22. Lynx
LYNX
Dear Diary,
Nothing sobers you faster than hearing “I’m pregnant” in an ER chair you didn’t plan to be sitting in.
The moment she got out of that car, I wanted to kill her. I grabbed her wrist and leaned down, staring at Dax, mostly naked in the back seat, his body flushed with sweat, his eye swelling, and his rib already purpling from the hits he’d taken in the ring.
“I’m only going to say this one more time,” I growled at him.
“Stay the fuck away from her. I don’t give a flying fuck if the two of you are star-crossed lovers.
I failed high school English class but even I know how Romeo and Juliet ended.
You’re going to get her fucking killed.” I sucked in a heaving breath.
“And no amount of love is worth that. Trust me.”
I slammed the car door in his face and stormed away, dragging her along with me.
“Lynx.” She jogged beside me to keep up with the pace of my longer legs.
I ignored her, fuming fucking mad over how stupid she was being.
She stumbled, and I caught her, keeping her up.
But I didn’t stop, needing to get her as far away from Dax as I could before Luca and Carlos and their goon squad noticed it was Nyah I’d pulled out of the car that had been rocking, and not some fighter’s slut who got off on the thrill of nearly being killed by falling beams of metal.
“Lynx!” she shouted, yanking her arm out of my grasp.
I whirled on her, my whole body hot, and only a little of it because I’d had to stand there listening to her moan while Dax fucked her.
Mostly I was on fire because I’d thought she was dead, buried beneath that cage or trampled in the crowd.
And all because I hadn’t been able to get to her.
“Do you have a fucking death wish?” I shouted at her.
“What the fuck is wrong with you? It was bad enough I had to stand there while you and Dax were in that car. But I did, because that’s my damn job.
I even gave you the heads-up that Luca and Carlos were coming, but oh noooo.
Nothing was going to stop you getting your pussy filled, was it?
Did you forget you’re supposed to be a fucking virgin? ”
She flushed red, but then to her credit, she got right back up in my face…
well, as much as she could, considering she was probably a foot shorter than I was.
She poked a finger into my chest. “No, I didn’t forget.
You know what else I didn’t forget? That I love Dax.
That my father and Carlos pulled me away from the only man in my life who has ever shown me a scrap of fucking kindness. ”
I shook my head, because that was rich. “Not the only man. What the fuck am I?”
She blinked.
I bent down so we were face-to-face. “Aren’t I a man who’s been kind to you, Nyah?”
Some of the fight went out of her, and we both breathed out long, wobbly breaths, realizing we’d taken this too far.
Or at least, that’s how I felt. I was her bodyguard. I had no right to be getting this worked up.
Except I couldn’t help it. I’d spent panicked minutes trying to get to her, knowing she needed me and not being able to give her that because I couldn’t fucking reach her.
I should have been thanking Dax for getting her out.
And instead, I was a ball of jealousy because he had something with her that no one could touch. I wanted to lay her out on a bed and spank her naked ass for deliberately slipping away from me when she should have been at my side.
She put her arms around my middle and hugged me. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “We put you in a shit position and we shouldn’t have. You’re a good friend.”
Friend. Yep. Awesome. That was exactly what I was. Nyah’s bodyguard. Nyah’s buddy. Nyah’s friend.
Kill me now.
I put my arms around her and hugged her back, because I had permission to touch her and I wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth.
I was just glad she had made it out without more than the cut on her head, even though I clearly needed to be fired as a bodyguard, since all I’d managed to do tonight was run around like a headless chicken, then distract the Guerras from paying too much attention to the rocking car.
I was the one who ended the hug. I pulled her arms away from my back and stepped away, putting some space between us so I could think. “We need to get back to Luca and the others.”
But she shook her head. “I need to go to the hospital. I don’t want them knowing.”
Panic that had only just extinguished lit up inside me. “What? Why?” I brushed her hair away from the Band-Aid on her head. “Is it that cut? Do you need stitches?”
“Um, yes. I think so.”
There were people everywhere, all hanging around gawking at the police and ambulances and fire trucks that had all poured in while Dax and Nyah were getting their funky thang on in the back of the car.
People had been hurt when that cage had come down.
The crowd had been crushing, a force of nature even I, at well over the height and weight of most people, had been scared of.
I couldn’t see the Guerras or the goon squad anywhere, though that didn’t mean they weren’t still here.
But Nyah was right. When I peeled back the Band-Aid on her head, it was quite bad. She could have a concussion or a bleed on the brain or anything.
If Luca and Carlos had found her naked on the back seat of that car with Dax, maybe we could have blamed it on that.
I sighed, tugged her out onto the main road, and flagged down a passing taxi. “I think I like it better when you’re tucked up in your bedroom and I’m counting grapes on paintings.”
She got into the back seat, and I slid in beside her, pulling out my phone to text Luca.
She nibbled her thumbnail nervously. “What are you telling him?”
“That I have you and we’re going out for ice cream.’
She raised an eyebrow. “Seriously?”
“Yes, seriously. You said you didn’t want him knowing we’re going to the hospital. So I’m not going to go against your wishes.”
“But you work for them.”
I eyed her. “But my job is to protect you.”
A little smile flickered at the corner of her mouth. “I’m not sure Carlos meant that in the way you’re taking it, but as someone who grew up with no one to have my back, thank you. You’re a really good friend.”
I was going to put a rope around my neck and hang myself from one of the Guerras’ million-dollar chandeliers if she kept saying that.
But I said nothing, keeping my stupid Nyah crush to myself, because fuck knew there was no point entertaining feelings like that when she already had two Guerras and a Dax to deal with.
Being her friend was fine. Maybe I’d meet a cute nurse while we were at the hospital and that would wipe Nyah from my mind completely.
I somehow doubted it. I’d barely worked with her for a week, but there was something about protecting the woman that did something to me.
I stared out the car window, trying to get myself under control.
But all it took was one little noise from her to have me looking back over at her. “What is it? You okay?”
She nodded, but then she winced again.
“You’re not okay!” I said it so loud it was practically a shout.
The taxi driver glanced at us warily in the rearview mirror, like he’d already had a gut full of annoying passengers today and was ready to kick us out at any moment.
I lowered my voice to a lower decibel. “What’s going on?”
She brushed off my concern. “Nothing. I’m fine.”
But her face said she suddenly wasn’t. And by the time we pulled up in front of the emergency room doors, there was a slight sheen of sweat covering her forehead. I got out and ran around to her side of the car, helping her out, peppering her with questions as I helped her inside the building.
“Are you dizzy? Are you seeing spots? Do you feel like you’re going to puke?”
She didn’t answer any of them, her pretty face now twisted with fear. We got to the receptionist’s desk, and she leaned heavily on it.
“Can I see a doctor please?”
The receptionist didn’t even look in her direction. She just pushed a form at her and said, “Take a seat. We’ll call you when someone is free.”
Nyah clutched the clipboard, glanced at me, and then said weakly, “Please. I need to see someone urgently. I’m pregnant.”
I froze.
Closed my eyes.
Took a deep fucking breath to will away my own sudden rush of nausea. “You’re pregnant?” I hissed, leading her over to a chair to wait. “As in, you have a baby in your belly right now?”
She glanced at me before she started filling out the form. “That’s normally what pregnant means, Lynx.”
“Whose baby is it!”
“Whose do you think?”
“Please tell me its Carlos’s.”
Her expression told me it most definitely was not.
I groaned, running my hand through my hair. “So what you’re telling me is, Carlos Guerra’s virgin fucking bride is actually knocked up by…who? Please don’t tell me by Luca.”
She slapped my arm. “It’s Dax’s, you idiot. I haven’t slept with Luca! Or with Carlos!”
I slumped back in my seat. “I don’t know whether to be relieved or terrified.
What the hell are you going to do? You might be hiding it well right now, but I think Carlos is going to notice when his wife has a baby in a few months’ time!
And he’s not going to be too happy when he realizes it’s not his. ”
She dug her fingernails into my arm. “Shh. I know, okay? I know! I’m going to say it’s his, just born early.”
I stared at her in disbelief. “How the fuck are you going to explain to Carlos Guerra that you’re pregnant when he hasn’t even fucked you?”
She shot me a dirty look. “Well, geez, Lynx, I don’t know. I thought I’d try telling him it’s an immaculate conception, or maybe that his sperm is so virile I got pregnant just walking past him in the hallway.”
“Neither are good options, Nyah!”
She rolled her eyes as she walked off to hand in the paperwork.
But she was back within seconds to answer.
“I’m going to get him to have sex with me.
Soon. I hope.” But her hand hovered over her belly, and the fear came back into her expression.
“Oh God, Lynx. What if I lose it? I thought I was fine. I didn’t have any pain until… ”
“Until you came down off the rush of sneaking around with Dax.”
She nodded. “I want this baby so badly.”
I groaned. “Of course you do. Jesus fuck.” I couldn’t help but put my arm around her.
She looked so small and scared; it was an automatic reaction. I certainly wasn’t going to say that her life would be a whole lot easier if she did lose it. No mother wanted to hear that.
“It’s going to be okay,” I murmured over the top of her head.
She leaned against me heavily, but I could feel the tremble in her body.
It should have been Dax with his arms around her.
Fuck, this whole thing was so messed up.
“Nyah Matish,” a nurse called.
Nyah stood, then frantically looked at me. “Can you come with me? Please? If I’m losing it…”
I stood so fast I practically gave myself vertigo. “You aren’t losing it. Come on. Let’s go see your baby.”
We followed the nurse through to a cubicle in the triage area, and Nyah answered a host of questions.
Eventually, the nurse had her lie on the bed, a portable ultrasound machine at its side.
Nyah pulled up her shirt, and then the nurse had her undo her jeans.
She tucked a piece of paper into the top of her underwear to protect them from the blue goop she squirted onto Nyah’s belly.
Nyah stared at the ceiling, barely blinking, but her hand reached for me.
I took it without a moment of hesitation.
“Let’s see what’s going on here with baby and put your mind at ease, and then we’ll get that head taken care of.” The nurse moved the wand around on Nyah’s belly, and a bunch of squiggles and lines came up on the screen.
I didn’t know what any of them meant. I just held Nyah’s hand, rubbing it because it suddenly felt so damn cold.
“Okay, here’s your uterus. And here…” She pressed down a little harder on Nyah’s belly. “Is your baby. With what appears to be a strong heartbeat. You guys want to hear it?”
“Yes,” I answered, because Nyah didn’t seem to be able to.
She just lay there, with tears streaming down her face.
The sound of galloping hooves filled the little room, and Nyah’s shoulders shook silently.
My heart fucking broke for her. I squeezed her hand and brushed her hair back off her face, dragging my chair in closer. “Hey. Look at the screen. He or she is all good.”
She finally twisted her head, her watery eyes meeting mine, and then sliding past me to the little blob on the screen.
The nurse clicked a few buttons and then said, “You’re a few months along. You’ll probably start showing soon. That’s always fun for first-time moms.”
“I had bleeding early on.”
“Earlier tonight?”
She shook her head. “No, just after I found out. I thought I’d lost it. I only recently realized I hadn’t.”
The nurse nodded. “Bleeding in the first trimester isn’t uncommon. It doesn’t always mean you’re miscarrying.”
“I didn’t know that,” Nyah said quietly.
I didn’t either. But then again, I didn’t know shit about pregnancy and babies. I’d never given either more than a passing thought.
“Are you booked in with us here at the hospital for the birth and checkups?” the nurse asked.
“No.”
The woman frowned. “We’ll definitely want to get that sorted before you leave, and you should be taking prenatal vitamins, getting lots of rest, eating well…
” Her lecture gentled into sympathy. “But your baby looks completely healthy to me. Your head is actually my bigger concern right now. Any pains you were having were probably just gas. I can see it on the ultrasound.”
I snorted on a laugh.
Nyah slapped me. “Don’t laugh at me!”
“Why not? All that worry and stress and all you needed was to fart?”
“Shut up!” But there was a smile on her lips, one that was full of relief.
I was happy for her. I really was. Only it was short-lived. Because if Carlos or Luca found out she was pregnant with another man’s baby, I was really fucking scared about what they’d do.
When the nurse came back and said it would probably be another hour until they could glue up Nyah’s cut and get her head scanned, I told them to take their time.
Because the longer we were here, the longer she was nowhere near the Guerras.