7 month later
JULIANA'S POV
"Congrats" I smiled as we walked through Leona's front door and I pulled her into a tight hug, careful not to put too much pressure into her big bump. It was her baby shower today and the whole place was covered in balloons.
"Thank you" she said and went to hug Tyberias who was carrying Estella.
"How far along are you?" Tyberuas asks.
"Just over 8 months"
"Juliana!" I heard someone yell from the living room.
I turned to see Aria, Tyberias' mom rushing towards us.
When she reached us she engulfed me in a tight hug. Ever since we returned from our trip to DisneyLand, me and her have gotten much closer. We bonded through her teaching me how to make Tyberias' favourite dishes, her showing me embarrassing pictures of baby Tyberias and telling me even more embarrassing stories of him.
My favourite story was when he was 1 years old and how he often tried to grab his mother's breasts when he was hungry. And one day at a restaurant, he decided to grab the waitress's chest.
He gets really embarrassed whenever I tease him about, which is practically everyday.
"I'm here as well, mom. In case you forgot" Tyberias joked as she had still yet greeted him.
"I know" she muttered and hugged me tighter.
"I haven't seen you in ages" she said to me.
"You saw her last week" Tyberias muttered under his breath.
She let me go and pulled down Tyberias' face so she could plant a kiss on his forehead.
"You always get jealous whenever I give someone else attention" she teases and Tyberias wraps his arms around her.
"No I don't."
"Really? You don't remember the time when Leona was just born and I was paying a lot of attention to her, so you purposely climbed the tallest tree you could find and jumped down so you would break your leg and the attention would be on you again?"
"That was completely an accident."
"Hmm. What about when you-"
"Okay, okay. We get the picture." Tyberias interrupted. We all laughed and made our way to the living room where most of the people were.
"The great Tyberias Romana is actually a big mama's boy. Who would've imagined." I whispered to him.
"I'm not" he blushed.
"I think it's sweet."
"Is there a baby in there?" Estella asked, looking at Leona's stomach, interrupting our conversation.
"Yes" I replied.
Estella looked at my front and back before asking, "Where's your baby, Jay? In your butt?"
She said the last sentence particularly loud so everyone heard and erupted in laughter, making me blush deeply and self consciously pull my shirt down to cover my butt.
"There's no baby in there. That's just for my enjoyment." Tyberias whispered to Estella and discreetly gave it a hard squeeze.
"Tyberias! You can't say stuff like that around her" I scolded.
"Yes he can. I'm 3 years old. I can understand adult stuff now." Estella said.
Last month was her birthday in which Tyberias filled the whole living room with wrapped up toys. Her favourite had been the mini bright pink electric car that she had been driving around everywhere. She had been bumping into the furniture all the time so Tyberias had a section of his massive garden painted so there were now race tracks on the ground for her to drive on.
"Yeh, Juliana, she's 3, she can understand adult stuff now" Tyberias grinned, mimicking Estella, but Estella thought he was genuinely defending her so she added an enthusiastic"Yeh!" after him.
We all took a seat on the couch and began conversing.
"Has anyone seen Adrian. He still hasn't arrived." Leona asked.
"No. Is he still not here? He's usually always early to these things."
"I'm gonna try to call him." She said and went to do so. After about 30 seconds, it went straight to voicemail.
"Adrian. Where the hell are you. I can't believe you're late to my baby shower. If you're not here in 15 minutes I'm going to tell everyone about the time I caught you making out with your pillow." She said loudly so we all heard the last part.
~_~ ~_~
A couple hours had passed and most of the people had gone so I was helping Leona clean up.
"You ready to-?" Tyberias said as he came up to me but stopped as he heard his phone ping.
"Yeh just a second" I said as I looked up to him.
"What the fuck" he said angrily. His right hand was gripping his phone and his other hand was squeezed up in a fist but he released it to run it through his hair.
"What's wrong?" I said and looked over to Tyberias' phone to see what had got him so shaken up.
I gasped when I saw a picture of Adrian tied up to a chair, badly beaten with blood dripping from his lips. There was a message below it.
If you want Adrian alive, meet me at 45 Brooks Lane. Don't forget to bring Juliana.