Savage Mafia Kings

Chapter 38 Lyse

Lyse

Four Months Later

Two pink lines: there were two pink lines. I checked the box for the hundredth time, and the meaning of those two pink lines didn’t change. “I’m pregnant.” Saying the words aloud made it real. “I’m pregnant with Omar’s baby.”

A flutter of joy went off in my belly at the same time a heaviness settled on my shoulders. “Are you okay, mi amor?”

Helena was standing in the doorway of the bathroom.

She had gone to the mainland for our biweekly grocery order, and I’d asked her to get the test for me.

It was only right that she got to know the results.

I handed her the stick. Helena’s eyes grew shiny, and her mouth stretched into the widest smile I’d ever seen.

“Are you ready to be an abuela?” I asked. “Because I can’t think of anyone else who I’d want for that role.”

She laughed and swooped me into a hug. “My darling girl!”

“Do you think Omar will be happy?” I asked. “We haven’t really talked about children before, you know, and it wasn’t like we were trying.”

Helena shushed me gently. “I think Omar will surprise you, mi amor.”

She was right, but there was still that bubble of trepidation in my belly. “Could we make his favorite dinner tonight?” I asked. “Make breaking the news a little easier.”

Helena didn’t think it was necessary, but she agreed to help put the meal together.

We stood, side-by-side, as we prepped the vegetables.

I sank the blade of my knife into a white onion, and the moment the smell hit my nose, my stomach twisted.

Bile rose in my throat, and I stepped away from the counter.

“Mi amor? Are you okay?”

I wanted to speak, but opening my mouth was a legitimately bad idea. “I think I need to—” My stomach turned, and I had to run to the downstairs powder room. Throwing up was never pleasant, but now my head swam sickeningly, making the nausea even worse.

Someone knocked on the door as I gagged. “Conejita? Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” I called out, but I sounded pathetic.

Omar swung the door open. His face softened as he stared at me. “Are you sick?”

I shook my head minutely, careful not to move too quickly so that I wasn’t at risk of upsetting my tummy again. “Not…quite.”

“Do you need some help?”

“I’m fine.” I pushed myself to my feet and turned to rinse my mouth out in the sink. Omar didn’t exactly hover, but he didn’t leave either.

“Did you eat something that didn’t agree with you?”

“No. It was more of a smell that made me sick.”

Omar scoffed. “A smell?”

“Well, strong smells can set off morning sickness pretty easily, and I was cutting onions for—” Omar scooped me up, and I scrambled to lock my legs around his waist for stability. “What are you doing?”

“Repeat what you just said,” he said.

“What? I was cutting onions, and the smell gave me — Oh.”

“You had morning sickness,” he said. “Does that mean you’re pregnant?”

This was not how I wanted to do this…but there was no going back now. “I am.”

Omar’s mouth split into a wide, joyous grin. “Really?”

I chuckled. “Do you want to see the test I took today?” I asked. “The results were pretty concrete.” Omar cupped the back of my neck and pulled me in for a kiss.

“You’re amazing,” he murmured against my lips. “Thank you.” A laugh bubbled up with a sob, and both sounds came out at once. Omar lovingly wiped my cheeks with the tips of his fingers. “These are happy tears, right, conejita?”

I nodded, kissing him again. “Of course,” I told him. “It wasn’t exactly how I thought this would go, but of course I’m happy.”

Omar’s smile dimmed for a moment, and I cursed opening my big mouth.

We’d been talking about getting married, mostly just whispering to one another before going to sleep, but our life was on pause, waiting for Angel to call Omar home.

The brothers hadn’t spoken in months, not since Omar called to tell Angel about the fire that destroyed the guns that they were storing: instead, they left it to Lili to run messages back and forth between them.

I cupped his face. “I am happy,” I said. “I wouldn’t want to be anywhere other than where you are.” His expression was unreadable, but then he swung me around and started walking in the direction of the stairs. “Wait! Helena and I were working on chupe andino.”

Omar grunted. “It’ll keep until I’m done with you.”

A shiver ran down my spine, and my fingers carded into his hair. It was getting long, and while Helena had been offering to cut it, I liked that I could grab onto it a little. “You have plans for me?”

He hummed. “Several. Most involve you being a lot more naked than this.”

My fingers were just turning into prunes when I heard the bathroom door swing open. “Decided to join me after all?” I looked through the glass shower wall at him, and my body seemed to freeze. “Omar, what’s the matter?”

He stared at me, unseeing, for a long moment, and then he roughly tugged off the clothes that he’d thrown on so that he could step out to answer the call that had interrupted us.

Omar slid the door back and stepped into the shower, hissing as the water hit him.

“Are you trying to cook yourself, conejita?” He reached around me to the shower knobs and turned the heat down.

I looped my arms around his neck, trembling slightly as his body pressed against mine. “Who was on the phone?”

I knew the answer, and I nodded when he said, “Angel.”

“He wants you to go back.”

“Us,” Omar corrected, burying his face in my neck. “He wants us to come to the compound. Emma went into labor last night.”

“I know.”

He pulled back a fraction. “How do you know when I just found out?”

“Lili texted me.”

Omar’s expression was perplexed. “Since when are you texting my sister?’

I shrugged, not really sure when it happened, only that it had. Maybe working together to save Omar’s life had bonded us more than I thought. Maybe the fact that I had saved his life, when she hadn’t been able to, had eclipsed the fact that I was a Rojas in her eyes.

“Letting you two have unchaperoned texting privileges feels dangerous.”

I laughed, pressing a kiss to his chest. “The baby should be coming any time now.”

“They’ll probably be sent home from the hospital tomorrow, and Angel wants us there when they arrive.”

I knew that I would eventually have to return to the Castillo compound, but it was still surprising that Angel had issued me an invitation…or an order, rather. “Are you nervous?”

Omar was quiet for a long stretch. He busied himself with kissing my neck and shoulders. “I am nervous,” he said finally. “If it were just me, I don’t think I would be.”

I curled my fingers through his hair. “If it were just you, you’d probably never be in this situation to begin with.”

He pulled back so that I could see his eyes. “You know that I wouldn’t change any of this, right? I would stay here on this island with you for the rest of our lives if I had to.”

I shushed him softly. “I know,” I said, drawing him down for a kiss. “It wasn’t the most…conventional way to get here, but I’m glad too.”

The water was going to start getting cold soon.

Omar reached for the shampoo and rubbed some into my hair: whenever we ended up in the shower together, this was one of his favorite things to do.

He told me once that it helped to relax him, but it also reminded him that he had the ability to be gentle and soft when he wanted to be.

“Marry me,” he said as he finished rinsing out the shampoo. He was grabbing the conditioner, barely looking at me, but I couldn’t have been more floored. Sure, we’d talked about marriage…but he’d never actually asked the question.

“What?”

He started massaging the conditioner into my hair. “When we return to the mainland,” he said, “let’s go to the courthouse and get married.”

“Okay,” I agreed. “Let’s do it. Let’s get married.”

The rest of the afternoon was spent packing.

Helena was absolutely beside herself that we were actually leaving, but Omar said that she was welcome at the compound any time.

She could work there full-time if she wanted, or simply come to visit.

We didn’t have to wait until we came back to the island to see one another.

Helena wrapped me in a hug as the men loaded the boat with our luggage. “Let me know when your first ultrasound is,” she said. “I want to know everything.”

“Of course,” I said.

One crushing hug later, Omar and I were skipping over the waves. It still wasn’t a pleasant experience for me, but at the very least, I was getting used to it. Plus, now I had a custom-fitted life jacket that was strapped around me. “Are you all right, conejita?” Omar called to me over the waves.

“I’m okay. Just get us there in one piece.”

He laughed, but it was carried away by the whipping of the wind. The ride was, by far, the most pleasant we’d had so far, and it was almost surprising when we neared the marina. Omar navigated the speedboat into its boat slip.

He disembarked first, and then held out his hand to help me step onto the dock. He kept his hand on the small of my back the entire way from the slip to the parking lot where a car was waiting for us. “Are you going to hover like this for my whole pregnancy?”

“Probably,” he said. “Is that going to bother you?” He wasn’t looking at me.

Instead, his eyes swept the area around us, like he was expecting someone to jump out at us.

It probably wasn’t far from the truth: Omar wasn’t needlessly paranoid.

He’d been jumped enough in the last year to last a lifetime.

“I think I’ll survive,” I said, leaning into him. If it made him feel better to hover a little, who was I to tell him he couldn’t?

His shoulders relaxed. “Gracias, conejita.”

Omar opened my car door and waited until I was seated and buckled before closing it and going around to his own side. Once he was behind the wheel, he held out his hand, and I slid mine into it, clasping our fingers together. “Ready to be my wife?” he asked.

The word wife sent a tingle through me. “I would like nothing more than for you to be my husband.”

Omar looked like he’d been sucker-punched, and then he looked predatory. He cupped the back of my neck, nearly hauling me over the center console so that our faces were only a breath apart. “Call me that again,” he demanded.

“Husband.” His eyes watched my mouth shape the word. “You’re going to be my husband.”

His eyes were dark with want. “If we didn’t have to go to the compound right after we finish at the courthouse, you would be in so much trouble.”

I felt my mouth draw up in a smirk. “Is it still trouble if I’m asking for it?”

His lips were against mine, demanding and greedy, and I gasped against him.

I wanted to climb into his lap. Ever since we’d settled into our exiled life, it was like we couldn’t go more than a few hours without each other.

I’d been waiting for that burning want to fade, but if anything, it was only getting worse.

The honeymoon period was sure to end, right?

“Behave, conejita,” Omar warned, drawing away from me, as if I had been the one to attack his mouth first. “We have to get through this afternoon before I can have you all to myself again.”

I sat back in my seat. “I’ll behave if you will.”

He let out a groan. “Can’t you just say, ‘yes,’ and we could move on with our day? Why do you have an attitude and make me want to find a place where I could adjust it for you?”

“Is that what we're calling it?” I sniped at him. “Attitude adjustments?”

He laughed, and it was a warm, pleased sound. “I can’t wait to do this forever with you, conejita.”

I took his hand again. “Then, let’s get a move on.”