Page 123 of Star Crossed
“They’ll just do a DNA test after they’re born,” Nova offered. “If they’re the same sex, you won’t know for sure until then.”
“Why do you know the answer to everything?” Wyatt asked because it was something he’d noticed about Nova. There wasn’t a question you could ask him that he didn’t have an immediate, correct response for. “And how the fuck do you know what my shoes sound like? Who does that?”
“’Cause I’m smart, Conner.” Nova sighed. “Unless I’m letting Gino stare at Romeo’s GPS tracking information on my laptop. That was pretty fucking stupid. I’m sorry. I can’t let you leave without saying that. I was tired. I wasn’t thinking. I know not to trust anyone, but—”
“You don’t trust anyone? Ever?” Wyatt asked sadly.
“Aside from my brothers? No, I don’t. They’re the only ones I have left to trust. Look at what happened when I did trust someone else. Gino was my cousin. He was always around. I eventually let my guard down, and he betrayed my brother to Frankie.” Nova’s face contorted in fury as if reliving a terrible memory. “He got Romeo’s location off my laptop, and he was texting the entire trip. He kept needing to stop. Gino was holding me back the whole way, making sure they made the hit before we got there. I fucked up by not seeing it, and we nearly lost Romeo and Jules because of it. I wish I could kill that fucker all over again just to see his face when he knew I figured it out.”
Yeah, Wyatt had to agree, Nova had fucked up, but knowing they were going to make it out of this mostly unscathed, he wasn’t going to give him hell about it. It didn’t look like Nova needed any help beating himself up over everything.
“You didn’t hurt Jules and Romeo,” Wyatt reminded him softly. “You didn’t pull the trigger.”
Nova gave Wyatt a haunted look. “That’s what you think.”
Wyatt didn’t know how to respond to that; it was an ominous, open-ended statement that led Wyatt’s mind in a thousand dark directions until finally he asked, “Am I supposed to say sorry ’bout your father? I know he was one of the fellas who died.”
“I’m not sorry.” Nova shrugged and reminded him, “I’m the one who killed him.”
“I’m not sorry either,” Tino added and looked over at Romeo. “Trust me when I tell you Frankie was never our real father. Not even close. He was a raging motherfucker, actually. Even before the shootout he was a motherfucker.”
“Well, I guess that makes three of us ’cause I’m not sorry either,” Wyatt admitted as he looked away, trying to imagine what it was like for Nova to kill his own father. “I’m gonna go tell Jules ’bout Romeo. She’s making herself sick worrying.”
Wyatt turned to leave, but Nova called out, “The cops told me you called up and gave your statement. That you were the reason I got released so fast.”
“I just told ’em the truth. That we’d been working together to find Romeo and Jules. I knew you didn’t know ’bout any of it. I’d been talking to you the whole drive here. If you shot someone, it had to have been to protect your brother—and my sister.”
“I saw you talking to the Feds too.”
“Same thing, Moretti. Not like I’d lie for ya. I just told ’em the truth.”
“Yeah, but you’re a sheriff,” Nova whispered as if reminding himself of that fact too. “I’d probably still be in lockup if you hadn’t stepped in. You didn’t have to call. I know you were dealing with other things.”
No, Wyatt didn’t have to call, but if the roles were reversed, he would have wanted to be there in the hospital, not sitting behind bars. “I saw some federal agents stop by a few hours ago. You still in trouble?”
Nova sighed. “Conner, I was born in trouble, but that’s my fucking burden to bear. No sense losing sleep over it. Life dealt you better cards. Be grateful for it and stop worrying about my shit.”
“You could get out,” Wyatt suggested, seeing that despite all of Nova’s sharp intellect, he was still very young. “I saw that stock went up to fifty-four dollars a share, and it’s still rising. You’re incredibly intelligent. You could do anything you want, something legitimate that’d keep the Feds off your ass and give you a real life.”
Nova’s gaze turned hard once more as he looked up at Wyatt. “Thanks for stopping by.”
Rather than get annoyed by the sharp change to Nova’s temperament, Wyatt left. He walked back to Jules’s room thinking about his own cards in the game of life. As strange as it was, Nova Moretti was making Wyatt realize the hand he was dealt wasn’t half as bad as he thought it was.
