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“But you did come looking for her,” Mom growled, shooting Guzman a dirty glare where he stood with two of the other guards.
He shrugged, used to her giving him hell over what had happened when I’d come with Dad and the MC for Ramirez’s head. “I’m not going to apologize for protecting those girls when no one else did. I would do it all over again if given the option. You had your chance to keep them safe, and you blew it. Miss Nova might be able to protect herself, but no one has ever looked out for Calista as she deserved. I made the mistake of agreeing with you to send your daughter to fetch your son. Now, that? I would definitely undo in a heartbeat if given the chance.”
“You said if it were you, you would want to know your child had been born. You agreed that you would want to have the chance to hold her, if only once,” Mom reminded him. “And now you regret it?”
“Absolutely,” Guzman said to her, unblinking.
“Why?” she demanded angrily.
“Because he still hasn’t stepped up and even held his child.”
“No one has been able to hold her yet!” Mom exclaimed in exasperation.
“But has he spent more than two minutes in there?” the head of security shot back, just as angry. “No. He doesn’t want to leave Calista’s side. Which I understand. But sometimes, you have to divide your priorities. Justice is just as important as Cali. Where is his need to love and protect his daughter?” He gave me a look of disgust. “To you, your baby girl is just a name, an idea. When in reality, she’s a helpless little angel, fighting for every breath she takes. Get over yourself, motherfucker, and fight for your daughter as hard as you are for the woman you claim to love.”
“There’s nothing I can do for Justice right now,” I growled at the other man. “She has people taking care of her around the clock. She won’t even know if I’m there or not. Lis needs me more than Justice.”
“She might not know, but you will,” he said with condemnation thickening his tone. “What are you going to tell her when she’s old enough to hear stories about the time she was in the hospital? She’s a goddamn superhero, fighting a battle no one else can fight for her, but where are you going to be in the story? What part are you going to play? The man who is supposed to love her most in the world—are you even going to be there? Or are you too much of a coward to write yourself into the tale?”
Guzman rolled his eyes when I remained quiet, the lump filling my throat making it impossible to speak. “Or maybe you will lie and tell her you were there every step of the way. The shameless coward who couldn’t bring himself to even look at his brave little girl, telling her how he stood by her incubator and held her hand, giving her the strength to keep fighting. When in truth, all you did was whine that her mother wouldn’t give you the time of day.”
“Cali won’t let him in to see Justice,” Mom argued for me while I stood there, bowled over by the reality of what he’d just dumped on me. “She doesn’t want him in there.”
“She doesn’t want him near her either, but that hasn’t stopped him yet, has it?”
Mom started to snap back, but there really wasn’t anything she could say in my defense. Because he was right. About everything.
I was a coward.
The one and only time I’d gone into the NICU was to get Lis out of there. The entire time, I’d kept my eyes averted from where Justice lay so silently, unable to bring myself to look at that pitiful little body. I’d seen the incubator, the tubes and wires connected to it, but I hadn’t been able to look inside at the precious little angel I’d helped create.
“My biggest regret in life was abandoning my own daughter,” Guzman confessed, choking up. Clenching his jaw, he swallowed roughly several times before shrugging off the emotions. “Now, she doesn’t even know who I am. Don’t be like me, boy.”
I was still coming to terms with what a coward I was when the doors opened, and Nova walked out with her arm around Lis. Her doctor and nurses had been encouraging her to move more and more, despite her having had major surgery only days before. But it wasn’t the pain in her body that had her clinging to my sister as they left the NICU.
Lis was sobbing so hard, her entire body trembled from the force of it. “Please,” she whispered brokenly. “I know I have to, but please don’t make me.”
Nova didn’t say anything as she kept her arms around Lis. Glancing at Guzman, she nodded toward the elevators, and he instructed one of the men to call for the car to be brought to the front entrance.
“Mom,” Nova murmured, keeping her voice soothing for Lis’s sake, but her eyes were hard as they trailed to Mom. “We should get going.”
“I can stay—” Mom started to offer, but that only had Lis’s head snapping up.
“No!”
Mom pressed her lips into a firm line but nodded. As they walked toward the elevator, Lis dug in her heels until Nova was practically dragging her. My sister was a strong little thing, but she couldn’t take all of Lis’s weight, and she nearly stumbled.
Without hesitation, I lifted Lis into my arms and stepped into the elevator as soon as the doors opened. At first, she struggled against me, but I simply pressed my face into her hair and inhaled the floral scent as we rode down to the ground floor. Guzman stepped out first, then my mother, with me following with Lis still in my arms, while Nova brought up the rear.
Mom and Nova climbed into the back, and I sat Lis beside my sister.
“Garret,” she sobbed, grabbing hold of my hands when I tried to buckle her seat belt. “Please. Let me stay. Just a few more hours. Then I’ll go home. I’ll rest and eat and pump later. Please.”
Swallowing with difficulty, I got her fastened in before turning my hands over in hers. “You’re going to go home and do all those things now, Lis,” I instructed firmly. “Once you’ve had a full night’s sleep, you can come back in the morning. Guzman will drive you here as soon as you’ve had a complete breakfast.”
Her tears gutted me, the plea in her blue eyes stealing the breath from my lungs. “What if something happens while I’m not here?” she cried. “What will she do if there’s no one to hold her hand when they have to do something that hurts?”
“She will have someone to hold her hand for that,” I promised.
