Chapter 3 Yara
Yara
Present Day – The Night of the Reunion
Pregnant.
The pregnancy test fell through my fingers, bouncing off the linoleum floor a few times before landing at Kazi’s feet.
“Yara?”
My vision blurred as tears and emotions threatened to drown me.
Kazi bent down, scooping up the test.
“I peed on that,” I told him, not meeting his eyes.
“I know.” He flipped it, took in the word listed, and snapped his attention to me. The ghost of a smile skirting across his features, but he suppressed it. “What do you need?”
Kazi gently rested the test on the bathroom counter, opening his arms. Offering his solace.
Kazi knew better than to ask if I was okay. He always knew exactly what I needed. Even in this moment.
Especially in this moment.
Throwing myself at him, I sunk into the comfort he provided. The familiarity. The anchor that would not allow any waves to take me into the endless sea of anxieties.
“What am I supposed to do?” I exhaled into his chest.
He cradled me closer to him, resting his chin on my head.
“Whatever you want, jagiya,” Kazi murmured calmly, rubbing circles on my back.
“First you run into the bathroom with Kazi and zero explanation. And then you slam the door in my face. It’s time you two tell me what’s going on!” Mateo shouted through the door, followed by a fist slamming into it.
“Give us a minute!” Kazi snapped. He gently pulled us apart, gathered my face in his soft hands and forced me to meet his gaze.
I wanted more than anything to run. To hide from this. But I couldn’t. “I’m pregnant.”
“You are,” Kazi agreed softly.
“I don’t know whose it is.”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” Kazi whispered, lowering ever so slowly towards my lips until we breathed the same breath. “If you decide this is what you want? This will be my child. Our child. We will raise them together, and I will not disappear. DNA does not determine family, my jagiya.”
And then he surged forward, soft pillowy lips compressing against mine. His hold on me shifting. One hand wrapping around my back, another tangling in my hair, angling my head.
My eyes shut on their own. Falling into him, I allowed Kazi to digest the chaos that threatened to eat me alive.
I can’t be a mom. I can’t do this. I’m not ready…
But I wouldn’t ever be ready. Trauma and abuse had warped my opinion on families, and I knew with certainty I would never have chosen this path.
But in some fucked up way, it chose me.
Finally, gasping, Kazi and I broke apart.
“I need to talk to James. In person.”
Kazi shifted his attention over my shoulder. “I can’t leave town yet. You’ll have to go without me.” He admitted, rubbing the back of his neck and furrowing his brows.
A blanket of unease fell over my body, weighing me down instantly. My eyes flickered around the room, landing on a mirror.
I couldn’t help the way seeing my appearance affected me. A thousand evil words tumbling through my mind of all the imperfections that were visible, of the ones that weren’t.
How I tensed entirely. How my mind began to SCREAM at me that I wasn’t enough. That I was ugly. Inside and out. Whispers in my ears that my pregnancy would only make it worse.
“Miss Yara!” Kazi’s warm hands landed on my shoulders, shaking me. “Snap out of it!”
My gaze found his. My cheeks heated in shame and embarrassment.
“I—” I attempted to find a lie to explain my reaction, but Kazi shook his head.
“I know. I have known for a while how it affects you. Seeing yourself. Yara, I don’t want to stay behind. You believe that, don’t you? That I wouldn’t be away from you if I had a choice?”
Inclining my head, I examined his face.
Kazi was nervous, anxiety whitening his face, his lips rolling between his teeth.
“What’s going on?” I asked. “Is this related to what you and Mateo need to tell me?”
Kazi took one of my hands, squeezing it in both of his.
He pressed a kiss to the top. “Miss Yara, I am not a free man. Yet. But I promise you, when all is said and done, I will be yours and yours alone. That is all I can tell you, but I promise—I promise—no matter what happens, I will return to you.”
His words had the opposite effect than I think he intended, snakes slithering down my spine. It wasn’t hard to guess that Mateo was connected to nefarious organizations, that by proxy, Kazi must be too.
“Are you going to be hurt?”
Kazi breathed out heavily. “I am not sure. But I will be left alive.”
Left alive.
A full body shiver wracked through me. I didn’t want him to get hurt. I didn’t want this to happen. But I trusted Kazi to know what he could and couldn’t handle, whether I liked it or not.
“Okay. Book Mateo and I a flight back to California?” I swapped to my typical bossy tone I used with Kazi. Wrapping myself back up together in a neat tight bow, stomping down my concerns and anxieties.
“Of course.” Kazi sighed. “I don’t deserve you.”
“You don’t,” I snorted sarcastically. “But now you’re stuck with me. All of my spicy brain included.”
I didn’t wait for his reply, wrenching open the door and marching into the main part of the hotel room.
Mateo stood with his arms crossed against the door to the hallway, bulging muscles on full display, stretching his dark shirt. Our unasked-for guard.
“Scary.” I marched up to him, poking a finger into his chest. “You cursed me!”
“Mija?” Mateo angled his head down at me, not reacting otherwise.
“I’m pregnant, you fucking idiot. You just had to say something about it, didn’t you? I fucked a man with a vasectomy, a condom, and while on the pill. I’m a walking science experiment!”
Mateo’s mouth opened, his arms falling lamely to his sides. “Pregnant?”
“Yes! Like I said, you fucki—”
He swept forward, his muscular arms wrapping around me. His head falling into my neck, his hot breath tickling the skin there. “My child.”
“Did you not hear the part on the vasectomy, the condom, and—”
“My child,” Mateo growled louder. “Mine.”
Wriggling, I managed to wedge my hands between us, pushing him back. “Honestly, I fucking hope it’s either yours or Kazi’s. Because having a child and it being Izzy’s sister? Not sure how well that would go over.”
Mateo’s eyes were darker than I had ever seen them, churning in promise.
“Mateo?” Concern filtered into my voice.
“Flight is booked.” Kazi walked up, wrapping an arm around me, tugging me into his side before releasing me.
“Flight?” Mateo was clearly confused by that. Mateo and Kazi appeared to have a silent conversation before Mateo continued, “Ah, you’re staying behind. I’ll keep our pregnant woman safe from any troubles that may arise. But we need to discuss our future with…” He cast a glance towards me.
“With your super-secret scary gang?” It was easier to fuck with Mateo than to think about what I had just learned.
To examine my feelings. To put a microscope to how much I was looking forward to seeing James again.
How much I had missed him. How I wanted more than anything for him to be a part of my life.
Izzy’s dad.
Fuck.
Izzy. She had finally taken a step towards her sexual freedom—she was going on a date tonight, and now I was leaving.
Not only had I met the man who would be meeting with Izzy tonight, my head of security—Emil—had vetted him, as well. And the man appeared to be exactly who he claimed; he was perfect…almost too perfect though…
“Kazi, will you stick around Izzy tonight? I want to make sure everything goes okay.”
Kazi nodded his head, but his jaw tightened. He wouldn’t meet my eyes.
Restlessness found its way into my gut, but I shoved it down. Surely his wariness was stemming from his future meeting.
At this point, my guess was Mateo and Kazi were ageless vampires, dragon shifters, or…in a gang.
But then why had Kazi been around me for the last ten years? Surely if he were in a gang, he wouldn’t be able to also work by my side.
Can gang members work from home now too?
It didn’t exactly make any sense, but neither did anything anymore.
“You need to head to the airport. I booked the earliest flight I could.” Kazi gathered me in his arms, peppering soft kisses across my cheeks, my nose, my forehead, my lips. He fell to his knees, his hands drawing up my shirt.
Self-consciousness attempted to ruin the moment, but then his soft lips found my belly and an entirely different feeling took hold.
“Kazi,” I moaned.
“I apologize for leaving you two, but after tonight, everything should be fixed.” Kazi’s words ghosted across my belly, causing it to flip and turn.
“She won’t forgive us if you can’t stop it.” Mateo’s ominous words landed heavily across my skin and I tensed, flicking my attention to him, but his face was stone. A hardened mask.
Kazi stood to his feet abruptly, his hands catching my wrists, he stared directly into my eyes. “Yara, I promise I will do everything I can to make this right. But when the dust settles, you have to trust me.”
My breath came out in short bursts as my anxiety tumbled through my belly, mixed with my apprehension, churned with my self-doubts.
“Kazi.” I stared up at him through my lashes. “I won’t agree to that.”
He quirked his lips, but sadness settled behind his eyes.
“But I can promise that I will let you explain everything when there is time. That I will listen to what you have to say. But I can’t think about that right now.
I need to see James. I need to tell him.
Even if my child isn’t his, he has a right to know.
I can’t keep this from him. Not after Izzy was taken from him and hidden away. I can’t commit that same evil.”
Thoughts of his other child, of Izzy, threatened to consume me but I froze them out.
For the last few weeks, I had been trying to extinguish my feelings for James, but it had only done the reverse.
He had been in my dreams, my nightmares, my thoughts.
He consumed me. And on top of all that, I might be pregnant with his child.
Now I had an excuse, a reason, a duty to see him again.
I couldn’t just ignore my connection to James. Not any longer.
“And I want…I want James to be a part of this. If you are both open to that? Is that asking too much?” The cowardice in me wanted to shut my eyes, to look away, but instead, I watched both my men. I would allow either to walk away. I wouldn’t trap them to me. No matter how much it would hurt.
“He has marked your heart, mija. Kazi and I understood that from before. We knew he would eventually make his way back to you,” Mateo reassured.
Kazi’s face lightened, the wrinkle between his brow smoothing, his full lips landing in a near pout. “I was wondering how long it would take you to admit that out loud. I expect nothing less.”
Relief. A thousand pounds of weight lifted off of me.
We can all be together. We can.
“We should go, mija.” Mateo now held our bags, his hand on the hotel door.
Offering Kazi one last weighted look, I tugged free from his hold. “Just be safe.”
“You too,” he sighed softly.
Mateo held the hotel door open and I marched through it without a backwards glance. Even still, every step was more difficult than the last. I wanted more than anything to run to Kazi, to demand he tell me his secrets, to shout in his face that he had to come with us.
But sometimes life leaves you with more questions than answers. Without any choices. Without any control.
And sometimes…you just have to march through one door and hope it leads you to a better future.
Mateo’s large hand found mine. Interlacing our fingers, he brought my hand up to his lips, offering a gentle kiss, his beard tickling my skin. “Kazi is doing the best he can.”
We stepped into the elevator, and turning, I shut my eyes. It was the only way to contain the tears that threatened to burn their way out.
But I wouldn’t cry. Not here, not now. I hadn’t for longer than I could remember, and I knew when they came next, I wouldn’t be able to stop the breakdown being held at bay.
I heard loud shouting from the direction of our room.
“No! Go the fuck away!”
Kazi.
My eyes whipped open, but before I could react, Mateo grabbed hold of me, wrapping an arm around me, keeping me in place.
The elevator door sealed shut.