I lifted my head just enough to meet his gaze. “I promise you will hear it every day for the rest of our lives.”
His dark eyes were tormented. “Are you happy, my heart?”
The question surprised the hell out of me. “Ryan, this is the happiest day of my life. I get to spend the rest of my life with my best friend. How could I not be happy?”
“Earlier—”
I covered his mouth with my hand. “I was just worried this wasn’t going to be perfect for you. I don’t want you to have regrets. Ciana isn’t—”
“I don’t want to talk about her,” he cut me off, his face going blank at the mention of her name.
“But—”
“No. This is our day, and I’m not going to spend it thinking about her.” He pushed a few strands of hair that had fallen from my braid back from my face. “I love you, Nova.”
All thoughts of Ciana fled for the moment at those words. “I thought…” I licked my lips. “I thought you were punishing me by not saying that last night or today.”
His brows pinched together. “I haven’t said it?” I shook my head, unable to speak through the lump filling my throat. “Fuck, baby. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hold back the words. I’ve said them a hundred times in my head since I first saw you last night.”
That brought a smile to my face, but before I could comment, we were surrounded by our parents. It made our quick escape impossible, because the moms wanted a million pictures. Ryan didn’t put me down during them, until finally, Anya promised that after one more—as long as I was standing in it—we could go.
Grumbling to himself, he placed me on my feet. Surrounded by our parents, my brother and friend, as well as Maria and Guzman, we smiled for one last group picture before Ryan started throwing out orders to Nardo and Otto that we were leaving. With one final wave, I was back in his arms, being carried out to the car waiting on us.
As soon as we boarded the jet, Ryan didn’t even give me two seconds to greet poor, shocked Oliver before he was carrying me to the bedroom. I waved over Ryan’s shoulder while Nardo laughingly filled in the flight attendant on my sudden rise from the dead.
The door barely closed behind us, and I was pressed up against the nearest hard surface. Ryan’s control had finally snapped again, making the flight to Fiji almost as memorable as the honeymoon itself.
Epilogue
Nova
The baby cooed in my arms, and I smiled down at her, murmuring softly as Ciana fed one of her sisters. It had been an eventful day and my entire body was sore, but it was worth it. Getting Ciana and her babies away from the monster that was Bain O’Farrell was all I’d been able to think about since returning from my honeymoon. Not even moving in to our brand-new house within the Vitucci compound walls had been able to distract me.
Anya had sensed my preoccupation, and after seeing how stressed Scarlett was over worrying for her daughter and grandchildren, the two of us had decided we couldn’t just let Ciana stay locked away from those who loved her.
It had taken weeks of planning, but we’d finally accomplished what we’d set out to do. Of course, we knew Bain would try to come for them, but he’d never find Ciana unless she wanted to be found. And from what little she’d said since we’d made our exit from Bain’s fortress, I doubted she wanted that anytime soon—if ever.
“He had one of his men put a sniper on Ryan when he came to get me,” she whispered, trying to keep her voice steady as she nursed her daughter. “He said if I didn’t do what he wanted, he’d kill Ryan and send Anya his head. He showed me Sheena’s, so of course, I believed him.”
“No one is blaming you, myshka,” Anya assured her soothingly, rocking the third baby in her arms. “I knew there was a reason you wouldn’t come with Ryan.”
“Don’t worry about anything,” I told my cousin. “You just concentrate on taking care of these beautiful girls and yourself. We’ve got everything else taken care of.”
Worry darkened her beautiful face. I didn’t know if it was having to handle three babies at once, or from having to deal with Bain for so long, but Ciana looked exhausted. She’d always seemed to glow, no matter what was going on in her life, but now she looked like a shell of the vibrant girl I’d always known and loved. “He won’t just let me go. If he’d been home, things would have gone a lot differently when you two burst in like that.”
I smirked over at her. “Good thing we knew he wasn’t home, then.”
“How?”
“Everyone has a price,” Anya muttered. “And I can be very persuasive when I need to be.”
“How many people did you have to kill?” Ciana asked, deadpan.
“As many as I had to,” she said in a gentle voice, rubbing her nose against the baby’s, making her coo. “And I will kill many, many more to keep you and these angels safe.”
“What will you do when Bain comes for us?” Ciana asked with concern.
Anya looked over at her niece and slowly released a heavy breath. “As Nova said, don’t worry about anything. He can come for you all he wants, but he won’t ever find you.”
Once we had Ciana and her babies hidden away, it was time to get home. It had been three days since I’d seen Ryan, but he wasn’t aware I’d been gone for more than a few hours since he’d only just gotten back from a business trip earlier in the day. As soon as I’d known his plane was in the air, Anya and I had boarded the second Vitucci jet, knowing that time was a precious commodity.
Now Ciana was with her mother deep in the wilderness of Russia, protected by a hundred of the scariest soldiers I’d ever set eyes on, and I was more nervous about facing my husband than I’d been about meeting those deadly men. I was going to be in so much trouble once I confessed what I’d been up to while he was away.
Now that he knew what had really taken place when his mom and I would go to Paris after each Christmas in the past, I didn’t keep anything from him. At least, not for long. I knew he would have tried to stop us if he knew what we’d planned, so I wasn’t about to tell him beforehand. But now that it was over and Ciana was safe, I wouldn’t lie to him about what I’d been doing while he was away.
“That shoulder is really going to need looking at,” Anya said as the limo pulled up in front of the mansion. “I think whatever happened to cause you to dislocate it in the past tore something that just isn’t healing right.”
I shifted my shoulder, trying to loosen the muscles that had gotten stiff during the drive from the airport. When my injured shoulder protested, I grimaced, knowing she was right. I probably should have had the damn thing checked when I first got back to New York after our honeymoon, but it had been right before Christmas, and I’d needed to rush to get all my shopping done in time for the presents to arrive in both California and Colombia.
“I’ll set you up an appointment,” my mother-in-law promised as the back door of the limo was opened for her to exit. She stepped out but stuck her head back in. “Good luck with your husband,” she said with a smirk.