Chapter Livia Cartier
LIVIA CARTIER
By the time family dinner wrapped up, the house had settled down.
Everyone had said their goodbyes. The kids were down for the night.
Icon and Legend were in the office, most likely talking about the attack on the Crown they were due to make in a few days.
The darkness of the threat of the Crown and this upcoming attack had been putting a dark cloud over everything as of late, even the happy family moments.
It was there at dinner. It was there when me and Icon made love.
Every time my man left this house, I prayed that he would return and had visions of getting “that” call.
Every time I left the house, I feared one of his opps would turn their rage towards me.
That finally happened the other day. I’d seen my life flash before my eyes.
But, under that fear, I felt a peace that, no matter what happened to me, Royal would be okay.
He would be loved and well taken care of.
That was even more confirmation that I had married the right man.
Aria had gone to lie down when everyone started to say their goodbyes. So, I went to check on her. I took the halls towards Aria’s suite and knocked lightly when I got to her opened bedroom door.
“Aria?” I softly called.
She was lying on the bed with her back to the door. When she heard me, she turned slowly.
I walked over to the bed, asking, “How you feelin’?”
She let out a breath and rubbed her stomach. “Still sick to my stomach.”
I sat down beside her and studied her face. She looked drained, enough that it was bothering me. “You think you’re pregnant?”
Aria cut her eyes at me so fast it made me laugh. “Go to hell, Livia.”
She was serious as hell. She didn’t crack one smile.
In fact, she was glaring at me. She had never looked at me with such disdain, but I wasn’t offended.
At this point, we were sisters in every way that mattered.
That was what happened when you married brothers who ran an organization together and built your lives in the same house, under the same pressure.
“Are you pregnant?” she spat.
My eyes rolled at her attempt to deflect. “I take my birth control on schedule, and my man respects the fact that I am too scared to go down that road again just yet. Your man, however, doesn’t give a damn.” I laughed as I pulled out my phone. “Don’t try to change the subject.”
Aria groaned and rolled onto her back. “Livia.”
I hit the side button twice, activating Siri, and asked, “Can a woman still get pregnant if her tubes are burned?”
Aria covered her face with one hand. “I hate you.”
I lightly pinched her. “No, you don’t.”
My phone answered, “Pregnancy can still happen after a tubal ligation, though it’s rare. The tubes can sometimes reconnect or the procedure can fail, depending on how it was done.”
Aria sat up, scowling. “That is bullshit.”
I looked over at her. “It is not bullshit. It says it right here.”
She sucked her teeth, but I could tell she was thinking now.
“You should take a pregnancy test,” I suggested.
She rolled off the bed, blowing a frustrated breath, and went into the bathroom with me following right behind her. She opened one of the drawers under the sink and started digging through it until she found a box shoved all the way in the back.
I lifted a brow. “You kept pregnancy tests?”
She looked up at me like I was stupid. “I just never threw them away. I was always scared I was pregnant before I got my tubes done, so I kept them in stock.”
She pulled one out, stared at it for a second, then ripped the wrapper open like she was pissed off that she was having to do this…again.
The next few minutes felt disrespectfully long.
After peeing on the stick, Aria stood in the bathroom with that test in her hand like she wanted to fight it. Neither one of us said much. We just waited.
And waited.
Then the result came up.
Positive.
I looked at the test, then at Aria.
She looked at the test too.
I expected screaming, cussing, tears, something. Instead, Aria had no reaction at all. She just set the test down on the counter, turned, and walked out of the bathroom.
Concerned, I called out to her, “Aria?”
But I got no answer.
I had been holding my pee for so long while we waited that I finally gave up and used the toilet myself.
While I was sitting there, I kept talking to her through the open bathroom door.
“Everything is going to be okay. Maybe God just intends for you to be a mom of many. You know some women are just extra fertile and chosen for this.”
I listened for a response but got nothing.
“And you already know how to do this. You’ve done this. You and Legend got this, and y’all make beautiful kids. It’s only right that you bless the world with those beautiful babies.”
I still got nothing.
“Aria?”
Still no answer.
I finished, flushed, washed my hands, and stepped out of the bathroom. “Aria?”
I stopped in my tracks when I saw that the bedroom was empty. So, I went into the sitting area, and it was empty too.
I walked through the suite, then out into the hall. “Aria?”
When I still didn’t get an answer, I got curious. I hurried through the wing, checking the den, the bathroom off the hall, then I cut through the main area and still did not see her.
That was when I went back into the main quarters, looking for her, and still couldn’t find her.
I went straight to the office. Icon and Legend were still inside. They both looked up when I came in, and the second Icon saw the worried look in my eyes, he stood up. “What’s wrong?”
“Aria is gone.”
Legend frowned. “What do you mean ‘gone’?”
“She took a pregnancy test. It came out positive, and when I came out of the bathroom, she was gone.”
Legend’s body went rigid. Icon was already putting his drink down. Legend snatched his phone out and unlocked it, probably to check her location.
A second later, his jaw tightened. “She turned her location off.”
Instantly, we headed straight outside, with Legend so far ahead of me and Icon that he nearly left us behind.
By the time we got to the front of the house, the security at the gate was already in a frenzy, running back and forth, talking over each other in headsets, like something had gone very wrong.
Legend barked, “Where the fuck is she?”
One of the guards turned toward us, already looking stressed and afraid. “Sir—”
“Where did she go?” I asked, because I needed them to answer before Legend started choking people.
The guard looked at Legend first. “Mrs. Cartier left out the gate in her truck.”
Legend charged forward. “And y’all let her?”
The guard hesitated for half a second, but he said it anyway. “She told us if we followed her, she’d kill us.”
My mouth fell open.
Legend spat, “What?”
The guard swallowed. “We tried to follow anyway, and she shot at us.”
All three of our eyes bucked.
“She what?!” I shrieked.
The guard nodded, still looking like he did not fully believe it himself. “She sent two rounds toward the lead truck when we pulled out behind her. We fell back. We figured we could pick her up once you got her location.”
Legend looked like he wanted to break something.
My hands lifted and landed on my legs with a hard smack. “Great,” I hissed, while glaring at Legend. “You and your fertile dick made Aria run away.”