AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Lis is alive?” My heart began pounding so hard, it was difficult to breathe, and I had to press my hands to my chest, willing myself to breathe and not pass out.
Small hands cupped my face. “Garret, look at me,” she commanded. My eyes snapped open—I didn’t even remember closing them. “Take a deep breath, okay? You can’t pass out on me. Not now, not ever. We have to get back, and I can’t carry your ass out of here on my own.”
“B-back?” I whispered, blinking away tears.
“To Cali,” my sister murmured with a smile. “She’s waiting on you.”
“You aren’t playing with me, are you, Nova?” I begged her to be honest with me. “I don’t know if I can survive this if you’re not being real right now.”
“I wouldn’t play that kind of game with you or anyone else,” she assured me softly. “When you came down with Dad and the MC, they told you she was dead, right?” Pain lanced through me at the memory, but I nodded, letting a tear spill down my face. “Well, they lied, Garret. They thought it would be safer for everyone to think she was dead, but she’s not. Now, get your ass out of this bed and grab a few things. We have to hurry.”
* * *
“From what Mom told me, I’m guessing that Sheena got someone who looked as much like me as possible,” Nova explained as we sat on the cargo plane. We’d already been in the air for a while, but the pilot and guards had needed Nova’s attention, so we’d only gotten to sit down and talk a few moments before. “That’s why she destroyed the girl’s face and took her hands and feet.” She rubbed her fingers over her tattoo. “She got the necklace right, but she didn’t realize I’d gotten a tattoo that could have identified me.”
“That sick bitch,” I muttered. “But what happened to you and Lis?”
“Ramirez took us to his place in Colombia,” she said with a shrug. “I got knocked out during the wreck and woke up in what Cali called Manuel’s torture dungeon. He’d been beating her for days by that point.”
I balled my hands into fists, rage simmering through me. If I didn’t know Ramirez was already dead, I would have been plotting the bastard’s death.
“The beating caused some serious damage, and she struggled not to miscarry,” Nova went on, knocking the air out of my lungs. “Cali was so stubborn, though, refusing to let the doctor admit her to the hospital so she would have round-the-clock care. She was terrified of going outside, and I think…” She grimaced. “I think she was expecting to die when the baby was born. That was why I went to get Mom. It was all I could come up with to make her see reason, and even then, it took her weeks to convince Cali.”
I opened my mouth, but no words came out. I didn’t even know how to respond to what my sister was telling me.
“But we eventually got her to go, and yesterday—yeah, it was yesterday,” she muttered, checking her watch. “Yesterday, Justice was born. She’s so tiny, Garret. But she’s a fighter, just like every other Hannigan woman.”
“Wait,” I choked out, needing her to clarify it for me. “I have a daughter?”
“Come on, Garret,” she chided, glaring at me. “You knew she was pregnant.”
“No, I didn’t.” I shook my head adamantly. No, no, no. I’d had no idea the woman I loved was carrying my child. If I had, there was no way I would have left her that night. Fuck, I was an even bigger screwup than I thought. “I swear to you, I had no idea.”
“She told you,” Nova practically growled, her anger at me flooding the entire plane. “The night she explained who she was, she said she told you everything. And after she confessed she was pregnant, you just left.”
“Oh God,” I groaned, burying my face in my hands. “I turned everything off that night. All I remember was her saying who she really was, and I kept replaying in my head over and over again all the fucked-up things I’d said to her over the years. Then I left, got wasted, and the next thing I knew, you were slapping me across the face, trying to knock some sense into my dumb ass.”
“Well, you know now.” Her encouraging smile did nothing to alleviate my guilt. How the fuck was I going to make this up to Lis and my daughter? I’d left them both unprotected, and now my baby girl was in a hospital, fighting for her life.
“Justice is just as dramatic as you, by the way,” my sister continued, trying to comfort me. “She came into the world in a rush, demanding everyone sit up and pay attention to her. That includes you, so don’t disappoint her.”
“I won’t,” I vowed reverently. “From this moment forward, my only goal is to protect her and Lis.”
And I wouldn’t fuck it up this time. No matter what, I was never going to leave either of them again.
“Yeah?” Nova considered me for a moment while she chewed on her lip. “Have you ever been to Colombia before? I mean, other than when you came with Dad?”
“Yeah,” I admitted. “A few times. We control the biggest coke pipeline into the US, Nova. Once Matias died, we took over the fields he owned. I had to go down once or twice just to make sure everything was moving smoothly.”
She leaned forward. “I own half of the Ramirez business now. The legit business.”
After everything else she’d already told me, I hadn’t thought there was anything else she could have said that would surprise me, but at that confession, I felt my eyes bulge.
“But if I go back to New York, I won’t be able to run the business as I have been. Would you maybe…want to take half of my half—”
“I’ll do it for free,” I promised, cutting her off. “For you and Cali. I owe you both.”
“I wouldn’t feel right unless you took a portion of mine,” she argued.
