31. Nyah
NYAH
Dear Diary,
I came downstairs to stop a fight and accidentally secured a front-row seat to a cage match in Scotland.
The knock at my bedroom door was so quiet I knew instantly it wasn’t Lynx. It definitely wasn’t Luca either, because he wouldn’t have knocked at all. My breath skipped, and I ran to it, opening it up quickly, expecting to see Dax on the other side.
Instead, it was his mother.
Her eyes full of worry, her fingers twisting around themselves as she wrung them.
I forgot all about my desire to see her son, as well as my confusing feelings for Luca. “What’s wrong?”
“May I come in?”
I nodded, opening the door the whole way then shutting it behind her once she was inside my room. She perched on the edge of my bed, that I’d already neatly made, not wanting her to have to clean up after me.
“What’s happened?”
She shook her head. “Dax is fighting again.”
I blew out a long breath. “I know.”
All the mother-type worries were there in her eyes, ones that had clearly not gone away just because her son was a grown man.
“I never liked him and his brothers fighting, but my husband insisted that they needed to know how. And Dax was good. Even I could see that. He was too good to stop, but I never liked it. I was so happy when he found art, and when he opened the tattoo shop. He didn’t fight for at least two years. Or at least not that I knew of.”
She was right. He hadn’t been fighting when we’d been together. I hadn’t even known he could. He’d never said he had to go to training. Never had any trophies or photos up in his house that would have indicated he’d fought as a kid and through his teens and twenties.
If that had been part of his life, it seemed to me that he’d put it to bed.
Until I’d left.
And now the soft, gentle-hearted artist I’d fallen in love with was walking around in pain and putting his life in danger because of me.
She squeezed my fingers. “I know the two of you dated. Prior to your engagement to Carlos, of course.”
I bit my lip, but there was no point denying it. Everyone knew we had. Even Carlos knew. Though none of them knew the extent of the relationship.
None of them knew how much I loved him. And that I was sure he still loved me.
I just nodded.
“If you ever cared about him, please get him to stop. I’ve seen the way he looks at you.
You still have power over him. The sort of fighting he did back then, it was all controlled.
Above board. Official martial arts tournaments.
The sort of fighting Carlos will want him to do is nothing like that.
It’s dark and dirty and vicious. I couldn’t bear it… ”
“If he got hurt,” I finished for her.
I wanted to tell her I couldn’t either. That when I’d walked into that warehouse and seen him in that ring, nothing else had mattered. I’d been on autopilot, weaving through the crush of people shouting and cheering them on, when all I could think about was getting to his side.
But I didn’t have as much power over Dax as Virginia thought I did.
Or maybe it was the opposite. That he wanted to be near me so much he was willing to do anything.
Even fight for a man like Carlos Guerra, where all he would care about was the next win, not what it cost Dax to get it.
I’d seen it in the way Carlos was hounding Luca and Lynx over their hockey team, shouting and threatening them every time they lost.
Virginia’s eyes were full of tears. “He has men here today. They’ve been arriving all morning, and they’re down in the gym.” She grasped my hand. “Please can you go down there? Maybe he’ll see sense if you tell him not to do it?”
I scrunched up my face. “Virginia, I don’t think I—”
She squeezed my hand so tight it hurt. “Please try.” Her gaze met mine. “Mother to mother, I’m asking you to please try. Because I think you know the fear I have right now. Don’t you?”
I sucked in a sharp breath. “How did you know?”
“I found your photos and your books when I was putting away your laundry.”
Fear wrapped its way around my heart. “It’s not…”
Except it was exactly what it seemed. That I was pregnant, and we both knew it wasn’t Carlos’s.
I burst into tears, and Virginia put her arms around me, holding me tight.
“Shh, my girl. This is what motherhood is. From the minute they’re conceived, all you do is worry for them. They will bring you so much light and laughter, and none of us would ever give them back. But loving another person so much leaves your heart doubly vulnerable.”
I felt that right to my toes. Loving this baby, and her son, were things I wouldn’t change, even if I could.
And yet they were the two things that were also destroying me.
I might not have been able to do much for my own heart, but maybe I could ease some of Virginia’s pain. “I’ll see if they let me down there. See if I can talk to him. I don’t think it will do any good though.”
Virginia gave me a half-smile. “Neither do I. He loves you. He wants to be near you. And he’s going to do anything in his power to make that happen. I can see that now. I didn’t realize the bond between the two of you is what it is.”
“I love him,” I whispered truthfully, confiding in the older woman.
“I know. I can see that. And yet you’re marrying another man, Nyah. A dangerous man who has no moral compass. There is nothing he won’t do, if he’s provoked to do so. And, sweet girl, I’m very concerned that you and Dax together in one house is going to be all the provocation Mr. Guerra needs.”
I knew she was right. Dax couldn’t be here. I’d said as much to him the night of the party, when his hands and lips and cock had been all over me.
“Did you tell him about the baby?” I asked Virginia.
She shook her head sharply. “No. And I won’t. Because right now, I still think there is a way to get him out of all of this. For Carlos to forget about him, and for him to still be able to lead a normal life.”
She stared at me, so bitterly unhappy. “I don’t think there is any chance for that if he knows you carry his child.
He will never leave your side. He’ll challenge Carlos for your hand, or do something worse, like try to take it by force.
” She put her hand on my nonexistent belly.
“I love your child, Nyah. It’s my grandbaby and so of course I do.
” She stared at me sadly. “But I cannot sacrifice my child for yours.”
“I know. And I wouldn’t want you to. I love them both,” I whispered brokenly. “I just want them both.”
But we both knew I couldn’t have what I wanted. That my life had never been my own, and I was nothing more than the property of men.
“I’ll try to talk to Dax again,” I promised her, hugging her close. “I’m so sorry. I wish things were different.”
“So do I, sweet girl. So do I. But they aren’t. All we can do is play the cards we’ve been dealt.”
I nodded, wiping tears off my cheeks and praying Virginia was everything she seemed. That I hadn’t just made the hugest mistake in confiding in another person.
I had to believe the woman who’d raised a man like Dax wouldn’t betray me.
There was a guard at my door, the same one who was there each morning Lynx wasn’t.
I didn’t bother stopping to talk to him.
I’d tried before, and the man only seemed to communicate in grunts and scowls.
He followed me down to the bottom level, and nobody tried to stop me when I entered the spacious gym.
I did a double take when Dax stood in the middle of it in nothing but his underwear. Men I didn’t know, though some were vaguely familiar, probably from the party, studied him and the lineup of other fighters.
They all had similar body types. Lean builds with strong muscle but not overly bulky. Most of them had tattoos, but none like the ones that decorated Dax’s body. His were beautiful, flowing with his muscles and the way his body moved.
Each and every one of them familiar to me.
Dax and the other fighters were all covered in light sweat, and I could tell from the red in their cheeks, and the purpling bruises already starting to show on some of them, that I’d been too late to stop him fighting.
He clearly already had.
Carlos caught sight of me as I entered, and his initial reaction, a deep frown of annoyance, wasn’t lost on me. But he quickly smoothed it over and waved me over to his side. “Gentlemen, excuse me, it seems my bride-to-be couldn’t wait for my attention.”
The room tittered with laughter, and I forced a smile, going to Carlos’s side. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t realize you had company.”
“Nyah, these are some colleagues of mine from the UK. They’ve flown out to inspect some of my newest fighters. We’re choosing which ones we take back there for a round of cage matches.”
My stomach sank at the sound of that.
I was already sure they would take Dax.
Every man in the room stared at me until my skin crawled. This was nothing like when we’d gone to watch Dax in the cage fights. Those men had been street thug brawlers at best.
The men in this room gave off a totally different vibe. They were businessmen. Sharks. Ruthless Mafia who stared at me and the other fighters like we were commodities rather than people.
“I’ve never been to the UK,” I said to Carlos with a smile that felt forced, but I hoped with everything I had that it came across as charming. I turned to his friends. “I’ve heard it’s an incredibly beautiful part of the world. I’d love to see it one day.”
Dax shot me a sharp look.
I ignored it. I could read him well enough to know what was going on in his head. He was unhappy I was here, fishing for an invitation I had no business wanting.
But screw him. If he could put himself on the line to be near me, then that went both ways. I wasn’t just going to sit here while he went to the other side of the world to fight for the Guerras.
What if he didn’t come back? What if they killed him over there and there was no one there to raise an alarm?
He might not want me there, but he had no one else to have his back.
I always would.
But Carlos shook his head. “You’re needed here, to plan our wedding.”
I opened my mouth to try to sweet-talk him into letting me go, but one of the men, perched on a gym bench, laughed in Carlos’s direction.
“Do ye always keep your woman on such a tight leash, Guerra? Let the lass come. Let her have some fun before ye tie her down with a ball and chain.” He rose to his feet and picked up my hand, kissing the back of it.
“Angus MacGregor. Pleased to meet ye, lass. We’d love to have ye join us as our guest.”
I could practically feel Carlos’s irritation.
I quickly pulled my hand out of Mr. MacGregor’s grip and forced myself into subservient wife mode. “I would love to attend, if Mr. Guerra deems it appropriate for me to accompany him.” I gave Carlos a pretty smile.
But it was Dax’s deep scowl I could feel burning into my back.
And Carlos’s simmering anger scalding my front.
He shook Mr. MacGregor’s hand, and MacGregor’s gaze slid to me again.
“I’ll expect both of you in Scotland next week then, along with your fighters. They proved themselves worthy opponents here this morning, but I think my boys will give them some good competition.”
“I look forward to it,” Carlos said.
MacGregor turned to me. “And you, Future Mrs. Guerra. Are you eagerly anticipating it too?”
I glanced at Carlos stiff beside me. He gave me no indication of what I should or shouldn’t say. MacGregor stared at me, and I didn’t want to be rude. So I nodded.
“Yes, sir.”
He hummed beneath his breath appreciatively. “So do I, Mrs. Guerra. So do I.”