“We’ll find her,” Mom told him with confidence, putting tape over both sides of the gunshot wound. “Maybe not today or tomorrow or even next week, but we will find that stupid cunt.”

“Is she safe?” Garret mused to himself, not even seeming to feel the pain as Mom continued to tend the wound. The bullet had gone straight through, and Mom said it looked fine—it just needed to be packed, and then it could be sewn up once we got on the jet. “Or is she like…Nova?”

“Don’t think about it,” she advised, her tone hard as we were all reminded of how we’d found my precious angel. “One way or another, we will find your Lis.”

She wasn’t making promises that we would find her whole. The probability of finding Cali dead after so much time had already passed was far greater than finding her alive.

I pulled out my phone so I didn’t have to think about Nova or Cali, and I noticed I had two missed calls from an unknown number, as well as several voice mails. I recognized the country code and quickly lifted the phone to my ear, listening to the messages.

“Ryan, hey.” My knees went weak when I heard her voice saying my name. I stumbled and dropped onto my ass as I clutched the phone to my ear, my breaths coming in harsh pants as I listened.

“I know you are probably losing your mind right now, but you can relax. I’m fine. I swear. Just a little banged up. I don’t want to talk about all this over the phone, so just call me back at this number, and I’ll tell you where I am.” There was a brief pause and then, “I love you.”

Tears blurred my vision and my fingers shook as I started to call her back, but before I could hit connect, another call came in. Seeing it was Jet, I sucked in a deep breath and answered.

“That fucking cunt O’Brion just tried to call and prank Felicity!” he growled in a low, deadly voice as a greeting. “Pretending to be Nova, the sick bitch. I swear, if I didn’t know better, I would have sworn it was my little girl. It sounded just like her. But you all were sure it was Nova that you found up north.”

I closed my eyes. Of course, Sheena was trying to torment us all. She wasn’t done making me suffer.

Defeat filled me. The relief I’d felt at hearing Nova’s voice turned my heart to stone now. She really was gone. I’d seen the body, and even though I’d tried to deny it, even convinced myself that my heart would have actually stopped beating the moment hers had, I knew that wasn’t really possible.

“I bet she used one of those apps to make her voice sound like Nova’s,” Jet muttered. “Felicity is even more torn up than she was when we first got here. The doctor had to sedate her. Find that stupid cunt and bring me her head, or leave this shit to me. One way or another, I will look into her dead eyes and tell her to save me a place in hell because I’m going to enjoy torturing her for the rest of eternity.”