Chapter 6
Six
Nova
“Where is he?” I rush through the double doors, demanding to see my father. My mother is just a few short steps behind me, trying to keep pace, but I’m practically running to the front desk, demanding to know where they’ve taken my father.
The woman at the front desk is absolutely no help.
I want to lunge across the desk and strangle her. I swear she’s got her finger ready on the panic button, and I spin around when I hear my name.
“Nova!” Ashton’s voice is music to my ears. “We need a gurney!” He grunts as his arms are beneath my father’s and Luca has my dad’s legs, carrying him inside.
Luca is double parked outside the ambulance bay. There are nearby wheelchairs accessible, but I have a feeling Dad will fall right out of one in his unconscious state.
“Moreno!” Mom rushes to Dad’s aid, but there isn’t much she can do.
Hospital staff see the injury, the way Luca and Ashton are carrying my father inside, and they immediately grab a gurney, helping put him onto it before ushering him back behind the double doors, leaving us in the waiting room.
“We need one of you to give us his name and medical information,” a gentleman says, and Mom nods, following him.
Ashton glances from the double doors to me. For a moment, I think he might step forward, embrace me, tell me everything will be okay, and I’ll take comfort in those words.
But then I remember we’re not anything.
He’s not mine.
We’re broken up.
It’s like a knife to my gut when I’ve already been poisoned and gasping for my last breath.
“Ashton, we have to go,” Luca’s voice pulls me from my reverie.
“Go?” I shake my head at Luca. “You’re just dropping him off and leaving?”
Hearing that hurts worse than the phantom knife.
If Ashton leaves with Luca, I’ll never forgive him.
“I have to go get Harper.” Luca stares at me for a fraction of a second. “Are you coming?” He glances back at Ashton as he walks backward toward the exit of the hospital and toward his awaiting vehicle.
“I have orders,” Ashton says, grabbing his phone from his pocket. “As do you.” He walks outside and I can’t help but wonder if I’ll never see him again.
Standing outside the car, it looks like Luca and Ashton are arguing.
I can’t make out the words being exchanged, and I walk away; it doesn’t matter.
I can’t do a damned thing to help Harper.
I hate waiting. Standing on my feet, pacing back and forth while my father is in the emergency room getting tended to by physicians, and I’m not allowed past the double doors while they take care of him.
Rolling my lips together, I stifle the tears, keeping them at bay.
“Nova, sweetie, why don’t you take a seat?” Mom’s voice is soft. She glances up at me, the pain obvious on her face.
Looking at her makes me want to bawl.
I glance away, glaring at Ashton who is covered in blood, his shirt stained crimson from carrying my father’s lifeless body inside the hospital.
It’s an image I don’t think I can ever unsee. He glances at his phone, wanders outside to take the call. He doesn’t so much as look at me, touch me.
He barely even acknowledges my existence.
Halsey storms into the building like he owns the place. Not only is he capo, but he’s Moreno’s cousin. There’s pain written all over his face, even though I see he tries to hide it behind his tough exterior.
I half expect him to storm up to the desk and demand an update.
No.
He approaches my mother and takes a seat beside her.
I can’t help but overhear their conversation.
“Any word yet?” Halsey asks, his expression grim.
Mom shakes her head and sniffles. Her hands are trembling as she grips a wrinkled tissue in her hand.
Halsey glances around, taking everything in. Surveying the exits, the staff, every person who enters and leaves the emergency room waiting area. His glances are calculated, the timing impeccable, like he’s constantly on high alert.
A guard dog.
Does he think that Nico will be back to finish the job and take out my father? Halsey can’t protect my dad from out here.
But he doesn’t seem to be barging in past the double doors.
“Have a seat,” Halsey says to me, gesturing to a chair.
“No, thanks.” I can’t sit still. I feel like if I do, I might actually break.
“That wasn’t a question.” Halsey glares at me, and I glance toward the ambulance bay and ignore Halsey, stalking outside into the cold autumn air to find Ashton.
He’s been gone a few minutes, and I’m done dealing with Halsey.
I’m not mafia. I don’t have to take orders from them.
Halsey grumbles and follows me toward the exit, but he doesn’t leave the building. I turn around, raising an eyebrow when I catch him glancing at my mother and then back at me.
Strange.
My stomach somersaults, and the anxiety I’ve been feeling since the moment I learned of Harper’s disappearance has been gnawing at me.
“Shouldn’t you be helping look for Harper?” I glare at him.
Halsey sighs and folds his arms across his chest. “Not my job.” He doesn’t move from his position, keeping a watchful eye on the two of us.
Well, fuck him.
I saunter around the corner outside, barreling into Ashton. “She’s not going to like that, sir.”
Not going to like what?
Who is he talking to?
Dante?
Another minute, and he ends the call, Ashton shoving the phone into his pocket. He grabs my wrist and drags me back into the hospital.
“Oww, what are you doing?” I yank my arm free. It isn’t like he hurt me, not physically, but his touch right now, it’s giving me mixed signals, as is that intense, heated gaze behind those dark eyes.
“Protecting you,” Ashton says.
“I don’t need your protection,” I sneer and head past him, back out the doors and into the cold.
My jacket is beside Mom’s seat, and I don’t dare admit I’m freezing. At least I’m wearing a long, dusty-rose cardigan, but it’s not warm enough for today’s chill.
Ashton groans at me, removes his leather coat and slings it over my shoulders. “Dante wants you to have a bodyguard until this thing with Harper is resolved.”
“This thing—you mean her kidnapping?” I shoot him a nasty look. “I’m honestly shocked you didn’t go with Luca and decided to stay here.”
“Luca is back at the compound, with Dante.”
I stare at him like he’s sporting a halo, my mafia devil. “Why would he be there? Harper is missing.”
“We have her location, and I hung up the call with her to conserve battery power on her phone. Dante thinks he’s taking her all the way to Las Vegas.”
“You’re just going to let Nico take her there?” I keep walking, my legs growing cold, filled with a dull ache, but I slide my arms into Ashton’s coat that he lent me.
If he’s cold, he gives no indication of his discomfort.
“He’s getting a plane ready to get a team there upon her arrival.”
“A team? Dante doesn’t know who he can trust.” I stop walking and shiver.
Ashton pulls me closer. Grabbing the lapels of his jacket, he zips the leather up for me to keep warm. “He knows he can trust Luca, Liam, and me. The others—he’s interrogating himself.”
I expel a heavy breath, glad I’m not in the house right now.
“Is Luca helping with the interrogation?” If he went home at Dante’s insistence, then is he part of the brutal methods that Dante will employ?
“Probably,” Ashton whispers. “Does it matter? His methods are tough, but they work.”
I laugh darkly under my breath. “They work so well that there was a traitor right under Dante’s nose and he never even knew.”
Ashton ignores my remark. “I got word from Dante that Rhys is set to return tomorrow. Flying him in first thing tomorrow morning.”
“He is?” A tiny smile forms at the corners of my lips. I’ve always felt a connection with Rhys. He’d been my bodyguard all those years growing up, protecting me. We’d practically become friends.
“Don’t look so happy.”
Is that jealousy I see? I tilt my head, staring up, wishing I could read his thoughts. I lift my arm to run my fingers through his hair, and he grabs my wrist.
“What are you doing, Nova?”
“Touching you,” I whisper, which is apparently not the right response.
He shakes his head. “You don’t get to do that, not after breaking up with me.”
I inhale sharply. “Fine.” I take a step back and cross the street, farther from the hospital. I quicken my pace to get away from him. The cold stings my cheeks, my eyes burn with tears, and I worry they might actually freeze to my eyelashes as they water.
“Nova!” he calls, hurrying to catch up with me after traffic passes, and he’s jogging until he finally reaches my strides, walking in pace with me.
“What? Just go back to the hospital or go back to Dante.” I shrug away from him as he grabs my arm, and I refuse to meet his stare as I wipe a stray tear, praying he doesn’t notice.
If he does, I’ll blame it on the frigid temperatures.
I’m not crying.
“I have orders.”
That stops me dead in my tracks. “What?”
“I have orders.”
“I heard what you said.” I turn around to face him.
“Are you—crying?” he asks and there’s concern laced in his tone. His bottom lip is pouty and I try not to meet his intense dark gaze that is unwavering.
I glance away, staring at another couple who are walking together, bundled for this weather, unlike the two of us. They’re wearing winter beanies, scarves, gloves, and heavy down jackets. I force a smile as they nod.
After they pass, I snarl up at Ashton. “Quit changing the subject. What are your orders?”
Ashton glances me over from head to toe. “You.”
I shake my head, taken aback by his answer. “What does that mean?” Is he giving me some stupid riddle or being serious?
“Dante wants me to be your bodyguard until Rhys returns tomorrow. It’s just for a day,” he says, like that will make it okay. “And besides, it’s already late. Not even a full twenty-four hours we have to do this.”
“I don’t have to do anything,” I scoff at him and hurry away.