Vito and Bennie took advantage of having Nolan around for the next few days. Having a Yankees player waiting on them hand and foot was a dream come true for them. But while they were living on cloud nine, high off the painkillers and talking baseball with an actual major league player, I got a call from the Yankees’ owner, wanting to know where the fuck his new star pitcher was.
I had to pull a quick negotiation miracle out of my ass to keep Nolan from getting fined and fired. Once I explained the key points of what was going on with my family, and that Nolan was my boyfriend, the owner shut up. He knew how tightZiowas with the baseball commissioner. He offered his sympathy, wished my brothers a speedy recovery, and then said he expected Nolan at the next home game.
Hanging up, I rolled my eyes at my boyfriend. “You didn’t tell your coaches anything about where you were going or why?”
Nolan shrugged as he stretched out his long legs. He was sitting in the somewhat comfortable chair between the twins’ beds, watching the final Yankees at Boston game on the TV mounted to the wall. “Didn’t want to give them a chance to tell me I couldn’t go. Plus, it would have taken too much time. I was in a hurry to get to you, Red.”
“You’re lucky I’m able to work on just a few hours of sleep. Otherwise, you probably would have ended up unemployed and owing the Yankees money.”
That just got me another shrug as he folded his hand over his lower abdomen. “They fire me, they fire me. I know a dozen teams that would kill to pick me up. You choose which team I play for, and we’ll move there tomorrow, babe.”
If it were that easy, I would have done just that. But it wasn’t. He still had a contract with the Yankees that not even I could get him out of for at least a year. Damn my own airtight contracts. Not only did he have that holding him to NYC, but my family needed me too much right then for me to just pack up and run off to some other state.
Papa and the others had made it to Montreal to get my sister, but Ciana had met Ryan on the front steps and told him she was staying. That Bain was her babies’ father and she wanted to make a family with him. Mom had to be sedated yet again after that phone call. While she’d lost it, I’d had to take the phone from her and finish the conversation with my dad.
The only good thing about that trip was that Bain O’Farrell had called a truce and had gifted Ryan Sheena O’Brion’s head in a box. Now my family was on their way home, and our biggest enemy was dead. I wasn’t sure if I trusted O’Farrell’s truce, but I had to have faith that he wouldn’t do anything more to harm my family when my sister was carrying his children inside her belly.
Now came the hardest part of all.
Burying Nova.