Ysis #5
“Oh hell no.” My entire mood soured instantly. Standing near the entrance was Yuki, and beside her stood a tall dark-skinned man I didn’t recognize. Yayo and Cazmir were both planted firmly in front of them doing everything short of physically tackling the man to keep him from approaching us.
Now see...that’s where I checked out, because today was not the day.
Not on my day after everything we’d been through.
Not after such a beautiful ceremony and vows.
Not after I spent the entire evening trying not to cry every five damn minutes.
Kade tensed beside me and I felt the switch.
That shift that happened whenever somebody threatened his peace.
Or more specifically... Mine. Without hesitation, both of us got up and started moving.
The crowd parted naturally as we made our way toward the growing scene.
By the time we reached them, guests had already started whispering amongst themselves, security hovered nearby waiting for instructions. I wasn’t in the mood for diplomacy.
“What the fuck is going on here?” I demanded. “And why the fuck are y’all here disrupting our day?”
Yuki looked exactly the same. Beautiful, elegant and composed.
That pissed me off even more. Because where the hell had all that composure been every other time we needed her?
She’d been missing ever since the fallout with Mama Sina.
Now suddenly she wanted to make an appearance at my wedding?
Baby no. Absolutely not. Not on my fucking watch.
“Security.” I folded my arms. Several guards straightened, ready for my command. “They need to be escorted out.” I pointed toward the entrance. “And whichever one of you muscle heads let them in...you’re fired.”
Before anybody could move though, Cazmir stepped forward. “Ysis.”
“No.”
“Ysis, just listen—”
“No.”
“There’s something you should know.”
I shook my head. I wasn’t trying to hear shit. “ Stay out of this. I’m serious, Cazmir. We’ve heard every explanation, every excuse, and every secret there is to know. Nothing y’all have to tell me is changing how I feel.”
“Even if I told you that this was your birth father?” Yuki finally spoke.
Everything around us stopped. For a second I thought I’d misheard her. Beside me, Kade went completely still. Yayo’s entire face darkened. Cassian stopped moving and Mama Sina slowly stood from her table. The girls covered their faces in shock. Because there was no way... absolutely no fucking way.
“Ysis, this is your father and my husband Majeston. Majesty, meet your daughter...Ysis Myles.” And just like that...the best day of my life became another one of the most complicated moments I would ever have to live through.
“Earth to Ysis, helloooo.”
Kade snapped his fingers in front of my face, pulling me out of the memory.
The wedding had been one of the most beautiful days of my life.
A day filled with love, tears, laughter, family, healing, and promises.
Then, just like they had done on Kade’s birthday, family drama came crashing through the front door uninvited and turned everything upside down.
Looking back now, it almost felt like somebody somewhere had decided we weren’t allowed to enjoy happiness without attaching a complication to it.
“Yes, babe.” I answered, blinking away the remnants of the memory. “I was just thinking about the day of our wedding.”
“I can tell by the tears rolling down your cheeks.” His voice softened as he reached over and grabbed my hand.
Bringing it to his lips, he kissed it before using his thumb to wipe away the tears I hadn’t even realized were there.
“And I know you sick of being blindsided by family drama.
Every time we think we finally got all the answers, another motherfucker pops out the woodworks with another secret.
But I promise you, baby, we putting all this shit to bed.
I nodded, staring down at our intertwined hands.
Somewhere between reliving the memory and getting lost in my own thoughts, I hadn’t even realized we were sitting in our driveway.
Hell, I hadn’t realized I was crying either.
Life had changed so much, in such a short amount of time that sometimes it still felt unreal when I stopped long enough to actually think about it.
I had spent most of my life not knowing who my parents were, where I came from, or if I even had family out there looking for me.
For years it was just me, survival, and a thousand unanswered questions.
Then within the span of a single year, I discovered not only who my birth parents were, but that both of them were powerful people in their own right, carrying enough secrets and influence to fill several lifetimes.
Despite all the confusion and emotional whiplash that came with those discoveries, life had also blessed me with things I never imagined I’d have.
A husband who loved me so much it bordered on insanity, the twins, Mama Sina loving me like I came from her own womb, and more brothers than I honestly cared to count.
Between Yayo, Cassian, and now adding Cazmir to the equation as my godbrother, my family tree had grown so fast it damn near gave me emotional vertigo.
Talk about life doing a full three-sixty.
The crazy part was, if somebody had sat me down two years ago and told me this would be my life, I would’ve laughed directly in their face and asked them what kind of drugs they were taking.
Yet here I was, sitting in a luxury SUV in front of a mansion with my husband beside me, carrying twins.
Sometimes God really did have a sense of humor.
We had put our honeymoon on pause until after the twins arrived and all this family drama settled down.
As much as I wanted nothing more than to disappear to some beautiful island with my husband and pretend the rest of the world didn’t exist, there was no way I was taking chances with this pregnancy.
The twins were healthy, thriving, and exactly where they needed to be.
The last thing I wanted was to find myself somewhere overseas, halfway across the world from my doctors, only to fuck around and go into labor early because one of Kade’s children inherited his inability to sit still.
So for now, paradise would simply have to wait.
As we climbed out of the SUV, another car slowly rolled to a stop behind us.
The familiar vehicle caught my attention, but before I could even ask why they were here, Kade reached for my hand and intertwined his fingers with mine.
“I called them over.” My head snapped toward him so fast I almost gave myself whiplash.
“You what?” His expression never changed.
If anything, he looked entirely too comfortable with whatever was about to happen.
That alone told me this wasn’t some spur-of-the-moment decision.
No. My husband had already thought this through, made peace with whatever came next, and decided everybody else was simply along for the ride.
“It’s time,” he said firmly.
“Time for what?”
“To get all this shit out on the table once and for all.” I followed his gaze just as the vehicle doors opened.
Yuki stepped out first and I couldn’t even lie, that woman looked good.
Time hadn’t taken anything from her. If anything, it seemed to have sharpened her.
Even after everything that had happened between us, I could still see why people naturally gravitated toward her.
Then Majeston stepped out behind her and my attention shifted.
The difference between the two of them was impossible to miss.
Yuki looked like a boss bitch, and Majeston looked like the reason for it.
For the first time since meeting her, I wasn’t looking at Yuki the mysterious Mafia Queen, the woman who abandoned her children, or the person responsible for so much confusion in my life.
I was looking at somebody’s wife. Strangely enough, I found myself wanting to understand her.
Not forgive her, not yet.
But understand her. Because despite every ounce of hurt she had caused, every unanswered question still hanging between us and the fact that she had somehow managed to detonate a bomb at my wedding reception and alter the course of my life forever, I still wanted answers.
My eyes moved between the two of them before settling on Kade.
He squeezed my hand reassuringly, silently reminding me that whatever happened next, I wasn’t facing it alone.
Drawing in a breath, I squared my shoulders and looked toward the two people responsible for my existence.
One way or another, tonight the secrets, the running and the guessing stopped.
Whether I liked what they had to say or not, I was finally ready to hear the truth.