Page 34 of Come Alive
Kazi
Kazi watched Mateo pace the waiting room. The hot coffee in his hand spilling out and over onto him, but the man didn’t even react as it scalded him.
“One more minute and then I’m going in there,” he advised Kazi without pausing. “And you didn’t tell me you gave her a fucking phone.”
Dread and unease cycled through Kazi. “I didn’t.”
Mateo offered one single, sharp, horrified glare before sprinting back towards Yara’s room, the coffee falling to the ground in his haste.
Kazi sprung to his feet, but by the time he caught up to Mateo, he realized it was too late.
Mateo’s head whipped back and forth, up and down the hall, as he pulled his phone out. “Emilio? Yara was taken. You said this place was locked up tight. I thought she was safe here.”
This is my fault. We shouldn’t have left her.
“No,pendejo! She didn’t just leave us! All of her things are here!” Mateo tore through the room, pausing when he found aflip phone under her pillow. “There’s a phone. I’m calling you on it now. There’s only one number she called,” Mateo read it out.
Kazi’s vision blurred as panic held him in place. His Yara. His children.
“Izzy’s number? You need to find out if her stepfather is behind this. Yes, I did some fucking digging! He moved to California right after Yara did. I’m telling you, Emilio, they’re all fucking connected. You got the security tape? Look for a small woman. Bleach blonde hair, nurse’s outfit. Does she even work here?”
Kazi walked over to the sink inside of Yara’s room, releasing the contents of his stomach into it. He continued until he was dry-heaving.
She’s gone. She’s gone. She’s gone.
It’s my fault. It’s my fault. It’s my fault.
Kazi devolved to his childhood-self. To when he was abandoned. When he was left with his brother on a neighbor’s steps.
“Get it to-fucking-gether, Kazi. We are going to find her. You need to locate James. I told you to put a tracker in his fucking ass, but nobody fucking listens to me!” Mateo snarled before speaking back into the phone. “That woman doesn’t work here? I knew it. Iknewbetter. So caught up in not stressing Yara out,” Mateo growled, the flip phone audibly cracking in his hand as he squeezed it.
Kazi wiped his mouth, steeling his shoulders. It wasn’t time for him to fall apart. Miss Yara needed him. He pulled out his own phone to call James.
Chapter 20
James
James attempted to get in touch with Yara for the hundredth time, but it wouldn’t go through. Her phone wasstilloff. Hestillhadn’t met with Steve. The man had kept pushing him off, giving him busy work. He had already had meetings with more clients than he had any wish to. Faceless business men with varying interest in stakes in their company. And now he had been in this town for several days.
The company.
It was his only tie to Steve and one that he was deciding quickly he no longer wanted any part of. He needed to be there for Yara. For his unborn child. To find his daughter.
Finding his daughter.
That had always been the plan, but then Steve came along and pushed him further into his career, fully distracting him.
Shame and guilt layered inside his gut uncomfortably.
He had driven all around this town attempting to find some hint of her, anything to confirm she was in fact here and alive, but there had beennothing.And now he was more than halfway lost, parked outside of a school, unsure of what to do next.
His phone rang in his lap. A number he didn’t recognize. “Hello?”
“This is Kazi. I need you to answer a single question for me.” The man’s voice was sharp as it cut through.
“Is Yara okay? I need to speak to her.”
“I couldn’t find a picture of your boss anywhere. Not online, not on any of the background checks we attempted. Do you have one?”
