Page 45 of Come Alive
“And whyyouare here?” Steve cocked his head. “That’s simple. I want her to choose.” He lifted the gun in his hand, pointing it at Yara before settling it on James. “Your life or hers.”
Yara reached up from behind James, opening her palm.
“That’s a good doll. I trust you to make the right choice and return to where you belong.” He handed her the gun, dropped aset of keys on James’s lap, and then, without another word, he left, followed quickly by the rest of the men in the room.
Chapter 27
Yara
Ishould have killed him.
But I doubted there were actually any bullets in the gun.
“Unlock me, please. I’m not going to shoot you.Promise.”
“What is going on?” James’s voice broke, but he did as asked and carefully helped me out of my restraints.
Lifting me to my feet, he accidentally skirted across my sore ribs and I hissed at the contact.
“What—what did he do to you? What is this?”
“Izzy is my best friend, she has been since we were in high school,” I stated as calmly as I could, looking around the room, searching for something,anythingthat could lead to our escape. The gun in my hand was heavy, and I flipped it around, looking at it.
I hope Izzy is okay wherever they took her.
“Your best friend?” In a trance, James guided me to the one chair in the room, settling me into it. “You figured out I was her dad, didn’t you? That’s why you left.” Understanding splashed between us.
“That’s why I left,” I confirmed. “Stephen, orSteve,is her stepdad, who I never met growing up with her. He is also my birth father who I thought was dead. The one I told you about.” The messiness of it all wasn’t lost on me. My father had been watching me—stalkingme—fordecades.I couldn’t exactly understand why, other than for his own sick pleasure.
“He’s the one who…” James trailed off, wiping his face. “Yara.” He dropped to his knees, his head falling into my lap. “I’m so sorry I left that day. I was just confused and scared. And Ineededto find my daughter.”
This time, I whispered as softly as I could, “Now that you have? Do you understand why this can’t work? Why we shouldn’t even try?” I gulped, my eyes flicking around the room. I leaned in until I was as close to his ear as I could be and spoke softly, “But you’re stuck with me, even if these babies aren’t yours. I can’t lose you James. You are a part of my life now, whether you like it or not.”
We will make it out of this. We have to.
Steve’s voice cut through the room from a speaker above, drawing us apart. “So sorry to cut this reunion short, but I am incredibly unhappy with how this all played out. James, you weren’t supposed tofuckmy daughter. She ismine.Even still, I will let Yara decide, she will make the choice. Yara, sweetheart, all you have to do is aim the gun at James and pull the trigger and then you can return to your rightful space beside me. I will ensure you are well-kept. After all, we are blood.”
“And if I refuse?” I asked.
Frost bit at his next words. “Then you will both die in that room.”
James’s hands found their way to the outside of my thighs, holding me tightly there. His fingers dug painfully into my bare skin, but I didn’t react. “Yara.”
“No.” My head swiveled, in search of an escape. Of a way out of this mess.
It’s my fault.
Izzy and James are here because of me. My father came to this town because ofme.
“Yara, listen to me, to what I have to say.”
I didn’t want to hear it. I knew what a goodbye sounded like, but I didn’t argue again.
“When my daughter was taken from me, it felt as if the entire weight of all my failures crushed down on me. Cripplingly so. I questioned what I should have done differently and every night I spent lying awake with images of what could have been. Of a family I would never have again. I wasn’t even sure if she was alive, but still, I continued. And the further I got from her disappearance, the more my hope waned, the lonelier and more depressed I became. An empty shell with nothing to live for, breathing simply for the sake of existence in a dark empty box. And then I met you.”
I opened my mouth to argue, but he barreled on. His fingers loosening their hold, opting to instead stroke the outside of my thighs. A soothing balm to my pained skin.
“You are so incredibly filled to the brim with an energy I cannot describe, but it is infectious. You are everything I had ever wanted out of a woman, out of a relationship. You are a future I had forgotten to dream of. I want nothing more than to be with you for the rest of my life, to build and have a family with you. Even with Kazi and Mateo. I already made my mind up that you are who I want. You are everything.”
