“Fuck, I don’t know. Someone just broke down the front gate and six…no eight. Eight SUVs just pulled into your compound.” He was talking fast, and I could hear him moving. “Felicity, baby, you have to hide. I don’t know who these motherfuckers are, but I can’t risk losing you too.”
“I’m not hiding from anyone,” I heard Nova’s mother say in a voice full of ice. “Give me a gun.”
“Ryan, I have to go,” Jet said with a grunt.
The call disconnected before I could ask any questions, but even before I could tell the others what had just happened, Pop’s phone rang and then Zio’s. Garret was already on his feet, while Mom motioned for one of the men to get us a car.
“Someone is trying to overtake the compound,” I explained. “Jet said there were eight vehicles, and they broke down the front gate.”
“Adrian put his men in the house just as an extra precaution,” Mom reminded me. “As long as they get to the safe room, they should be fine.”
Garret scrubbed his hands over his face in frustration. ?
??O’Brion is playing games with us, man. Luring us here, knowing we would want to get our hands on her, and then attacking the compound.”
“Zariah, stay hidden!” Zio shouted into his phone, causing us all to turn to watch him. “No, no, sweetheart, don’t worry about your sister. I’m coming.”
“Are you sure it’s him?” Pop spoke into his own phone, his face tense. “What the fuck is he doing there? Tell that fucker to come face me like a man. I’ll wait right here for him.” His voice became gruff. “Tell him to leave my family alone, and he can have me. I caused all of this.”
Mom ran over to him and stole the phone from his hands. “You did not cause any of this,” she snapped at him before lifting the phone to her ear. “What’s going on over there?”
“Zariah, I said for you to stay hidden!” Zio roared. His thumb must have hit the speaker button, because suddenly, we could all hear her terrified voice—and the gunfire in the background.
“I am, Papa. I swear I am. But the shooting is getting closer to my house.” Just hearing her fear gave me an overwhelming feeling of helplessness I couldn’t stomach. I should have been there to protect her and the rest of my family—as I should have been there to protect Nova. Instead, all I was able to do was stand there and listen.
My own phone went off in my hand, and I didn’t even look to see who it was before answering. “Yeah?”
“Bain O’Farrell took Ciana.” Jet was breathing hard, as if he’d been running, and the gunfire I heard from Zio’s speaker echoed through my receiver. “I took Felicity to the safe room. Samara was already there, but when I realized Ciana and Scarlett weren’t, I went back for them. He took her…”
“And?” I could hear the hesitation in his voice and knew there was something bad he wasn’t telling me.
“Vito and Bennie were with them. Vito took one to the leg when he tried to stop Bain. Bennie has two in his left shoulder. Scarlett is trying to stop the bleeding and the ambulance is on its way, but I think the bullet nicked an artery.”
White-hot rage washed through my veins. Was there no end to the pain these people wanted to inflict upon me? First, taking Nova from me and torturing my pregnant cousin. Now, they stole Ciana away and tried to kill two more of my family.
My gaze went to Zio, who had taken Zariah off speaker and was trying to keep her calm. He had no idea what was going on with three of his other children, and I didn’t want to be the one to tell him. “We will be in the air within the hour,” I told Jet. “Once the house is clear, take Felicity, Samara, and Zariah to Zia Victoria’s. They should be safe there.”
“Fuck this shit,” he growled. “No one is safe anywhere right now. This place was practically a fortress, and they walked in like it was nothing. It took less than five minutes for them to drop most of the guards and just walk out of here with Ciana. They were like a militia. They came, they conquered, they took the spoils of war, and they left. Like fucking ghosts. You can’t fight a militia of ghosts.”
“Ghosts or not, even a militia will leave a trail.” I saw Mom walking away, Pop’s phone still to her ear, and I knew she was learning the same thing Jet had just told me. “Ramirez is in Colombia. I have to either go down there and deal with him, or get Ciana back.”
“Let me have Ramirez. I need to avenge my baby girl. Give this to me.” The raw agony in his voice mixed with his anger was like a punch to the gut. I was the one he should have been enraged with. I was supposed to protect his daughter until my last breath. It was my job, my responsibility as the man who loved her to ensure that she was always safe and happy. Jet Hannigan should have hated me, been demanding my head as well as Sheena’s. Part of me didn’t understand why he wasn’t.
“How many men do you need?”
“I don’t need your men,” he said. “I just need my MC brothers and a plane.”
“The other jet is at the airport. It and anything else you need are at your disposal.”
Garret grabbed my arm. “What’s going on?” His gaze kept shifting to Zio and the others. “Are my parents okay? Ciana? Who attacked the compound?”
I told Jet to hold on a minute and quietly gave Garret a condensed version of everything his dad had just told me. “You have two choices here,” I muttered, shooting a glance at Zio before turning back to him. “You can go down with your dad and the MC to deal with Ramirez, or you can come with me to get Ciana back.”
He groaned in frustration at the difficult choices I’d just given him. “Fuck, Ryan. Lis could be with Ramirez. If it weren’t for that, I would go with you, but if there’s even a small chance that she might be with him—that she might be alive—I have to try.” His green eyes filled with flames. “And if she’s not, I’ll take my time and chop him up like O’Brion did my sister.”
The memory of seeing Nova on that table flashed before my eyes, and I quickly had to shake the image away before I could speak. Lifting the phone to my mouth once more, I spoke to Jet. “I’m going to need you to wait until Garret gets back. I’m going to put him on the next commercial flight out. He wants to be with you when you take down Ramirez.”
“Tell that boy of mine to get his ass moving, then. Time’s a wastin’, and I’m thirsty for that bastard’s blood.”