Page 7 of Come Alive
Fuck.
Izzy. She had finally taken a step towards her sexual freedom—she was going on adatetonight, and now I was leaving.
Not only had I met the man who would be meeting with Izzy tonight, my head of security—Emil—had vetted him, as well. And the manappearedto be exactly who he claimed; he was perfect…almost too perfect though…
“Kazi, will you stick around Izzy tonight? I want to make sure everything goes okay.”
Kazi nodded his head, but his jaw tightened. He wouldn’t meet my eyes.
Restlessness found its way into my gut, but I shoved it down. Surely his wariness was stemming from his future meeting.
At this point, my guess was Mateo and Kazi were ageless vampires, dragon shifters, or…in a gang.
But then why had Kazi been around me for the last ten years? Surely if he were in a gang, he wouldn’t be able to also work by my side.
Can gang members work from home now too?
It didn’t exactly make any sense, but neither did anything anymore.
“You need to head to the airport. I booked the earliest flight I could.” Kazi gathered me in his arms, peppering soft kisses across my cheeks, my nose, my forehead, my lips. He fell to his knees, his hands drawing up my shirt.
Self-consciousness attempted to ruin the moment, but then his soft lips found my belly and an entirely different feeling took hold.
“Kazi,” I moaned.
“I apologize for leaving you two, but after tonight, everything should be fixed.” Kazi’s words ghosted across my belly, causing it to flip and turn.
“She won’t forgive us if you can’t stop it.” Mateo’s ominous words landed heavily across my skin and I tensed, flicking my attention to him, but his face was stone. A hardened mask.
Kazi stood to his feet abruptly, his hands catching my wrists, he stared directly into my eyes. “Yara, I promise I will do everything I can to make this right. But when the dust settles, you have to trust me.”
My breath came out in short bursts as my anxiety tumbled through my belly, mixed with my apprehension, churned with my self-doubts.
“Kazi.” I stared up at him through my lashes. “I won’t agree to that.”
He quirked his lips, but sadness settled behind his eyes.
“But Icanpromise that I will let you explain everything when there is time. That I will listen to what you have to say. But I can’t think about that right now. I need to see James. I need to tell him. Even if my child isn’t his, he has a right to know. I can’t keep this from him. Not after Izzy was taken from him and hidden away. I can’t commit that same evil.”
Thoughts of his other child, of Izzy, threatened to consume me but I froze them out. For the last few weeks, I had been trying to extinguish my feelings for James, but it had only done the reverse. He had been in my dreams, my nightmares, my thoughts. He consumed me. And on top of all that, I might be pregnant withhischild. Now I had an excuse, a reason, adutyto see him again. I couldn’t just ignore my connection to James. Not any longer.
“And I want…I want James to be a part of this. If you are both open to that? Is that asking too much?” The cowardice in me wanted to shut my eyes, to look away, but instead, I watched both my men. I would allow either to walk away. I wouldn’t trap them to me. No matter how much it would hurt.
“He has marked your heart,mija.Kazi and I understood that from before. We knew he would eventually make his way back to you,” Mateo reassured.
Kazi’s face lightened, the wrinkle between his brow smoothing, his full lips landing in a near pout. “I was wondering how long it would take you to admit that out loud. I expect nothing less.”
Relief. A thousand pounds of weight lifted off of me.
We can all be together. We can.
“We should go,mija.” Mateo now held our bags, his hand on the hotel door.
Offering Kazi one last weighted look, I tugged free from his hold. “Just be safe.”
“You too,” he sighed softly.
Mateo held the hotel door open and I marched through it without a backwards glance. Even still, every step was more difficult than the last. I wanted more than anything to run to Kazi, to demand he tell me his secrets, to shout in his face that he had to come with us.
