With a new resolve, I made my way to Garret’s room, determined to get him where he was needed so I could figure out how to put Ryan and myself out of the misery we’d both been trapped in.

The curtains were drawn in my brother’s bedroom, making it hard to navigate to his bed. Once my eyes adjusted to the nearly complete darkness, I limped over to the bed. He was snoring hard, and from experience, I knew he’d taken something to help him sleep because that was the only time he’d ever snored in the past.

Muttering a curse, I covered his mouth with one hand, then slapped his cheek with the other. “Garret,” I hissed. “Wake up, you dumbass.” He grunted in his sleep but didn’t open his eyes, so I slapped him harder. “If I didn’t love you so damn much, I would smother you with your own pillow.”

His lashes slowly lifted, and he jerked when he realized someone was standing over him. He moved quicker than I anticipated, his arm reaching for something under his pillow. Realizing my mistake, I jumped on top of him, squeezing his ribs with my knees and grabbing his wrists before he could wrap his fingers around the gun.

“Garret,” I snapped, lifting my voice a little louder. “Stop before you hurt one of us.”

He jerked again at the sound of my voice. “N-Nova?” he rasped.

I eased my hold on his rib cage, allowing him to roll onto his back while I took possession of his gun and made sure the safety was on.

“Nova?” he repeated. “No.” He shook his head in denial. “You’re dead. I saw you.”

“Did you, though?” I asked with a raised brow, but then realized it was still too dark in the room for him to see my expression. Leaning over, I flipped on the bedside lamp. “Do I look dead to you, big brother?”

He sat straight up in bed, and I dropped down on the other side of him so I wasn’t sitting on his lap. His fingers trembled as he touched my face and hair before grabbing my wrist and turning it so he could see Ryan’s name there.

“But I saw you,” he muttered again. “Even the necklace.”

I pulled my hand free and reached under the top of my hoodie. “This necklace?”

His fingers wrapped around the chain, his thumb skimming over the two Russian rings. “Yeah, this necklace. It was…” His green gaze lifted to mine. “She played us?”

“You would have known that already if you had just talked to me when I tried to contact you,” I complained.

Anger filled his handsome face. “Why the fuck haven’t you come home before now? Do you know what we’ve gone through? Mom and Dad…” His voice broke with emotion. “Mom ran away, Nova. She couldn’t handle what happened, and she just up and disappeared. We’ve been looking everywhere for her.”

“Not everywhere,” I assured him. “And she didn’t run away. I needed her help, so she came with me to Colombia to talk sense into Cali and—”