“Daddy, please listen!” I begged, tears spilling over my lashes at the pure agony I heard in his voice, even through the rage. “It’s really me. It’s Nova, your princess. I’m not dead. I don’t know what everyone else is talking about, but I’m in—”

“I said stop!” he roared, making my ears ring. “I’m not going to let you play with my head, O’Brion. Just know I’m coming for you. Soon, you hag. Count your days because they are numbered.”

The phone went silent, and then all I heard was the dial tone since I was on a landline. Blinking the tears from my eyes, I sat back in the chair behind the desk, my heart hurting more than any other body part. My poor parents. I couldn’t imagine the pain they were going through, imagining I was dead.

But if they thought I was dead, Ryan probably did too.

Shit, I had to reach him and make him understand that I was alive. With fingers that shook, I dialed his number again. It rang over and over again before finally going to voice mail. “Ryan, my parents think I’m dead, so I’m going to assume you do too. I swear to you, this is me. It’s Nova. I’m alive. I don’t know how to convince you other than to show you. I’m in Colombia. Please, just come see for yourself. Ramirez took me. And Cali. She’s okay too, so let Garret know. Plus, I kind of need a ride home. I mean…I can’t exactly hitchhike to New York from here.” I tried to tease in hopes of making him at least smile, but my voice broke on the last few words. “Please, Ryan. Just call me back. I love you.”

Dropping the phone into the cradle, I pressed my palm into my forehead, mentally willing him to call me back.

40

Ryan

I stood in the river of blood I’d helped create, but my thirst for vengeance wasn’t satisfied. More than thirty bodies littered the street, but the one person I most wanted dead wasn’t among them. Sheena O’Brion was nowhere to be found, not even in her beloved Ireland, where Garret and I had spent the last two days hunting her down.

We’d lost men of our own along the way, and even then, five of our people were lying among the dead. Garret had a bullet hole in his shoulder after this skirmish, but we were both ready to take on the entire country if that was what we had to do to bring down the woman who had stolen Nova from me.

“She knows where Lis is,” he snarled from where Mom was packing his wound with gauze. Pop was helping her, but he had been silent since the bullets had started flying. If I’d been paying attention, I would have noticed he hadn’t said much since Sheena O’Brion’s name had first crossed Ciana’s lips. We’d all known she was after us—me, especially—we just hadn’t anticipated her going this far. The depravity of what she’d done to Nova was an act of a sociopath. “She knows, and the whore won’t even show her face.”