7. Ky
CHAPTER SEVEN
ky
Between Sparks’s whispered prayers and Jamie’s pacing, it might have appeared to any outsider that I was the calmer Carver. But I was so far past calm, my next stop was going to be the psych ward if the fucking doctor didn’t give us some news about Hayat soon.
My mind hadn’t stopped whirling since Samara had told us about Abi’s call. I never should have let Havoc go off on her own. She’d been kind of out of it recently. I wasn’t the only one who had noticed. Shane had mentioned it a couple times while he and I were remixing a few tracks for the new album. Even Poppy had been concerned, commenting on how absent-minded our hellion was.
Jesse Thornton insisted we all call Poppy, and because it made Hayat happy, we did.
Jamie and Sparks had both shrugged it off, saying we were all exhausted after the hectic pace of our first headlining tour, followed by weeks in the studio. When we got lost laying down new tracks, some days lasted more than eighteen hours of nonstop recording, adjusting, more recording. Until each song was perfect and our new album told the story we wanted our fans to experience with us.
We were definitely all tired. This break was long overdue. Yet I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was off with Hayat. She’d been quiet lately. As Poppy had said, absent-minded. Which was dangerous when it came to Hellion.
Getting lost in her own thoughts usually meant she was plotting trouble. And normally, we were all up for her kind of mischief. But there had been moments when I’d thought I’d seen something in her eyes that left me holding my breath, waiting for her to voice whatever was on her mind.
She hadn’t, and I’d left it alone, not wanting to push her. Hoping that by now she understood there was nothing she could say or do that would change our relationship. That girl was ours, and I’d walk through hell to keep her.
Which was exactly what we’d done when we’d found out Sancho had taken Hayat.
But even though the bastard was dead, there was unfinished business between us and the PCC. Miguel was stupid if he didn’t realize we’d figured out he’d used Hayat to get rid of his father so he could take over the cartel. Sparks and his brother were overdue for a family reunion. Miguel just didn’t know it would be their last.
Shaking away thoughts of the Guerrero family, I kept my eyes locked on the hospital room door. Abi and Samara were inside with Havoc and the doctor, who was doing some kind of exam that was too private for us to be present for.
What the fuck did that mean?
Had Sancho…touched Hellion?
Why else would the exam be too private for us, her life partners?
On either side of the door stood Vaughn and Elias. Vaughn had Amala in his arms, her head resting on his shoulder, asleep and ignorant of the chaos that was brewing in the corridor. Elias was running interference with Emmie and Anya, keeping them away.
That wasn’t an easy task, especially when it came to the fire-breather that was Emmie Armstrong. But with a little help from Poppy, Elias had been successful so far. Thankfully, Lucy and Kin had needed to finish up their own shopping with their husbands. They still weren’t aware of Hayat’s adventure with Sancho.
Vaughn had taken up a sentinel stance as soon as Abi had whispered something to him. Not ten seconds later, the doctor was asking us to step out of the room so she could better examine Hayat.
The squeak of Jamie’s shoes on the floor was white noise. Sparks’s prayers became more vehement the longer he kept his eyes closed, his Spanish rapid-fire as he asked God to forgive him and punish him all in the same breath. Whatever it took to exchange places with Hayat.
“How long has it been?” Jamie growled as he passed in front of the door again, his glare on Vaughn. But it was Elias who answered.
“Two minutes since you last asked,” he told Jamie patiently, ignoring the vibrating of his phone as he adjusted his cut over his black button-up. Without the leather vest proclaiming him a member of the Angel’s Halo MC, no one would have suspected he was a biker. He spent most of his days behind a desk, sketching blueprints for the projects his family’s construction firm built.
“What are they doing in there?” Jamie stopped in front of the two other men on his next pass. He finger-combed his thick blond hair back from his face, his eyes wild in a way that Elias recognized. Jamie was seconds away from releasing his full-on crazy. “Just tell us! Was she…hurt?”
His voice cracked, causing Sparks’s prayer to cut off abruptly, his eyes snapping open.
I stood there, my heart beating so hard and fast I could barely hear Elias attempt to soothe Jamie’s fears. What had Sancho done to her? Why couldn’t we be in there with her, but Abi and Samara could?
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
It should have been us in there. No one but us. Why couldn’t we be in there?
Suddenly, Elias was struggling to hold me back. I didn’t remember moving from the spot where I’d been watching the door. But I couldn’t stop myself. I needed to be in that room with Hayat. I needed to see her and touch her and hear her fucking breathing.
“Ky, you have to calm down, man. Don’t make me be the one who has to tell Hayat that Vaughn put a bullet in your head.” Elias was breathing hard as he tried to keep me from opening the door. “Come on. Just a little longer and then you can see your girl. I swear. A few more minutes, brother.”
Sparks and Jamie each grabbed one of my arms, jerking me back. But it was the feel of the cold metal of Vaughn’s Glock pressed to my head that had my feral side shutting down long enough to take a step back. Elias hadn’t been exaggerating. Vaughn wouldn’t have hesitated to put a bullet in me.
I noticed the silencer on the weapon, the way he hadn’t even jostled Amala as he’d pulled the gun from wherever he kept it holstered. His eyes didn’t flicker from my face. His expression didn’t alter. There was no emotion in him. None of what he gave to his wife and child, and sometimes Samara, was visible. Abi had given him a command. Keep us out. And he would ensure we remained fucking out.
The door opened abruptly, but Vaughn didn’t rush to lower the gun. Instead, he took a few seconds, slowly exhaling before he stepped aside.
Abi stood there, rubbing her hands over her belly, shaking her head. “I probably should have worded my request for privacy a little better,” she said with an apologetic half smile.
“Probably,” Elias agreed while Vaughn carefully replaced the gun in the holster, never once disturbing his daughter’s sleep. “Are we good now? Can they go back in?”
Abi bit her lip and glanced over her shoulder. “Sammy, let’s give them a minute.”
Samara and the doctor exited the room. As soon as Abi was out of the way, I was through the door. Hayat was sitting up in the hospital bed, her hair in tangled knots around her as she tucked the blanket up under her arms, watching us with hooded eyes when we surrounded her.
“What the fuck was that about?” Jamie demanded, slamming the door behind him.
“I just needed to be sure everything was okay.” She glanced from him to Sparks and, finally, to me. But as soon as our eyes connected, she was back to looking at the other two.
Swallowing the knot of emotions trying to choke me, I attempted to control my breathing so I didn’t scare her. She looked small in that bed. A bandage covered the wound on her cheek, her lip was split in two places but hadn’t been stitched, and there were so many bruises on her face.
She rubbed at her wrists a few times before groaning, and she forced herself to stop.
“Sure of what?” Jamie snapped, his usual patience with her shot to hell after the scare of almost losing her. “What aren’t you telling us, Hellion?”
“I…” She ducked her chin. “This isn’t how I thought I would tell you. I don’t even know how I was going to announce it. Everything has been so confusing, and then today…”
Pausing her rambling, she locked gazes with me again, but this time, she didn’t immediately look away. I grasped her hands carefully in mine, lifting them to my lips. “Whatever is going on, we don’t care. All that matters is we love you. Always.”
“Goddess.” Sparks bent so he could brush a kiss over her forehead. “I’m so sorry.”
“Please stop saying that, Sparks. This wasn’t your fault. I’m the one who is sorry. If I’d said something sooner, told you about feeling like I was being watched or followed…” She gulped. “I thought…hoped… I hoped I was being paranoid.”
“No, baby. No. We should have kept a closer eye on things— I should have been more prepared. If I’d been paying attention, I would have realized that my brother’s silence recently was a flashing sign that something was up with him and Sancho.” He spat out his father’s name. “But I promise you, sweetheart, they won’t ever bother us again.”
She huffed out a small laugh. “I mean, I kind of killed your dad, babe. So, I wasn’t exactly worried about this happening again.”
His lips lifted in a halfhearted attempt at the smile she was aiming for from him. “That’s my amazing little badass.”
Jamie slapped his hand down on the bed beside her feet, forcing us back to the reason I was still holding my breath. “You can’t do shit like that, Hellion. I don’t care what happened. You do not lock us out like that again.”
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. A few tears spilled down her cheeks. “I didn’t mean to scare you. I just… I needed to know.”
“What?” He exploded. “What the fuck did you need to know? Why couldn’t we be in here with you when you got your answers? Fuck! You are ours, Hayat. I don’t care if Abi and Sammy were here too. But we should have been in here. Us. You’ve been putting up walls lately. I’ve given you time. We all have. But this shit stops now. Do you hear me?”
“Jamie—”
“We didn’t even have a say in whether we could be in here. The doctor didn’t even fucking blink. Because you’re Hayat Cutter. That is not going to happen again. You’re changing your last name to Carver.”
I snapped my head around in his direction at the same time Sparks barked, “Jamie! Shit. Not like this. We had a plan.”
“The plan changed when she started using her last name to lock us out.”
Hayat’s brows pinched together. “Your plan for what? I’m so confused right now.”
“Join the fucking club,” Jamie snarked. “Because we’re clueless on a few things too. But we wouldn’t have been if you were a Carver like us. Because then we could have waved a ring or some shit in the doctor’s face and put down roots beside this damn bed. Sorry, Doc. She’s our wife. Or life partner. Something. Whatever title you want, Hellion. You pick. I don’t care anymore. I don’t care, as long as you share our last name and we can legally tell everyone to fuck off because you are ours.”
“Of course I’m yours.”
“No, you’re not. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have been thrown out of this room without a single say in the matter. So, pick a title—wife, partner, whatever—and a date to make it official. We can have an anniversary that at least one of us forgets, and you can hold it over our heads. But before the end of the year, your name is going to be Hayat Carver. End of discussion.”
Hayat stared up at him with her mouth hanging open in surprise. Sparks groaned, muttering a curse in Spanish, but it was me she turned to, her eyes full of questions since Jamie shut down as soon as he finished running his mouth.
“We had a ring made for you. Kind of…” I shrugged. After everything else that had happened that day, Jamie’s crazy had chosen to switch gears and choose the impulse route, and I was stumbling. “We’re complicated. Nothing new about that. But we were going to…propose? I don’t know. Every time someone asks you about marriage, whether it’s family or some reporter, you always say you wouldn’t choose who to legally marry. And we don’t want you to have to choose. But we do want to complete our family by changing your last name. Maybe…”
“Yes!”
We all blinked down at her in surprise. “What?”
Her eyes glittered with more tears, but she was smiling now. “Yes. Do you want to have a commitment ceremony? Something to celebrate the changing of my name? I’m okay with that. All of it. Something small, though. Maybe, since most of the family is already here for the holidays, we can plan a little celebration.”
“Yes,” Sparks repeated, sounding as dazed as I felt. Jamie just stood at the end of the bed, arms crossed over his chest, defensive but not unfazed by her obvious excitement. “She said yes?”
I nodded, trying to reassure him and myself of her answer. “Yeah.”
“Don’t care if you’re saying yes or not, Hellion. It’s happening.” Jamie sat on the edge of the bed at her feet, apparently no longer able to stand upright after the adrenaline had left following his explosive impulse to demand Hayat change her name. I was still reeling over her actually saying yes. “Now, fucking tell us what you needed the doctor to confirm. Did… Were you… What…”
He stopped and stumbled repeatedly over the question that none of us could voice.
“No! I wasn’t hurt like that. No one touched me.” Hayat rushed to soothe, and the three of us each released a relieved breath.
Jamie swallowed convulsively a few times. “Okay. Good. That’s…good.”
She nibbled on her bottom lip for a moment then seemed to gather her courage. I kept hold of her hands, suddenly feeling like I needed the contact with her more than ever. Instinctively, I knew whatever she was about to say was going to change everything.
I just didn’t know it was in a way none of us had allowed ourselves to think about but secretly craved.
“I’m pregnant.”