“Holy shit,” I breathed, stunned.
“Yeah, it was bad. I heard the next week when we went back that the guy had a pretty severe concussion and still didn’t remember his own name.” Garret stretched his legs out in front of him, getting comfortable. “The promoter asked Ryan if he wanted in on the fights, and before Vito or Bennie could convince him it was a bad idea, he agreed. He’s a beast in the cage, sis, but he likes taking hits a little too much for my peace of mind.”
“But why?” I didn’t understand why Ryan would want anyone to hit him. After everything he’d been through with his mom when he was just a toddler, I figured he wouldn’t allow anyone to even touch him with violence without losing his mind.
“It’s the pain,” my brother confessed. “He likes it.” My confusion must have shown on my face because he muttered a curse and went on. “When we found you…or whoever the fuck that was, Ryan shut down. We went on the hunt for Sheena, but he was like an automaton. He was there physically, but he was just…empty. Without you, the poor guy is heartless, Nova. You’re the one who made him human. When we lost you, the Ryan we all knew disappeared, leaving us with the shell he is now.”
I tried to digest that, but it was hard. Guilt pressed down on me. If I’d gone home right away, Ryan wouldn’t have been put through all this pain. He wouldn’t be the heartless robot he’d turned into without me.
Garret must have sensed that I needed some alone time, because he grabbed a blanket out of the storage area and settled in to sleep. I sat there, curled up in a ball in my chair and tried not to cry. All this time, I’d considered Ryan the villain for not coming for me. But in reality, it was me. I was the one in the wrong.
It was a hard pill to swallow, but I had to own up to my mistake.
And figure out a way to make it up to the man I loved.
48
Ryan
My alarm went off, pulling me from the best dream I could ever remember having. Nova had been spooned behind me, her soft touch brushing over my skin, her lips pressed into the center of my back. Even as I shifted, I could still feel her, as if she’d actually been there.
For the first time in forever, I was able to fully inhale without it hurting, but it left me feeling restless. Waiting. Wanting. In my dream, she had been so close, her presence still lingered in my wakefulness. Turning, I touched where she’d been behind me in my dream. I could map out her outline, and part of me was convinced that her heat still lingered even though I knew she was never actually there. My head was playing games with me, and that void deep in my soul wasn’t the least bit soothed by the trick my mind was playing.
Reluctantly, I got out of bed and took a quick shower. Once I was dressed, I called for my driver before making a cup of coffee and grabbing an apple out of the fruit bowl. While I ate my breakfast, I flipped through my phone, checking any messages I might have gotten along with my work emails.
I had several from Mom, Samara, and Pop, but it was the one from Garret that pulled my focus.
Garret: Got a lead on my mom. Don’t want to disappoint Dad if it doesn’t pan out. Will check in when I can. Until then, I will be radio silent.
We’d been searching for Felicity for months, but there had been zero clues as to where she might have gone—or even if she’d gone willingly. Surveillance cameras and CCTV feeds from private businesses had left us with nothing. I’d had Desi checking airports within a hundred-square-mile radius of Trinity County, but that had been fruitless as well. No one had seen or heard anything from the Hannigan home that night. It was as if Felicity really had vanished into thin air.
Garret had been exhausting himself flying back and forth between New York and California, helping his family search for his mom while still working. I wasn’t sure what to think of him going off to follow a lead on his own, but I did know that Jet was a mess without his wife. Garret probably didn’t want to add more stress to the man in case he came home empty-handed once again.
When I got to work, Eduard was already on top of things as usual. We were minus an employee these days, not that anyone had noticed CeCe’s absence. Honestly, I wasn’t sure what had happened to her other than that Mom had taken care of her. CeCe’s uncle wouldn’t be able to use her to help the O’Brions spy on me or my family ever again—that was for fucking sure.
With everything that had been going on after I lost Nova, my assistant had basically been running the legit side of the business. He was more than competent enough, and with Pop there to handle anything Eduard couldn’t, nothing had fallen behind. But I’d been slowly taking over everything once again, attempting to get back to some sense of normalcy, even if it was only on the surface so my family didn’t worry.
More than anything, however, it was because I needed the extra distraction to keep my mind off what was coming up and the fact that I wouldn’t be going on my honeymoon the following month as I’d been planning for the longest time.
Eduard was going on and on about the schedule for the day, but I only half heard what he said, my gaze going to the framed picture of me with Nova on my desk. On autopilot, I answered when spoken to, but I couldn’t draw my gaze away from the way Nova was smiling up at me in the photo.
If money could return her to me, I would have gladly handed over every last penny that came with the Vitucci name. The houses, cars, private planes, boats, or even the new helicopter. All of it could go in the blink of an eye for all I cared. If I could trade places with her, I would have already been six feet under. Fuck, I would have traded my soul to the devil himself if I could have just five more minutes with Nova so I could tell her one more time how much I loved her and hear her sweet laugh. Five minutes, five hours, or even five days—time meant nothing. Regardless of what I was given, it would never be enough.
I was still staring at the picture when I dismissed my assistant, only tearing my gaze away when my desk phone rang. Work demanded my full attention, but I couldn’t look away from the picture for more than a few minutes at a time. The same thing happened every time I sat behind that desk, but for some reason, it was suddenly worse.
“I’ve missed you so much.”
Her words from my dream the night before replayed in my head over and over again. The feel of her arms around me had been so real. I saw her every night in my dreams, but no matter how often she’d told me she loved me or hugged me, not once had I woken feeling so at peace as I’d done that morning.
But instead of soothing something inside me, it only made the gaping hole in the middle of my chest where my heart should have been throb more. Missing Nova physically hurt to the point that every muscle in my body was constantly tense.
The pain of being without my heart was unrelenting and endless.
Weeks passed without any word from Garret. I started turning over some of his work to Vito and Bennie since I couldn’t do it all myself. His dad called me twice when he couldn’t reach his son, but I just told him Garret was busy with something that had come up.
As Nova’s birthday approached, it was harder and harder to even get out of bed at times. We should have been rushing around in preparation for the wedding while I made plans for our honeymoon. Instead, I was left with…nothing. There would be no celebrating her turning eighteen. No making her my wife. No romantic getaway where I finally made her mine in every way.