I look straight into his black, unmoving eyes. The man, though undeniably handsome, isn’t the kind of beauty everyone would fall for. His features are regular and clean, almost puritanically perfect, but so sharp and cold they seem carved from ice.
His hair is ink-black and slicked back, and he’s young, maybe in his early twenties, although the energy radiating from him feels far older. He’s dressed in a perfectly tailored black suit.
"Got some kind of problem, kid?" he asks, in a voice that sounds like his vocal cords are made of thin icicles.
I don’t know why, but it just bursts out of me in my despair.
"My boyfriend was taken by that van that just drove off. They took him to rape him or maybe even kill him."
The words spill out because I need to say them out loud. I need someone to hear them, because the world has to hear them even if I’m not allowed to go to the police…
Those black eyes study my face in complete silence.
"These are the people who attacked us twice before. He defended me. He beat one of them and then they beat him and ended up in jail. They’re out now and they’re out for revenge…" I mumble, rocking back and forth slightly in a self-soothing rhythm. My whole being doesn’t know what to do with this kind of despair, it’s so overwhelming my whole body feels numb, my fingers feel numb around the inhaler I’m gripping.
The man stays quiet, and only then do I notice two other men standing a short distance behind him, two alphas, also dressed in sharp suits.
I blink because they look almost like FBI agents, yet something tells me they definitely aren’t.
"I remember their license plate," I murmur, not even knowing why, since it doesn’t matter. Why would they care?
The man keeps staring at me.
And I whisper because the words still need to pour out of me, everything needs to spill out.
"They wanted to rape me, but he said, ‘Take me instead, do whatever you want to me but let Alex go.’ Bay sacrificed himself for me and I… can’t help him. I can’t do anything. They told me if I go to the police, they’ll kill us…"
"He gave himself up for you?" the man finally says, his icy voice carrying a subtle new note. "Looks like he’s a keeper," he adds with a hint of bitterness.
"Can you help me somehow?" I ask in a desperate burst, not even knowing why, because he’s a stranger, and who am I to him.
The man lifts his brows.
"And why would I have any use for you?"
In a wave of frantic instinct I blurt out,
"I don’t know who you are, but maybe this matters. My dad is a state prosecutor, Prosecutor Strada. Maybe that changes something?"
And that’s when the man’s energy shifts slightly. A thoughtful look crosses his face.
Then, suddenly, he pulls his phone from his pocket.
"What’s their plate number?"
I tell him, and he turns away and makes a call.
He begins talking to someone, and the first words I catch are,
"Anzo? I’ve got a situation…"
I stare, not understanding any of this. Did my one bargaining chip, revealing who my dad is, actually make a difference? Could this man gain something from knowing a prosecutor?
He steps far enough away that I can’t hear the rest. The conversation lasts a moment, then he ends the call and comes back to me.
"I’m not making any promises, but I might be able to help. My boss knows some people who… know some people."
"Who are you?" I ask, stunned.
