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“Whatever you need me to do,” I assured him. I was still in a lot of pain, but what was my discomfort compared to my child starving to death?
“What I need is for you to get plenty of rest, eat a well-balanced diet but avoid several different food groups so she’s not yet exposed to them, and pump as often as possible.” He patted my arm. “Getting you strong again means we can get your baby stronger too.”
“I’ll eat whatever the nurse puts in front of me,” I promised. “I’m sure they will have me producing the nutrition Justice needs in no time.”
“About that…” Nova said hesitantly, glancing from the doctor down to me. “After tomorrow, you’re going to be released. But the nutritionist has been in contact with Maria, and she knows exactly what you should and shouldn’t eat.”
“Wait,” I protested, surprised. “I can’t be released yet. Justice is still here.”
“And she will remain in the ward for quite some time,” the doctor agreed. “To be completely honest, I don’t know when your daughter will be able to go home.”
“Then I’m not going home either,” I told him between clenched teeth.
“Cali, you have to go home to rest. We can travel back and forth to the hospital every day to visit with Justice, but for the most part, we have to let the medical professionals do their job and—”
“I have no problem with them doing what they need to help my baby, Nova!” I snapped, then quickly lowered my voice again. “What I have an issue with is not being near her twenty-four seven. If you think I’m leaving this hospital for even a moment without my child in my arms, then you are all crazy.”
“Cali…” Nova started, her sweet tone attempting to soothe.
“No,” I hissed at her. “Make a donation, whatever amount of money they want. Kill someone if you fucking have to. But make sure I don’t have to leave this hospital without her, Nova. If you want to make up for bringing Garret here, then make this happen. Or I’ll tell them not to let you into this ward, just like I did with your mother.”
Putting her hands on the armrests of my wheelchair, Nova bent slightly so our gazes locked. “You are being unreasonable. No other parents get that kind of special treatment, and some of their babies are just as sick as Justice—if not more so. This isn’t about proving where my loyalty is. Of course it’s with you and Justice. If I didn’t care about either of you, do you think I would have stayed in Colombia all this time when I should have gone back to the States and kicked not just my dad’s ass, but Garret’s and Ryan’s too?”
She blew out a heavy sigh while that sank in. My heart clenched, because I knew she was right. After Manuel’s death, she could have so easily left me behind and gone home. Unlike me, she had an entire family waiting on her, not to mention the man she’d planned on marrying. Instead, she’d waited for them to come get her and taken care of me.
Nova touched my chin with one hand, her eyes pleading with me to understand. “You have to start accepting there are some things that we can’t change, Cali. Things that I can’t fix, no matter how badly I want to. You leaving this hospital without a baby in your arms, at least for the moment, is the reality you have to face.”
I pressed a fist to my chest. “I-I can’t. The thought of leaving her here—alone—I can’t breathe, Nova.”
“I promise you, she will be safe here,” my friend vowed. “I’ll put guards outside this ward twenty-four hours a day. No one will get past the entrance who isn’t supposed to be in here. Justice will always be safe as long as there is still air in my lungs.”
“Please,” I whispered brokenly, looking into the incubator where Justice remained motionless. “Please, don’t make me go without her.”
“She’s safer here, babe. Just as you will be safer at home.”
“How will it be safer for me at home, when my heart is here?” I demanded. “How can you even ask that of me?”
“If it were up to me, none of us would leave this place until Justice is ready to go home. But it isn’t up to me.” She hugged me, and after a slight hesitation, I wrapped my arms around her and pressed my face into her chest. “I’m sorry,” Nova murmured in my ear, her voice catching in her throat. “I wish I could make this easier on you, but it’s completely out of my control.”
Garret
I stood outside the NICU double doors waiting for Lis to say goodbye to Justice for the day. She’d been discharged by her doctor earlier, but she’d spent as much of the afternoon visiting with our daughter as was allowed.
Only she and Nova could come and go from the ward. Lis had given the nurses and doctor instructions that no one else could go near Justice. Not even I, her daddy, could step inside. My daughter might have my last name on paper, but Lis hadn’t listed me as the father. She’d said Hannigan was Nova’s last name, and she’d thought that my sister would end up as Justice’s guardian if she’d died during the birth. That was the only reason my daughter didn’t have the Ramirez surname.
But it was all bullshit. I could read it in her eyes whether she knew it or not. She hated Manuel, so there was no way she would allow our baby to have his last name. If she would give me a chance, I’d change hers in a heartbeat, but the stubborn woman wouldn’t even hear me out.
“This isn’t right,” Mom complained as she paced back and forth in front of the double doors. “She shouldn’t be keeping you from Justice. You’re her father. You have just as much right to be back there as she does.”
“Mom, I’m not arguing with you about this again,” I muttered, scrubbing my hands over my face. I needed a shave, and I would have given my left nut for a shower, but that could wait. I had more important things to worry about than being twitchy over the stubble on my jaw.
“But she’s your daughter too.”
“And what have I done to earn the right to call myself her daddy?” I snapped, causing her to flinch. Sighing, I lowered my voice. “Mom, thank you for being loyal to me when it comes to this, but Lis is right. She deserves your support more than I do, and you’re not being fair to her at all. All you know is what she and Nova have told you about what happened during the time Ramirez held them captive. Neither one of them has probably told you the full truth, but knowing that sick son of a bitch, it wasn’t pretty. And where the fuck was I?”
“You didn’t know.” She tried to excuse for me.
“That doesn’t matter. It was my duty to protect her and our baby. To protect Nova too. But I was back in New York, chasing my own ass because I didn’t know where to look for them. When Nova called, I should have listened to her and not automatically assumed it was Sheena O’Brion playing a sick game on us all. If I had flown down here, just one time, and demanded entrance to the mansion, I would have discovered the truth and been here for Lis while she’d struggled through the pregnancy.”
