“Huh,” I muttered to myself. “So, Bain was the one who broke her heart while she was on vacation. No wonder she didn’t want to talk about it. I guess she figured Ryan would kill him for hurting her.”
“Ryan blames her for everything that happened,” Mom confided. “And I think Garret does too.”
“Ciana?” I laughed at the absurdity. “Why would they blame her?”
“Sheena and Ramirez had attacked one of the warehouses, which kept Ryan and Garret busy. They had no idea that she planned on striking closer to home and ambushing you that night,” she explained. “If Ciana had spoken up, told someone about Bain, then they might have tightened security. Maybe they wouldn’t have let you girls go out that night. None of this would have happened if Ciana had just been open about Bain.”
“But how would Ciana have known?” I defended my cousin.
“Because she knew that Bain and Sheena went hand in hand. We all know that, Nova.” She was right. I knew that Bain, although an O’Farrell, ruled over the O’Brion family. But Sheena still tried to control them all. “It wasn’t a coincidence that he showed up at the same hotel she was at during her vacation, in the room right next door. It had to have been a setup, to hurt Ciana in some way. Ryan has so few weaknesses, but you and Ciana are at the top of the list.”
“Poor Ciana.” I wanted to call her, to make sure she was okay. She was pregnant, living with a man who had used her to get to Ryan. If he blamed her, then the rest of her family might as well. It probably looked as if she’d turned her back on them, betrayed them. Knowing them so well, I figured they would have then turned their backs on her. Leaving her with no one to rely on.
But none of this was her fault.
“Maybe if you came out of hiding and showed everyone that you’re okay, they will make up,” Mom suggested hopefully. “My heart aches for all of them, especially Ryan. Losing you… I never even saw him cry, Nova. But he was destroyed. It was like he shut down. He turned everything off the moment he accepted the fact that you were dead.”
“I called him so many times, Mom.” I picked up my phone and waved it at her for emphasis. “From a hundred different phones. And every time, he refused to so much as answer. I left messages each time. But instead of calling me back, he simply blocked me. Even if he hadn’t listened to the messages, if he would have just traced the numbers, he would have known where to look for the person he thought was pranking him. He wouldn’t have just accepted someone playing games with him. He would have wanted to know why they were messing with him. He would have wanted retribution. And he would have found me.”
“Why didn’t you just go to him?” she countered.
“Cali needed me,” I said with a lift of one shoulder. “And I was too hurt to go to him. I needed him to come for me. To save me.”
“But you already saved yourself,” she argued, her eyes narrowing. “Which you haven’t fully explained.”
“And I’m not going to. The less you know, the better.” I pushed back from the table and stood. “Once the baby is born, and Cali is back on her feet, we can revisit this conversation. Until then, I’ve got too much on my plate to worry about anything or anyone else.” I started to turn away, but I paused and glanced down at her. “If you miss Dad so much, I won’t ask you to stay. You’ve already made such an impact, Mom. And I’m truly thankful for it. If it weren’t for you, Cali may never have agreed to come here, and I would have lost both her and the baby. You’re not a prisoner here. You can go home whenever you want. Just say the word, and I’ll have Guzman escort you back to California.”
“I’m where I need to be,” Mom said with a small smile. “My girls are more important than anyone else at the moment. I miss your dad, but he can wait a little longer before I let him know where I am.”
“If you change your mind, just let me or Guzman know.” I bent and hugged her. “Thank you for being here.”
“There’s nowhere else I’d want to be, sweetheart.”
As I walked back to Cali’s room, everything Mom told me replayed in my head. Just thinking about some of the things she’d confided in me made me shudder. I felt sick at the idea of the sight Ryan must have seen, how it must have destroyed him to think that it was me…
No, I berated myself. I wasn’t going to weaken. He might have thought that body was mine, but when I called, he should have known it was me. He should…
I paused down the hall from Cali’s room. Leaning against a wall, I tilted my head back and closed my eyes against the fluorescent lights above me. Tears stung my eyes, and I tried in vain to hold them back, but a few still leaked from the corners.
Was I being too unforgiving? Just hearing some of what Ryan must have experienced that night turned my stomach. I couldn’t imagine what he must have felt when he saw such a grotesque sight. All this time, I thought Cali was right with the whole “out of sight, out of mind” bullshit. My anger had twisted me up inside, and I’d made myself forget what my Ryan was really like.
Ryan Vitucci loved me more than anything or anyone in the world. He wouldn’t just abandon me. I didn’t know why he wouldn’t call me back after all those messages I’d left him, but it couldn’t have been because he’d moved on or even forgotten about me.
Pulling my phone from my back pocket, I hesitated with my thumb over his contact information. I missed him so much. Maybe if I just heard his voice, I would—
An alarm going off had my head jerking up to see Guzman, who was standing with another guard outside of Cali’s room, rushing inside. Behind me, three nurses started cursing in Spanish and rushed past me. Shoving my phone back into my pocket, I ran after them.
46
Nova
“…the OR ready,” one of the nurses was instructing. “Call the doctor. This baby is coming now.”
My heart stopped at the chaos unfolding in front of me. Cali was lying on the bed, tears streaming down her face as she clutched at her distended stomach. She still wasn’t as big as most women who were about to deliver usually were, but that was because she was barely into her twenty-fourth week.
“Nova!” she cried when she saw me. Lifting one of her hands from her belly, she reached for me.
I ran to her side, clutching at her ice-cold hand. “What happened?”
“I started to cramp really badly, and then…” She pulled back the blanket to reveal so much blood it nearly turned my stomach. “Justice is coming, and I’m so scared. It’s too soon. She hasn’t had enough time to grow in there.”
I rubbed my thumb over her knuckles. “It’s going to be okay,” I promised, trying to keep the fear out of my voice so I didn’t scare her more than she already was. “She’s just too excited to meet you to stay in there any longer.”
The nurses were having to work around me, and then one of them told Guzman to take me out of the room. I shot him a look that told him not to even try, and he backed away, putting himself out of the line of fire.
“I’m going with her,” I told the nurses in Spanish.