Chapter 30
Yara
Hot.
I’m on fire. Am I dying?
“She’s twitching.” The words floated around my subconscious, not quite landing but circulating a few times. “Get the nurse!”
There was a rush of cool air against me, followed by loud stomping.
Rustling and then pressure across my skin.
Grumbling, I attempted to swat at it.
A deep chuckle vibrated across my palm, bringing me closer to consciousness.
“Little bee, it’s time to wake up now. It’s been weeks.”
My eyes were sealed shut, but my chapped lips parted. “No,” I coughed out.
The movement caused a stabbing pain to hit right below my heart, and I couldn’t help the whine that desperately crept from me.
“Careful.” The gentleness of the word was marred with a harsh warning.
“I should leave before she wakes up fully. She won’t want me here.” This voice was huskier, aching.
“Idiota, stay in the fucking chair. If you go anywhere, I will cut your balls clean off.”
This time, when I tried to open my eyes, it worked.
Blinking in rapid succession, I cleared my vision.
I was in a hospital room, that much was obvious.
A nurse was by my side, looking me over.
Kazi and Mateo were bent over me, worry etched in their flat lips and furrowed brows. But it was James who drew my attention.
He sat in the chair beside the bed, his head hung, his body deflated. Carefully shifting up with Kazi’s help, I reached for him first, offering a squeeze.
“The babies?” My free hand traced over my stomach.
“Healthy, just waiting for their mother to wake up. You were shot, directly below your heart, but above your uterus. Somehow, it missed anything vital. There will be a road to recovery and you will need to rest, but you are okay.” Kazi sighed, watching me critically, a glassy sheen coating his eyes.
“You worried us. Please don’t do that again. ”
His words were backed up by the full body ache that held me in its clutches, but they also eased my anxiety.
“Yes, they’re fine. It was a miracle, but you are going to be okay,” the nurse agreed. She ran a few tests, poking and prodding me, and once she was satisfied, she stepped back. “Call us if you need anything.” She inclined her head, eyeing the men in the room warily before making her escape.
We were okay. We were all okay.
“I’m not a bee. They die too easily,” I informed Mateo. “I’m a wasp.”
But where is Izzy? She should be here.
Mateo chuckled softly, distracting me. “I missed you.” His large arms gently wrapped around me, but instead of releasing me, he held me there for a few minutes, his entire body shaking around me.
The typically stoic and emotionless man, breaking down, caused liquid to form in my eyes too. “Fucking hormones.” I hiccupped as the tears fell freely.
“It’s understandable to feel this, Yara. It was a lot.” Kazi’s comforting tone was my undoing.
My sobs turned loud and erratic as Mateo continued to hold me to him.
Kazi’s hand found my back, stroking it in comforting circles. James squeezed my hand in reassurance but didn’t join us.
“Stephen?” I choked out around the snot.
“Dead,” James confirmed as he released my hand, his head falling into his palms.
“Eve?” I asked next, her terrified eyes creeping into my mind.
“Alive,” Mateo murmured into my ear. Tenderly, he untangled from me.
Immediately, I missed his warmth, but the separation allowed me to pull myself together, to get my emotions under control, to dry my eyes.
“Is she okay, though?” My concern for her moved to the forefront. She was so young, so broken. I didn’t blame Eve for her part in taking me to Stephen. She was just another one of his endless victims.
“She will be,” Kazi advised. I didn’t even want to ask about Izzy. I was afraid to know the answer. The door to the room burst open before I could devolve too deeply into my thoughts.
Mateo and Kazi jumped into action at the foot of my bed, shoulder-to-shoulder, creating a blockade I couldn’t see past.
“Yara!” My concern swapped to relief and giddiness at Izzy’s voice coming from the direction of the door.
“Mateo,” a man’s voice I didn’t recognize spoke, but it was evident he knew Mateo. “Is this going to be a problem?”
“Yara is my top assignment, all others will be completed as directed.” Mateo didn’t back down, if anything, his shoulders hardened.
“Yara is my best friend,” Izzy argued, and from this angle, I could see as she took on Mateo.
That’s my best friend.
“Let her see me you fucking oaf.” I suppressed a groan of pain.
“We talked about this. In fact, everyone out except for Izzy!” It was time for us to finally hash all of this out.
And what better time than when I was in the hospital.
She couldn’t be angry with me while I lay in this bed all hooked up to tubes.
Right?
Kazi and Mateo broke apart, allowing me an unobstructed view of Izzy. Of a man I recognized as Johnson Hall.
Emilio.
The boss.
Except, in this moment, he didn’t seem like cartel when he offered Izzy a peck and squeezed her hand. Then he spoke again and a chill settled down my spine. “It seems we have some matters to discuss now that she’s awake.”
Kazi and Mateo both gave him an annoyed nod before offering me one last reassuring look.
Now it was just Izzy, myself, and James in the room.
Can someone say fucking awkward?
James lifted his lips in the ghost of a smile before getting to his feet.
“You can stay if you’d like James,” I offered, watching him carefully. He deserved to be here too. This was his fucking daughter.
“No, you two need to talk. But Isobella, after, will you find me please?” He turned to me, leaning over to brush the hair out of my face. His fingertips leaving a trail of fire. His eyes coated in emotion.
I inclined my head, and he released me, leaving us.
As soon as the door shut, Izzy spoke, “So, this is why you didn’t want me to call you mamacita?” She ended in an awkward chuckle sitting in the chair her dad had just been in.
I reached over and punched her with all my might. “Shut up! You know you’re a bitch!?”
“Hey, at least this bitch didn’t fuck your dad.”
The humor dissolved in the air and my face whitened. “I’m sure you heard, but he’s dead. Stephen is finally and officially dead. Gone from my life.” From everyone’s life. A nightmare I didn’t even know I was in and had finally woken up from.
Izzy’s expression changed, into something I didn’t recognize.
“Yara… I’m going to tell you everything now.
All of my secrets. Every piece that I have kept hidden from you, and I would love for you to do the same.
But you don’t have to, you can keep anything you want from me.
You know I’ll love you no matter what though, don’t you? ”
“I’m ready to listen. I’ll be the therapist you never went to, no matter how much I pestered you. Though, I guess mine didn’t really work. But yeah girl, I think it’s time. No more fucking secrets.”
“Look, what had happened was…” Izzy attempted to joke again, it was an olive branch and I took it.
“Shut up, you’re such an idiot!” I chuckled before coughing. Pain stabbing over and over again at the spot just below my heart. It took time but finally I got it under control.
This would be annoying, but I was alive. My babies were fine. Everything was going to be fine. And Izzy was here, that meant she didn’t hate me. Right?
“You’re okay though, aren’t you? And the baby? Do you know whose it is? You didn’t lose it, did you?” Izzy picked at the peeling arm of the chair she was in, her entire focus on it. It was clear this was going to be a touchy spot for a while. Understandably so.
I decided it wasn’t the best time to drop the twins ball on her. She could find out later…maybe after their births.
“Nuh uh uh, you first. But yes, the baby is healthy, happy, and all that jazz. But everything else, I answer after.” I bared my teeth before trying to find a comfortable position on the bed. It was nearly impossible.
She took that as her cue to start and began to tell me the sordid tale of her piece of shit mom upending her life. Stealing her away from James in the middle of the night.
“Your mother was a raging cunt, like god rest her fucking soul. But fuck!” I expelled. I already had guessed as much, but this was the confirmation of it. My heart went out to James, too, and what he must have gone through with that woman.
Izzy moved onto the trauma that brought her to Emilio in the first place.
“I’m so sorry I wasn’t there.” I swallowed down my guilt.
At the time, I was in the middle of escaping Daniel and trying to find out how to change my name and leave town.
Next was how Emilio came back into the picture, how Kazi had driven Izzy to her fucking wedding.
“You’re fucking married?! And I wasn’t invited? I am going to kill that man,” I seethed.
“Maybe don’t, you know, since he’s my husband and all.” It was clear Izzy misunderstood me, but that was fine.
Except I wasn’t talking about Emilio, it was Kazi who was going to be on the receiving end of my wrath.
Izzy continued dropping bomb after bomb on me, and I just took each one after the other. It was clear we had both been keeping a lot from each other.
I remained silent, allowing her to free herself of it all. I imagined she felt much lighter by the end. And after it all, my opinion of Emilio warped. He still wasn’t my favorite person, but it was clear he was devoted to Izzy.
“Emilio loved you so much he sent a guardian angel to watch over me,” I mulled out loud.
“What do you mean? And what about the murder I committed.”
“He deserved it.” I waved my hand. That hadn’t phased me. “And Kazi—he used to be his driver, but Emilio sent him to keep tabs on me.”
Breathing a few times, I willed myself to be strong as Izzy was. It took a few beats, but then I opened my mouth, and once I started, I couldn’t stop. I explained how Daniel had decided to take up stalking, how Kazi had found me, and then Mateo.
Then I got to the point about her dad.
“I didn’t know, but Izzy. I love him. I’m in love with him. All three of them. But that’s crazy, isn’t it?” I whispered. The truth of it soaked into my skin, my mind wrapping around the craziness of the idea, my heart thumping loudly into my ears.
“Yeah… You know that I have my own harem now, I guess. Is this what it’s like when you’re a boss ass bitch?
” Izzy joked. It was her defense mechanism when things got too deep, and I could respect that part about her.
“And I’m not mad at you, Yara. You didn’t know.
But as long as you two don’t hurt each other.
I won’t be able to side with either of you. ”
Sitting carefully back up on the bed, I reached out to her, grabbing hold of her hand and meeting her eyes.
I wanted her to feel my sincerity, to know that without a doubt, I would not cause him any more pain.
That she was stuck with me whether she wanted to be or not.
“I love you Izzy, and I promise not to hurt him. And, fuck, if he and I don’t work out for whatever reason, you’re not going to lose me as a best friend. I promise.”
She returned the smile. “Agreed. Alright baby cakes, my side is done. Now it’s time for you to tell me your story. The whole thing.”
Rolling my eyes, I released her hand and fell back in the bed. “Fuck, alright. So it started one night at a comedy club…”