“Are you sick?” I demanded as the driver pulled out of the compound, an SUV with my cousin’s two guards inside following behind.

“No, of course not.” Ciana yawned yet again and leaned her head against the window, closing her eyes.

“Are you depressed?” I wasn’t going to let this go. Ciana was the type of person who was consistently full of energy, her love of life contagious. Both of those things had been notably absent. I’d only witnessed it in the days since my graduation, but Ryan said it had been going on longer.

Ciana opened her eyes, and I gasped at the sadness I saw in their depths when she turned them on me. “My heart hurts, Nova,” she whispered. “It hurts so fucking bad.”

I slid across the bench seat and wrapped her in a hug. “Why?” I choked out, aching for her. “What made your heart hurt, C?”

She sniffled, and I felt the dampness of her tears on my neck. “Oh, just normal bullshit.” Pulling back, she wiped at her cheeks, laughing humorlessly. “Stupid, gullible girl falls for guy who seems too good to be real. Discovers he definitely is not who he claimed to be, and he breaks her heart into a billion pieces she can’t put back together again, no matter how hard she tries.”

“Who?” I demanded, ready to find the bastard who hurt my beautiful inside and out cousin and make him wish he’d never been born. “When?”

“I met him while on vacation.” She leaned back in the corner of the seat and tucked her legs up under her. “My security had a separate room on one side of me, and he had the one on the other side. Both our bedrooms had balconies, and each night we sat out there, listening to the waves hit the beach and looking at the stars. We confided in each other, whispering our darkest fears and secrets to each other over bottles of wine.” She twisted her lips into an angry grimace. “Well, I told him mine. I doubt anything he ever told me was even true. Fucking asshole.”

“Who is he, Ciana?” I asked again. I would have the motherfucker taken care of. If I couldn’t get it done, then I knew Anya would.

“It doesn’t matter,” she muttered, waving my question away. “It’s over, and I’m trying to move forward with my life.”

“It’s been months since your vacation, and you seem less capable of moving forward with each passing day.” I caught her hand and gave it a firm squeeze. “Let’s find him and kick his ass. Or take a golf club to his car. Where does he live? You met him on that damn island, so he could live anywhere in the world. I’ll call and get the jet ready, and we can be in the air as soon as we pick up Cali.”

She burst out laughing at how animated I was over the thought of causing this bastard some physical violence. “We are not going to break his car windows with a golf club,” she said with a giggle. “And he’s too big for either of us to kick his ass.”