Page 64 of Vega

I stared at him, and so did every man in the room.

“How do you know?” I asked him.

A small smile appeared on Legend’s face. “My wife has been pregnant five times. I can tell when a woman is with child.”

My hand moved protectively over my stomach. “I just found out.”

His expression softened. “Did Kash know?”

I shook my head, and the tears returned before I could stop them.

Legend stepped aside and gestured toward the hallway. “Then we have two people to protect.”

I smiled through my tears, knowing that even from the grave, the man I loved was still finding a way to protect us.

PRODIGY MORETTI

I was less than five minutes from the Cartier estate when my phone vibrated against the center console.

The message came from Darius Cole, the private investigator I had hired to find my father:

The address was old. No sign of Renzo. Sending pictures now.

Three photographs appeared beneath the message. The house looked abandoned. Plywood covered one of the windows, weeds had swallowed most of the front yard, and the mailbox leaned toward the street as if nobody had touched it in years.

I tightened my grip on the steering wheel. Every lead to find my father started with hope and ended with another empty building, disconnected number, or person who claimed they had never heard Renzo’s name.

Another message appeared:

This is going to be a long process. You have to remain patient. I did uncover evidence that Renzo may have lived under another name after leaving Chicago. The lead is weak, but it’s the first genuine movement we’ve had in months. I’ll keep digging.

People always told you to be patient when they weren’t the ones missing a father for eighteen years.

I had become obsessed with finding Renzo. Every unknown number made me wonder if it was him. Every man who looked remotely Italian and close to his age got a second glance. I had spent years pretending his disappearance didn’t bother me, then reached a point where not knowing had begun controlling too much of my life.

I had never believed Renzo was dead because there had never been a body, a death certificate, or any evidence that something violent had happened to him. He had simply disappeared. None of the leads had been strong enough to locate him, but they were enough to convince me that my father hadn’t died. He had chosen, or been forced, to become somebody else.

I trusted Darius because he had spent twenty years investigating men who disappeared on purpose, including people who changed names, crossed state lines, and built entire lives beneath false identities. More importantly, he never fed me hope just to keep collecting money. When a lead was weak, he said so. When he found nothing, he didn’t provide false progress. That honesty made him the first investigator I believed wasn’t treating my father’s disappearance like an endless paycheck.

Renzo wasn’t the only person occupying my thoughts, though. Arielle Banks stayed there too. She had loved me for years while I treated commitment like something I could postpone until I felt ready. She waited while I entertained other women, avoided conversations about our future, and expected her to remain available whenever I decided to act right.

When she finally left, she told me she loved me but couldn’t keep living as an option. I let her walk away because my pride convinced me she would return.

She always had before. But this time, she blocked me on every social media platform and changed her number. She had removed every easy route I could use to reach her, making it clear that she hadn’t left to teach me a lesson. She had left for real.

Now, I suspected Arielle had been the love of my life, and my pride had cost me the only woman who had ever understood every part of me without demanding that I become someone else.

Between searching for a father who might not want to be found and missing a woman who no longer wanted me, I had spent too much time wondering where people went after they decided I wasn’t worth staying for.

The Cartier estate came into view ahead of me.

I locked my phone and forced both Renzo and Arielle into the back of my mind. Neither situation could be fixed on that drive, and I had business to handle.

The guards opened the front gates before I reached the security station. The Street Kings and Cartiers had done enough business together that nobody needed to call the house and announce me anymore. Wise, Vega, and I had been to the estate plenty of times. We knew the family, the children knew us, and the guards knew our vehicles.

I parked near the front entrance and climbed out with the bookbag slung over one shoulder. It held the money we owed the Cartiers from our most recent transaction. I could’ve sent somebody else to deliver it, but neither side trusted large amounts of cash in careless hands.

The front door was unlocked, so I let myself inside. I barely made it across the foyer before Sire and Truth came running out of the den.