of rooms upstairs seemed endless. Bedroom after bedroom was found empty. Other than the five men Garret had taken out when we first entered the house, no one else was up there.
“Sonofabitch!” Garret bellowed and stormed down the stairs.
In the kitchen, we found a door and a set of stairs that led to the basement. As we started down them, I realized that the sound of bullets flying was now eerily absent. I could hear voices coming from downstairs, some of them I recognized—Zio, Pop, Adrian, Dante—others were only vaguely familiar and those of Pop’s friends.
With each step I descended, my heart started racing more and more until I felt like it was going to explode. My hands began to sweat, and my stomach started to roil. Nova wasn’t down there. I knew she wasn’t. I couldn’t feel her or the magnetic draw that always—fucking always—pulled me to her. The smell of blood hit me before we reached the last step, and the guy behind me started to gag, letting us all know he wasn’t used to gore.
The sound of gut-wrenching sobs hit my ears as we walked deeper into the basement. It was obvious this was a torture room. There were drains in the floor for easy cleanup, and tools I was all too familiar with hung from the walls, having used them myself over the years. Pop had started my training in my teens, and Mom hadn’t objected since he’d started my education into the darker side of our world before I’d even hit puberty.
“Don’t let him through,” Mom called out, setting me even more on edge. “Don’t let him see this!”
Suddenly Theo and Pop were standing in front of me, but my gaze stayed on where I could just barely see Mom’s head over the top of everyone else. Bright lights hung over several metal tables. The heart-shattering crying grew louder, and I realized why it hurt to hear.
Ciana.
“I-I just want to g-go home, Papa,” she sobbed. “I’m sorry. So sorry. I didn’t mean for any of this to ha-happen.”
“Shh, shh. Don’t cry, bambina.” The tears I could hear in Zio’s voice bothered me even more than my cousin’s. I’d never seen or heard the huge man cry before. “There’s nothing to be sorry for.”
“No, there is. This is all my fault. I never should have—”
“Ciana, please,” her father begged. “Just let me get you to a hospital. We can talk later, sweetheart. I promise.”
“Fuck this,” Garret growled, barreling his way past everyone. “Ciana, are you o…kay?” I heard his sharp intake of air. “What the fuck is that?”
“Garret, don’t,” Mom warned. “Don’t. He can’t see her—”
“See who?” I whispered, a feeling of dread squeezing my insides so tight I couldn’t draw a deep enough breath. She’s okay. I can’t feel her. That means she’s not here. Those other bastards took her. Probably to a different location. Fuck, I need to find her, and everyone is taking their sweet-ass time.
Pop grabbed both my shoulders, pulling me out of my head. “I’m sorry, figlio.”
What the fuck was he sorry for? The raw grief on his face twisted it into something painful. No, I reminded myself. No, Nova was fine. My heart was still beating, and I couldn’t fucking feel her. She wasn’t there. She couldn’t be…
“Is that…my sister?” Garret demanded in a broken voice. “Anya, tell me that isn’t Nova. Tell me. Please, please, Anya. I’m begging you. Tell me that isn’t her.”
I shrugged off Pop’s hands and pushed Theo out of my way. Others tried to catch me, but no one was strong enough to keep me from getting to where Garret was now bent in half, his hands on his knees as he retched onto the floor.
I lifted my gaze from the puddle of puke he was creating to the tables. Zio stood over the one Ciana was lying on. Restraints were attached to the table, and from the red marks on her wrists and ankles, it was obvious she’d been tied down with them. She was lying there in nothing but her bra and panties. Small piles of her hair were on the floor and table beside her from someone having butchered her once-glossy red locks. Her makeup streaked down her face from where she was crying. Red welts popped up on her chest and arms in a pattern I was all too familiar with.
Burn marks.
But it was the bump sticking out from her lower belly that pulled my focus the most. Her skin was stretched tight, and everything clicked into place. Why she’d been so tired and hungry lately. Why she’d started wearing clothes that hid her figure.
Ciana was pregnant.
“Nova,” Garret whispered weakly, straightening and stumbling forward a few steps.
The movement pulled my attention to the other tables, one of which was empty, but the other was…
“No!” My roar rocked the entire house. I jerked forward, my hands going to the table, desperate to put the pieces back together again. “Nova?” Tears spilled from my eyes as I tried to make sense of what I was seeing.
No hands. No feet. But the same white romper thing Nova had been wearing earlier. Blond hair attached to a head that was…caved in, making it impossible to identify the face.
And around her neck, the Russian rings with RYAN’S HEART on them.
She never took the necklace off, not even to shower. And there it was, lying around the neck of a broken body that was unrecognizable.
“Sh-she was like that when I woke up,” Ciana sobbed behind me. “They…they hurt me over and over again, b-but all I could do was look at…Nova.”
“Where’s Lis?” Garret had gotten control of himself, but I couldn’t tear my eyes off Nova’s necklace to look at him. “Ciana, where is she?”
“I-I don’t know,” she cried. “She wasn’t here when I woke up. Just Nova.”
“No.” The denial tasted metallic on my tongue. “No. This can’t be Nova. It can’t.” Goddamn it, my heart was still beating. If this was her, why was the fucking organ still pounding away in my chest? Why hadn’t I died the moment her heart had stopped?
A soft hand touched my back, but still, I couldn’t tear my gaze away. “That’s her necklace, Ryan. I saw her wearing that same outfit before she left the house tonight.”
“I know. I know, but it can’t be her.” I pressed a fist to my heart. “It’s not her.”
“They said it was her.” Ciana’s voice was steadier now, colder. “They laughed and told me how much fun it was to kill her. I didn’t break, Papa. I didn’t scream or cry. I just looked at Nova. So quiet and beautiful. Even like this, she’s beautiful, isn’t she? Then… Then…”
“Then?” Garret gritted out.
“Then she took Nova’s hands and feet and put them in a cooler and left.”
“Who?” Mom demanded.
“Sheena O’Brion,” Ciana spat out the name before she burst into tears once again, but the sound of that name caused my blood to ice over. From across the basement, I heard Pop curse, while Mom seemed to turn to stone beside me. “Papa, please, I just want to go home now. I need…to see a doctor. The babies…”