I walked him to the front door, where a guard was waiting to drive the doctor back to his clinic. As I started back up the stairs to return to Cali’s room, I already had an idea of how to convince her to do as the doctor suggested. But it was going to take some help.

My heart lifted at the thought of what I needed to do, even as anger filled me that I had to do it in the first place.

Cali’s door opened, and Guzman exited the room, his face set in tense lines when he spotted me. I stopped and waited for him, knowing from the expression on his face he wanted to talk.

“You have to make her go to the hospital,” he gritted out. “She’s so stubborn, just like Matias always said her mother was. We’ve lost Matias and her mother. We can’t lose her too.”

“I have an idea, but it means I have to take a quick trip.” His eyes narrowed as I told him my plan.

“It’s not safe for you. We need you just as much as we need her.”

His words warmed me, but I knew this would work as long as I could pull it off. “I will be fine. Besides, it’s a risk we have to take if it means changing Cali’s mind.”

“I will go with you.”

“No,” I said firmly. “Cali needs you here, and if she knew you went with me, it would only make her worry. I’ll go alone, and we can tell her it’s a business trip. But I want hourly updates on her and security while I’m away.”

“I’ll get the cargo plane ready,” he muttered, still not happy about my plan but obviously not about to stop me. Whether he liked it or not, he knew I was right.

43

Nova

Ryan Age 23 : Nova Age 17

Unless my dad was gone on a run for the MC, my parents were creatures of habit. I didn’t imagine that had changed in the more than two months since I’d been gone. To be fair, to them, I’d supposedly been dead. While I could understand how devastating that must be for them, I couldn’t understand how they couldn’t feel the wrongness about the whole situation.

Especially my mom. She had literally carried me inside her. Our hearts had once been right up against each other. That was a bond only a mother and child could understand. Didn’t that give us some kind of connection that would alert her that I was still very much alive?

I pushed the thought away, knowing how ridiculous it truly was. It hadn’t meant shit where Ryan was concerned, and apparently it didn’t work with my mom either.

Hoping my parents were still those same creatures of habit, I drove the nondescript black car through town and parked a few blocks from my childhood home. That was one of the great things about having a cargo plane at my disposal. I could take a car with me so I didn’t have to rent one—or, if push came to shove, steal one. Not that I was opposed to grand theft, but it just made things so much easier in the long run.