GO TO HELL, CAPTAIN

EPILOGUE

ADAMAWA STATE, NIGERIA.

Layla smoothed her hand over her husband's ceremonial outfit and watch him with wide eyes filled with pride. Her husband just got ranked as the major an hour ago and with the whole ceremony still going on, she's got no time to tell him that she's got a surprise for him too. It's been many years and here they are still very much in love and it feels like the love keeps proliferating and augmenting every single day. Like they just fell in love the other day and not five years ago. Not much has changed though.

Many people, if not most, would have been flabbergasted to learn that Zayd had any faults at all. All they saw was the remarkable male beauty and cool self-control of a man so elegantly mannered that it never would have occurred to anyone to call him with any ill name. However, Zayd could sometimes be arrogant, manipulative and even toxic -a flaw she's braced and call him out on. Beneath his charming exterior, there was a steely core that made him ideally suited to oversee the array of Al-Hafiz properties and businesses. Once he decided what was best for someone, he took every opportunity to push and goad until he had his way.

But in an extremely good way that will leave you grateful each morning that he snaked himself into your life.

"I'm so happy to be here with you, Major Zayd Al-Hafiz." She beamed, meandering her hands all over his chest knowing what that is doing to him. They are in the confines of a small office they have no idea who owns it but who cares? Her husband is a major.

Zayd leaned down, moving her veil that is wrapped in a lose hijab style so he can talk directly into her ear, the sensitive one. "What are you doing, love? You want to play with fire?"

He stood back up when she pushed his chest so she can look at him in the eye. She bit her lower lip. "I want to add to the bright day. I'm pregnant." She ricocheted like it was no big deal but they both know it's freaking gargantuan.

Zayd stood there looking utterly shocked from head to toe. His heart thudding loudly about to deflagrate or detonate, whichever one he won't notice when it happens. All the eloquence flew out the window leaving the man standing there looking all lost, ecstatic, overly sentient and everything in between. Most of the emotions he thought were dormant and hibernating extricate themselves with lethargic finesse plumed with rapidness fierceness that rendered him inebriated for nine seconds.

She only stood there watching his every reaction and drinking it in wishing she'd thought about recording this. He looks so nonplussed and if she could read his emotions through his eyes as much as she thought she could, then he is having a hard time deciding what to feel which is totally alright because when she found out about it, she went into shock for more than an hour. It's not something they should be too galvanized about but with a reality like theirs, they were only hanging onto a minuscule, diminutive thread that could rupture at any point.

The way she kept on regurgitating every morning for six days straight and the last stroke missing her period, she knew something was amiss so she stopped at a store around to get each and every brand of pregnancy test tube she could find. She used all of them seeing either the two pink lines, or pregnant, or a smiley emoji and even a large p on one of them. Not sure that should be taken to heart, she went to the hospital to confirm her theory and voila, she is four weeks along. She was in exaltation, in seventh heaven and high on the finest cloud there is.

They gave up trying for children three years ago after they went to see a doctor who told them her chance of getting a baby is extremely wee and they should only hope for miracle. That her miscarriage few years ago has something to do with it along with her endometriosis, she was heartbroken to say the least. She had stayed catatonic at the doctor's office asking him to check whether the file was theirs or not but there was no mistaken, her name was written there. She tried capitulating throwing in hefty amount of money but no such luck.