31. Nyah
NYAH
Dear Diary,
He is the Guerra heir. No matter what I say or do next.
Icalled the police station in Providence every day for a week, and each and every time, they told me they had no information they could give me on either the case of the body found in Luca’s burned-out car or on Lynx’s arrest.
Violet came with me when I stormed the police station, demanding answers, which was probably quite the comical sight, two heavily pregnant women marching in there like they were on a mission.
But after hours of waiting, after promises of being able to talk with the lead detectives on both cases, we’d been told to go home, and no one could help us as we weren’t immediate family of the accused or the dead.
The Slayers’ long-term lawyer and friend, Liam, tried and was met with nothing but a blanket statement of “He broke his parole terms, we’re within our rights to hold him.
” They wouldn’t specify exactly what they thought he’d done, but when Liam asked me if it was true, I couldn’t exactly argue.
The fact Lynx was associated with known criminal figures like the Guerras and the Slayers was probably enough to break the terms of his parole.
I spent my days sitting silently, side by side with Isabella, who didn’t cry, just stared numbly into space.
I promised her over and over again it wasn’t her brother in that car, that it couldn’t be, but even she gave me the same pitying look everyone else did and reminded me her father was a Mafia don who’d waged war on his son.
So of course that had caught up with him.
I heard someone whisper that maybe we should just be grateful his death was quick. He wouldn’t have known it was coming, and it was a much better death than being taken by his father and tortured or abused.
But I refused to listen. Refused to believe any of it.
So I kept calling the police station. Kept showing up there. Even though the result was always the same.
It was Violet who eventually knocked on my door at the clubhouse and asked if she could come inside.
I moved over on the bed, making room for her.
I didn’t miss her men hovering outside the door or the way X was uncharacteristically quiet.
I glanced over at her wearily. “What is it? I know something is wrong.”
Something more than just everything. Because nothing was right at the moment, not a single, solitary thing. Including that I was still breathing, while everyone around me disappeared, one by one.
Violet picked up my hand and squeezed it. “There’s something you need to see.”
I sat up, dragging a pillow I’d had beneath my belly to put behind my back against the headboard. “What?”
Violet passed me her phone, a video already loaded on the screen. “There was a press conference this morning. Carlos Guerra made a statement.” Her eyes watered. “I’m so sorry, Nyah.”
I hit the little play triangle on the screen with a trembling finger, and Carlos’s snake-eyed face moved on the screen.
“First of all, I want to thank the press for respecting our privacy at this deeply unsettling and heartbreaking time. It is with the heaviest of hearts that I announce the death of my only son, Luca Antonio Guerra. As the press has been reporting, a body was found in his burned-out car last week, and medical reports have proven it was my son. He died in a horrific, horrible way, and our hearts are broken. The police have arrested a suspect, a man who worked as a bodyguard for our family and was well known to us. We trust the courts will prosecute this person to the full extent of the law, and justice for Luca is served.” Carlos was visibly shaken, and he clutched his prewritten statement so tightly the edges of the paper crumpled.
“My son was murdered, and this man has to pay. Thank you all. A funeral service will be held in two days’ time at the Providence Catholic Church with refreshments to be served after for close family and friends. ”
He walked away from the camera while reporters shouted questions. Enzo, Viktor, and Bruno, all followed, ushering him back to a waiting car before the video cut out.
My fingers loosened around the phone, and it dropped onto my lap. I stared at Violet miserably, and I didn’t need to say a word. She just put her arms around me and held me while I cried.
I could practically feel the sympathy rolling off X, Whip, and Reaper in the doorway, and they eventually closed the door and left me to drown in my grief with only Violet to hold me together.
She was the best friend I’d ever had. I’d grown up with very few female acquaintances besides my cousins. I’d been mostly surrounded by men and had never really trusted anyone before I’d come to Saint View and fallen into Violet’s world.
Now she was all I had left.
And though she was here, holding me together, she had her own life, where she was a mom and a partner, and the head of her family. I wasn’t a part of that.
For a little while, I’d thought I could have the same.
But I’d been so very wrong.
Dax was gone. Luca was gone. Lynx was gone.
And I had no one.
The women of this club were amazing. Day by day, one by one, they all turned up for me. Kara brought me homemade chocolate chip cookies she and Little Jax and Isabella had made. I couldn’t eat them, couldn’t eat anything much at all, my stomach couldn’t handle it, but the gesture was sweet.
Bliss brought me old baby clothes in neutral colors, all things her baby, Ridge, had grown out of. I had a small collection of them growing in the corner of my room, that I couldn’t bring myself to sort through, but I appreciated the thought.
Rebel sent me near constant TikToks and memes, her obsession with some MM hockey romance show completely out of control. The clips were hot, but I could only watch a few because the rest made me cry.
Queenie brought dinner to my room on a tray every night when she realized I wasn’t coming out for meals. She puttered around, tidying up as an excuse to hang around and make sure I actually ate something.
I did only to please her, and to feed the baby inside me.
Because I certainly didn’t feel like eating or feeding myself.
A knock came on my door, and Amber stuck her head in. She crinkled her face up at me. “Shit, girl. You planning on taking a shower today?”
I opened my mouth to defend myself and haughtily tell her I’d showered the night before. When I realized maybe I hadn’t. Days blurred into each other, and I actually couldn’t remember the last time I’d gotten beneath the spray.
I rolled over in bed and faced the wall. “Go away, Amber. I don’t need a lesson in personal hygiene.”
She ripped the blanket off me. “Actually, you do, but that’s not why I’m here. War asked me to come down and get you. You have a visitor up at the gates.”
“Unless its Dax or Lynx, I don’t want to see anyone.”
And we both knew it wasn’t going to be either of them.
“It’s Carlos Guerra.”
I flipped over so fast it spun my head. “What?”
She raised an eyebrow. “Yeah, the guys are all up at the gates with their hands hovering over their guns. But Carlos came alone and unarmed. And he’s just standing there on the other side of the gates, insisting he talk to you. They’ve patted him down. War said its safe if you want to talk to him.”
I tried to force my tongue to say I didn’t want to see the callous, cold man who’d killed his own son.
Who’d taken him from me before we’d really even gotten to be whatever we could have been with time.
All I knew was I missed Luca. Missed that crackle of attraction that zinged in the air between us every time we were together.
I missed the way it felt when he touched me.
I even missed the arrogant sarcasm, that I’d actually found entertaining most of the time.
But instead of telling Amber I wasn’t interested in speaking to Carlos, I found my anger over Luca’s death burning inside me brighter than ever.
It fueled me to get out of bed and put on shoes.
It was that anger that got me up the road to the gates, where the club members all stepped aside and let me pass.
War caught my eye, and I nodded at the unspoken question in his eyes. Which simply asked: Do you really want to do this?
Hell yes, I did.
When he saw me coming, Carlos straightened from leaning against his car.
His gaze flickered to my belly, and then back up to my face.
I moved with unsteady legs, my knees wobbling, like I’d forgotten how to walk properly.
But I didn’t stop until I was face-to-face with Luca’s father, his brown eyes so much like his son’s.
I slapped my palm across Carlos’s cheek so hard it rang out in the silence amongst the trees. Carlos’s head snapped to one side, and my palm ached like a thousand tiny bees had poked their stingers into me.
War, Fang, Hawk, and Reaper were all at my side in a second, Reaper shoving me back behind him, an almost growling noise coming from deep within his chest.
I hadn’t even meant to do it.
My body had reacted without any input from my brain, which, if consulted, might have warned that slapping a Mafia don in the face might not have been my brightest move.
And yet, I didn’t regret it for a second.
Carlos brought his hand up to cover the red mark I’d left on his skin. He waved a hand at the men. “It’s fine. I probably deserved that.”
I pushed past Reaper, refusing to be held back or protected.
“Probably? Probably deserved it? You deserve so much more than a slap in the face! You murdered your own son, you piece of shit! You deserve to be locked away in those cages you’re so fond of and tortured until you fucking beg for a bullet. ”
Carlos’s lips thinned into a line. “You’re right. I’ve made mistakes, and I did what I needed to correct them.” He breathed out heavily, staring at me. “You come from this world, Nyah. You know what it is as well as he did. It was him or me. You can’t blame me for picking me.”
Except I could. Because I knew in my heart I would pick this baby over me every damn second of every day for the rest of my life.
God knew that was the only reason I was still breathing right now.
If it hadn’t been for this baby, I probably would have thrown myself off the second-floor balcony of my parents’ home the day I’d found out about it.
But I kept going. For him. For this baby who had done nothing wrong and deserved a life full of love and happiness.
“I will always blame you. You killed your own son.”
“I had my enemy taken care of. Luca knew what he was getting into.” His face crumpled, and for perhaps the first time ever, there was true emotion there.
“But it doesn’t mean I enjoyed it, Nyah.
It doesn’t mean that decision won’t eat away at me for the rest of my days.
It doesn’t mean I won’t see the remains of his charred body in my nightmares.
You think I wanted this? Any of it? I didn’t.
I wanted my son at my side. That’s all I ever cared about. ”
I shook my head. “You have a funny way of showing it. What do you want, Carlos? Why are you even here?”
His gaze dipped to my belly. “I want a second chance. I can’t have another son of my own.
But there’s a grandson you carry, and the sharks are circling, Nyah.
You must know that. I’ve allowed you to live here where you’re protected, but you must know the Guerra heir is a target on your back that you’ll never escape. You and he need protection.”
“This baby isn’t Luca’s,” I spat back at him. “It never was.”
Carlos didn’t flinch, and I suspected he had already considered that possibility.
“It doesn’t matter whether he is or he isn’t.
Everyone thinks he is. That gossip moved from mouth to mouth like wildfire.
There isn’t a soul within a five-hundred-mile radius who doesn’t know that Nyah Matish is carrying a Guerra baby.
” He looked at me shrewdly. “That genie is out of the bottle. There’s no putting it back. ”
“You want to raise a baby who isn’t yours?”
“I want to raise a baby with the Guerra name. Which your baby will have, no matter what you put on his birth certificate.”
I breathed out a long, angry breath and stared up at the man. “You will never touch my baby, Carlos.”
He folded his arms across his chest, studying me intently.
“Then you condemn him and yourself to a lifetime of fear. One where you are never safe. One where you’re always watching over your shoulder.
Every new person you meet, you’ll wonder if they’re an enemy of mine, just waiting for a chance to murder my heir.
Because no matter what you say or do next, Nyah, I will publicly claim him as such.
He is the Guerra heir. Is that the life you want? ”
My fingers shook.
Carlos’s gaze was steady. “Marry me. Now, before the baby is born. He’ll have all the protection he needs beneath my roof. He’ll have guards with him twenty-four seven; he’ll never be in danger.”
“From anyone but you,” I whispered.
Carlos’s gaze didn’t waver. “I told you. I made mistakes with Luca. But I won’t make the same ones again. Marry me. Let me raise that baby as my son and let me prove I can be good to both of you.”
I couldn’t speak. My mouth tried to form words, but none would come out.
Carlos took my hand. “I will mourn Luca’s death for the rest of my days.
More so, knowing I was the reason for his death.
But I don’t want to have to mourn your child too.
And I know I will be if I let you go. So just tell me what you want, Nyah.
For me to never touch you? Done. Money? Have as much as you want.
But marry me. Let me protect both of you the way Luca would have wanted me to. ”
I couldn’t say a word. I could barely breathe.
He squeezed my fingers. “I’ve booked the same church we were once supposed to be married in.
Everything is set to go ahead this Saturday.
The pews will be full, and there’ll be a party afterward to celebrate.
” He ducked his head, imploring me with his eyes to listen.
“I’ll be standing there at the altar at three, Nyah. I really hope you’ll be there too.”