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By dawn, we were in the air on one of my aunt’s private jets, headed for California. My friend Lexa knew I was coming, as did her parents. Staying with them, surrounding Tavia with the Angel’s Halo MC to protect her, was the only option I really had at that point.
I didn’t know who in Pops’s security was tainted, and I wasn’t going to put Tavia at risk by chancing it. With the MC, I knew who I could trust—the Hannigans, and by default, the Reids. On top of that, Lexa had just married the local sheriff, and I knew I could trust him most of all.
I wouldn’t say Ben Davis and I were best buds or anything, but the guy tolerated me more now than he had at our first meeting. That Lexa was now his wife made it slightly easier for him to accept that she was one of my—possibly my only—real friends.
Tavia slept most of the flight, only waking up once when we hit some turbulence. And she quickly fell back to sleep once I’d administered one of the shots into her IV line filled with the pain medication the hospital had supplied for our trip.
Five men in MC cuts were waiting for us at the airport, along with an SUV to transport us to Creswell Springs. Out here, they were their own law. They only answered to my family when they were doing a protection run for us, and I knew better than to assume I had any authority over them. It was Lexa’s mom, Raven, who sat behind the wheel of the blacked-out vehicle, her sister-in-law Felicity Hannigan in the passenger seat beside her. Felicity was my true connection to the MC as she was my uncle Ciro’s cousin, something only a few people in the world knew, and that was exactly how it would stay.
Once I’d carried Tavia off the plane and carefully placed her in the back seat, the MC escorted us to Raven’s house. She and her husband lived in her childhood home with her eldest brother Jet and Felicity. The house was huge, and at one time, all of the Hannigan siblings had lived under the same roof with their significant others. Now they were spread out around the small town, each of them having had their own children.
Tavia didn’t stir on the drive to their house, and she barely lifted her lashes when the SUV stopped in the driveway. Carefully, I shifted her head off me and got out before reaching back in and lifting her into my arms.
Raven and Felicity showed us upstairs to a guest room. As I laid Tavia in the middle of the bed, she moaned pitifully and looked up at me. “Where are we?” she asked in a voice weak with pain and confusion.
“We made it to the safe house, krasotka,” I murmured, brushing my lips over her brow.
“Theo, I need to check her incisions,” Raven reminded me in a stern yet tender voice, so as not to frighten Tavia.
Reluctantly, I stepped out of the way. For the first time, Tavia saw Raven and frowned. “Who are you?”
Lexa’s mom was a tall, willowy blonde with very short hair. It had started growing back after her chemotherapy treatments had stopped. She was thankfully cancer-free now, but the chemo had made her pretty sick. Once she had started to lose her hair from the treatments, she had shaved her head. And surprisingly, her sisters-in-law had as well, to show their support.
Raven had always intimidated me, almost as much as my aunt Anya did. Raven seemed like a force of nature. Lexa joked more than once that her mom was the one who ran the MC, and her father, who was the MC president, simply sat back and let her. It wasn’t completely true, but there was some validity to it. Something I’d seen up close and personally on a few occasions.
Raven’s mouth tilted up in a half smile, but her green eyes were full of kindness, something that was fairly rare from the MC queen unless she was dealing with Lexa or Nova. “My name is Raven Hannigan Reid, Tavia. I guess you can say I’m your nurse. I’ll be taking care of you until you’re back on your feet. Is it okay if I look at the incisions on your abdomen? I need to make sure nothing is inflamed or oozing at this point.”
Tavia looked to me for confirmation, and I nodded. “Sure?”
Laughing softly, Raven glanced at me. “Maybe Theo would be kind enough to bring up the breakfast tray Flick is working on for you.”
I got the hint and started for the door, only to pause with my hand on the doorknob. “Mrs. Reid…”
“It’s okay, Theo. I know about everything. Doc and I had a very informative conversation with her surgeon earlier.”
Nodding, I opened the door, but I looked at Tavia before walking through it. “I will be right back. You can trust her, krasotka. No one in this house will harm you. I promise.”
Outside her closed bedroom door, I shut my eyes, leaning my forehead against the thick wood. Exhaustion was pressing down on me hard, but I couldn’t sleep until I knew Tavia was comfortable—and safe. There had been no time to tell her about the miscarriage, but I knew I needed too soon.
After she was settled, I vowed. Then I would tell her everything.
Downstairs, Felicity was working on the tray. Tavia was on a liquid diet for a few days, so Felicity was heating up some homemade chicken broth. She lifted her head when I entered the kitchen, a gentle smile tilting her lips. Her hair was just as short as her sister-in-law’s, only instead of the light shade of blond Raven’s was, Felicity’s was a pretty chestnut color. Her blue eyes reminded me of my uncle’s, only where his were guarded and deadly, hers were almost always soft and full of tenderness.
“I’m nearly done with her tray, sweetheart.” She placed a bowl on the tray and then a spoon wrapped in a paper towel. “Don’t worry about a thing where your Tavia is concerned. Raven has taken care of plenty of brothers who had a gunshot to the gut. She’s a pro at this point.”
“I trust her—and you,” I assured her. “That’s not what I’m worried about. I…I really don’t know how to break it to her that she had a miscarriage.”
Felicity paused in the act of pouring the broth into the bowl. “Be gentle with her. Be supportive. Let her cry as much as she wants. Let her scream if that helps. No matter how you tell her, it’s going to come as a huge surprise, and it will break her heart. Preparing for something like that just isn’t possible. But supporting her after you tell her, that’s the important part.”
I took her advice and stored that for later. Once the tray was ready, I took it upstairs. By the time I returned to Tavia’s room, Raven had her tucked in, and she seemed more relaxed.
Looking down at her, I realized how small she seemed. How fragile. Her face was pale, making the slight sprinkle of freckles across her nose and cheeks stand out more. She was the ghost of the girl I’d spent the past three years secretly loving.
“Hungry?” I asked as I placed the tray across her lap and sat on the edge of the bed.
“Not really,” she said with a grimace at the broth.
“It might not look appealing,” Raven said with a small smile. “But it will give your body the energy it needs to heal. Try a little of it for now. In a few days, we can move you up to softer foods if you can tolerate the fluids.”
