Page 15 of Good As Hell

Not one to lie to myself I let the thought wash over me. Acceptance of my lust for this woman settles in along with incandescent rage spiraling through me at her audacity inthinking she would keep my child from me. He’s not some side dude’s by blow. He’s a fucking prince — like his father and his ancestors for millennia or more.

She will rue the day she thought to keep my child from me. I will take so much pleasure in showing her that her diva ways won’t be tolerated as the mother of my heir. She will learn that she breathes at my mercy. Break her, I shall. She made me her enemy she moment she knew she carried my heir and said nothing. The wrath of the Al Rasheed is well known the world over. She will have keen awareness of what running afoul of me brings.

“Your Highness,” My driver sweeping the door open, draws my attention away from my retaliatory musings.

“They await you aboard the plane. The tall woman is causing quite a fuss. Should we neutralize her?” Fariq inquires with an almost bored expression on his face, but I notice the way his jaw ticks. It’s rare anything elicits a reaction from him.

“Not yet. Take her somewhere where she won’t be able to collude with her friend.” I quirk my brow at the mutinous expression on his face. A modern day elite Janissary, a harden warrior and my personal guard; a friend all my life, I know when something is up with Fariq. Brow quirked, I wait for him to answer my silently inquiry.

Stoic stoniness drops over his expression. “I’ll see to it, Your Highness.”

Passing him with a brief nod, I head to the plane flanked by a cadre of handpicked soldiers.

Bounding up the stairs two at a time, I make little work of the distance. Bypassing the crew that has been secured and blindfolded in the cockpit, I stand at the front of the living space on the Airbus 380, FADE has outfitted to the specifications of his biggest star.

It’s a Creative Chaos plane, but is used exclusively by Lyric. The perks of being the biggest star in the world have no end.

It takes me seconds to find Ayaan curled his mother’s lap. He’s sleeping despite the commotion of Lyric’s friend Fifi, not to quietly demanding, “What the fuck is going on?” to Moussa, Fariq’s brother and my second in command.

He slow blinks and I can tell that he wants to neutralize her just as his brother asks.

“Shh.” Immediately, my gaze narrows on the cause of all this — Lyric. Idly she strokes Ayaan’s thick tousled curls, her eyes raking over me in an emotionless sweep of a gaze. She looks unsurprised. Good.

“Bring me my son, woman.” Harsh words erupt from me with a fury that has every person on the plane freezing. The hushed voices of the crew silence and even the vivacious friend’s mouth snaps close.

Gathering Ayaan with a meticulous slowness close to her small, curvy frame, Lyric rises. And damn if having my baby doesn’t look good on the little menace. Grabbing a bag, she pulls it over her other shoulder. The romper she wears throws me back to the one she wore the night we created our amazing blessing. My heart squeezes as she draws closer. I can’t take my eyes off him. Them. Throat tight, I swallow past the constriction. My heart is beating out my chest when she stops in from of me.

If I thought this was going to be a fight or she was going to make a scene, I would be wrong. It takes me a moment to realize she’s lifting him towards me. Just as I hold my arms out, his eyes open, bright sparkling and even brighter green than mine, that happens every other generation or so.

Confusion wrinkles his brow for a millisecond before his head whips around to his mommy, then back to me.

“Daddy?” he asks in the most sweet, melodious baby voice. Impossibly, he turns back and forth between Lyric and me,asking. “Mommy? Daddy?” So much hope in those words they nearly make my knees buckle.

“Yes, sugar, that’s daddy,” she coos, rubbing his back. Little feet kicking in some hard as fuck sturdy little shoes that catch me a couple times as he reaches for me. Astonishment that he knows me rockets through me so hard that it takes me a moment to adjust to yet another revelation.

Taking my squirming, excited little bundle, we face each other for a moment.

“Daddy.” Chubby little hands cup my face as he looks at me with delight.

“Hey, little prince.” I don’t trust myself with words beyond this point.

“Let’s go home, son.” I finally manage tucking him close, ready to deplane.

“Mommy.” He looks over my shoulder. “She’s coming.” Assuring him in this is all I can promise at the moment. Deciding to let her live long enough to explain herself.

Chapter Five

THE RECKONING

LYRIC

Ihaven’t seen my son in the two hours since they brought me to this suite of rooms. I’m about to blow this bitch up. Ignoring the plushness of the thick handwoven carpet and the gentle glow of the room, I pace back and forth agitated dread vibrating within every fiber of my being.

I was being good, I promised myself I would be better I wasn’t going to raise my son in the manner I was. No toxic bullshit. No one using him for leverage. I told him about Hassan from the moment he was understood what his faced looked like. I would let hims kiss a photo every night after his prayers. Hassan though not present in his every day life was a real for him as I was. He saw videos of him. Ayaan knows him as his daddy. It was the best I could do after trying my best to figure out how I was going to tell him he had a child, a son, a possible heir. My decision not to tell him plagued me for the entire pregnancy. He was engaged, unapologetically taking lovers, and some part of me didn’t know what a man like him would do when someone he obviously couldn’t stand and had so little regard for that he couldn’t even be bothered to tell me about hisengagement came to him to say her contraception failed and she was pregnant.

I know the moment I found out I was keeping Ayaan. He was the one being that was mine created if not by love then an amazing night of passion.

The gift Hassan gave me that night was not only me having sex on my own terms, but my beautiful baby. I wanted Ayaan to love him, even he never got the chance to know or be acknowledged my him.

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