novelraw Chapter 84: Too Coincidental
Chapter 84: Too Coincidental
The Wednesday morning sun was an intruder. It bled through the gaps in the curtains, illuminating the dust motes dancing in the air of Aliya’s childhood bedroom. Jake sat in the same spot he had occupied all night, his back against the headboard, his eyes never straying far from his sister’s sleeping form. His joints ached with a dull, persistent throb, but it was nothing compared to the knot tightening in his gut.
He checked his phone. It was 6:30 AM. He had a message from Alice about the server hardware arrivals and a notification that his RS 6 had been started—Catharine was heading to work. He sent a silent prayer that her day at Johnson & Associates would be quieter than the last, but his focus immediately snapped back to the girl beside him as she began to shift.
Aliya stirred, a soft groan escaping her lips as she squinted against the light. For a fleeting second, her face was blank—the blissful amnesia of the newly awakened. Then, her eyes landed on Jake, and the mask of grief slammed back into place with such force it was visible in the way her shoulders slumped.
"I brought you some water," Jake said. His voice was a low, steady hum, carefully modulated to avoid echoing in the quiet room.
Aliya didn’t reach for the glass on the nightstand. She stayed curled in a ball, her eyes fixed on a loose thread in the duvet. "You should go, Jake. You have that new office. You have meetings."
"The office isn’t going anywhere. Neither am I," he replied. He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. "Aliya, look at me."
She didn’t move. She looked small—smaller than he remembered her being in years. The fiery, independent sister who managed their mother’s moods and pushed Jake to be better was gone, replaced by someone who looked like she was waiting for a blow to fall.
"Is it about the trip?" she whispered, her voice cracking. "I can’t... I don’t think I can go to South Africa. I don’t think I can celebrate anything right now."
"Forget the trip," Jake said, his patience as thin as the morning light. "Tell me what happened yesterday. Tell me why my sister sounds like her world just ended."
Aliya finally turned her head, her eyes red-rimmed and hollow. She looked at him with a flash of genuine terror. It wasn’t the fear of a stranger; it was the fear of disappointing the person she looked up to most. She knew Jake—knew his protectiveness often manifested as a cold, calculating rage.
"I went to the doctor," she started, her voice so faint he had to lean in. "Just for a check-up. At least, that’s what I told myself."
She stopped, her chest heaving as she fought back a new wave of sobs. Jake reached out, his hand steady as he gripped her arm, an anchor in the storm. "And?"
"He told me... he told me I’m never going to have a family, Jake. Not a real one. No kids. Never."
The words hit the room like a physical weight. Jake felt the air leave his lungs. He wanted to say something—to offer a platitude about second opinions or medical miracles—but the sheer finality in her tone stopped him. He felt a sudden, violent surge of heat behind his eyes, a protective fire that wanted to burn down whoever or whatever had caused this. But on the outside, his face remained a mask of calm, a mirror of the discipline he used on the trading floor.
"How, Aliya?" he asked, his voice like velvet over iron. "Things like that... there’s usually a reason."
She flinched at the question, her hand flying to her mouth. She shook her head violently, tears spilling over again. "I can’t. You’ll hate me. You’ll look at me like... like I’m broken."
"I could never hate you," Jake said, his voice dropping an octave. "Never. Talk to me."
It took another ten minutes of fractured sentences and false starts before the truth finally bled out. "A few months ago... I found out I was pregnant. And I panicked, Jake. The guy... he wasn’t someone who was going to stay. I didn’t tell anyone. I went to a clinic and had an abortion." She spoke about a clinic she had found in a moment of blind panic, a place that promised discretion but delivered a nightmare.
"It went wrong," she choked out, the words muffled by her hands. "There were complications. They said it was fine, that I’d heal. But the doctor yesterday... he saw the scarring. He said the damage is permanent. He said I’m lucky I didn’t die from the infection."
Jake felt the "boiling" move from his gut to his throat. He pictured a back-alley room, a cold table, and his sister—his little sister—lying there alone and terrified while someone’s incompetence stole her future. The fury was so intense it made his vision blur, but he kept his hand on her arm, his touch gentle.
"Who was it?" Jake asked.
The question hung in the air, sharp and dangerous. Jake’s mind was already racing, connecting dots he didn’t want to see. He remembered Alex’s own messy history, the way Alex spoke about mistakes and the weight of the past. The timing, the secrecy... it felt like a ghost he had seen before.
"Was it Alex?" Jake’s voice was barely a whisper, but it carried the weight of a death sentence.
Aliya’s head snapped up, her eyes wide with shock. "What? No! How could you even think that? Alex is like... he’s family, Jake. No. It wasn’t him. It wasn’t anyone you know."
"He has a history with this kind of chaos, Aliya. If he touched you—"
"He didn’t!" she screamed, her voice cracking with the effort. "It was just a guy. Someone from school. Someone I thought I liked. He’s gone, Jake. He moved away months ago. He doesn’t even know. Please... just forget about the guy. It doesn’t change anything. The guy isn’t the problem. I’m the problem."
"Listen. I am going to find the best specialists in the world. Not just here in Aurelia. I’ll fly experts in from London, from New York, from anywhere in the world. Medicine changes every day. What one doctor calls permanent, another calls a challenge."
"Jake, you don’t have to—"
"I do," he interrupted. "This is why I’m doing all of this. This is what the money is for. It’s not for the cars or the penthouse. It’s for us. You’re going to get through this, and you’re not going to do it in the dark anymore."
She collapsed back into the pillows, her breath coming in jagged hitches. Jake watched her, his mind rejecting her easy denial. Something in the way her eyes had darted away, the way she had defended Alex so instinctively... it didn’t sit right. It felt like a practiced shield. But he saw the state she was in; he couldn’t push her further without breaking what was left of her spirit.
"Okay," Jake said, his voice softening. "I’ll drop it for now. But you aren’t the problem, Aliya. You were a girl in a hard place who made a choice because she felt she had no one to turn to. That’s on me, not you. I should have been more present."
"You were building a life," she sobbed. "I didn’t want to be the one to drag you down."
"You are my life," Jake countered, pulling her into a tight embrace.
As he held her, feeling her tears soak into the shoulder of his shirt, Jake’s eyes were fixed on the wall, cold and predatory. On the surface, he was the supportive brother, the pillar of strength. But inside, he was a man who had just found a new enemy, even if that enemy didn’t have a name yet.
He didn’t believe her about the guy from school. The similarity to Alex’s patterns was too loud to ignore, and Jake had built a career on listening to the things people didn’t say.
He stayed with her until the exhaustion finally claimed her again. He tucked the blanket around her, his movements methodical. When he finally left her room to go wash his face, he ran into his mother in the hallway. She looked at him with worried eyes, sensing the shift in the atmosphere.
"Is she okay, Jake?" his mother asked.
"She’s just overwhelmed with school and the plans for your birthday, Mom," Jake lied effortlessly, protecting Aliya’s secret as if it were his own. "I’ve got it handled. We’re going to have a quiet morning."
He walked out to the Audi R8 parked in the driveway, the sleek silver car looking like a foreign object in the modest neighborhood. As he climbed into the driver’s seat, he didn’t start the engine immediately. He sat in the silence, his hands gripping the steering wheel.
He had spent the last few weeks learning how to be a shark in a world of vultures. He had learned how to move capital, how to leverage secrets, and how to build a fortress. But today, the lesson was different. Today, he realized that the higher he climbed, the more he had to lose.
He pulled out his phone and sent a message to Alice.
> Clear my schedule for the afternoon. I need you to find the top three fertility and reproductive health specialists in the Southern Hemisphere. I don’t care about the cost. I want names and availability by tomorrow.
He started the engine, the roar of the V10 echoing off the neighboring houses. He had a firm to build, a girlfriend to protect from office vipers, and now, a sister to save from her own despair. The weight of the crown was getting heavier, but as Jake shifted the R8 into gear, his expression was as cold and hard as the carbon fiber beneath his fingertips.
He wasn’t just a trader anymore. He was a man with a mission that went far beyond the stock exchange.
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