He leaned back in the chair, observing her, before speaking quietly. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
Amara swallowed but stayed silent, her heart pounding.
“I want to know who you are,” he put his hand on his chin. “You see, this is my city. I keep a very close eye on anyone who comes or goes from certain high profile locations such as Shadow Port. And this building is mine. I had your documents checked and they’re fake. A very good fake, but fake nonetheless. So, who are you, and why are you in my city?”
Amara felt her breath whoosh out of her slightly. Getting up on her feet, Amara walked on her heels to the desk in the room and took out a file from the drawer. Walking back to the man, she slowly handed it to him so he could see her degrees for himself.
“I’m not here to cause you any trouble, Alpha,” she told him, her voice raspy. “I am a licensed therapist. My name is Amara. And I’m in your city to set down roots. I like the moderate climate and the nearness to the forest. It… it reminds me of home.”
She watched him hand the file back to her without looking. “I can’t read.”
Amara felt herself flush. “Oh, I’m so sorry,” she apologized, taking the file back.
He shook his head. “I’m good at reading people though. In my line of work, you have to be. Shadow Port doesn’t have any forests. Where’s your home?”
Amara cursed herself for that slip. She hesitated, but seeing his one eye considering her, she answered truthfully. “Tenebrae City.”
He nodded. “You’re a far way from home, Amara. Any particular reason?”
She took in a deep breath, walking to the window, looking out at the city line and the forest beyond it, so similar to Tenebrae except on the other side of the hemisphere.
“I’m pregnant.”
The man stayed silent on the chair for a long minute. “And the father?”
She simply shook her head. How could she explain? The years of knowing him, loving him, being loved by him, only for him to walk in one day, fuck her without a condom, and fake his death with no warning to her. She had had an alert set on her phone for his name, so if anything about him hit the internet, she got a notification. She remembered getting the notification, sitting with Lulu on her lap as she watched a movie, remembered opening her phone, remembered seeing the headline.
Heir to the Maroni empire dead in an explosion.
She remembered the cry that had left her mouth, her eyes unable to believe the news. She remembered calling Morana with shaking fingers. She remembered that he had faked his brother’s death in a fire too. The truth had dawned upon her and it had been cruel. Dante hadn’t told her, not even given her a hint, nothing to prepare her.
And she had been carrying their child already. Although it had been too soon for a test confirmation, Amara had known. Her breasts had become sensitive and she had missed her period, and Amara never missed her periods. They came like clockwork. And Lulu had started poking her nose into her stomach. She had known that day they had made a baby.
And that had changed everything.
“Well,” Alpha stood from the armchair, breaking her out of his thoughts. “In that case, Amara, you’re welcome here at Los Fortis. You and your child will be safe here.”
He pushed a hand into his jeans pocket and brought out a card, putting it on her table. “This is my contact. You have any trouble, or anyone gives you shit, you call me.”
Amara looked down at the card, a plain black piece of paper with silver embossing, and stared at him, touched by his kindness. “Thank you,” she croaked out, emotional that someone had cared enough.
Alpha nodded, walking to the door. “Is the father alive?”
Amara laughed at the irony of the question. Not knowing how to answer, since he was dead to the world at the moment, she simply told him her truth. “He and I, we are doomed to bleed from a wound that will never heal.”
The large man considered her for a long moment. “You have strength, Amara. I can see that. And the strong don’t have bleeding wounds; they have scars that heal.”
Yeah, she shared that with him apparently.
Giving her a sharp nod, his dark hair falling on his face, his black eye patch stark against his scar, Alpha walked out, leaving her standing there with her thoughts.
Amara pat down her stomach, shaking her head.
“Your Daddy is a bastard,” she told the baby, chuckling at herself. “But we still love him, don’t we?”
Yeah,
she was doomed, alright.