“He only told me what I needed to know.”
“As an Alpha?”
“And as their host,” Titus clarified. “Sometimes Abby has nightmares.”
Oh.
Whatever trauma Abby had suffered still haunted her. But not like it haunted Bert and Donna Di Carlo. Sara had been their only daughter, thus their Pride’s only hope of producing a next generation. Losing her was both a personal and societal tragedy. I sympathized, though I also understood that when Donna looked at me, more often than not, she was seeing Sara. Figuratively, if not literally.
The Di Carlos seemed determined to protect me where they’d failed Sara. Even if that meant not letting me out of their sight until I was successfully rehabilitated—a moving target, at best.
“So, Jace and Abby are still staying with you?” I asked, looking up into the stray’s dark gray eyes.
Titus shrugged, then slid his hands into his pockets, pulling his shirt tight against his chest beneath his open suit jacket. “The house is too big for one person.”
But that wasn’t the whole story. Several times since my incarceration, I’d overheard Donna Di Carlo worrying about Abby. Jace was exiled without his assets, and the Di Carlos seemed to think that Abby wouldn’t be safe enough in the free zone to get a job. Because she was the only tabby in a territory full of male strays.
Titus had given Jace and Abby not just a place to stay, but a sanctuary, of sorts. Even if he wouldn’t take credit for that.
“Mr. Alexander?” We both turned to see Teddy Di Carlo, the youngest of the Di Carlo boys and a senior Southeast Pride enforcer. “Did you get lost on the way to the bathroom?”
Titus smiled with a glance at me. “No, just…distracted.”
“This way.” Teddy gestured toward the guest bath. I watched them go long enough to determine that the back of Titus’s suit fit as nicely as the front. Then I wandered toward Umberto Di Carlo’s office.
Bert’s enforcers had been picking Alphas up from the airport all day, but they were still waiting on a straggler before they could officially begin their meeting, and Teddy had left the office door cracked open.
I started to peek inside, then the mention of my name caught my attention, and I pressed myself against the wall instead. Eavesdropping without shame.
“So, which way is Robyn leaning?” The voice sounded gruff and middle-aged, and though I recognized it, I couldn’t identify the owner. I’d only met most of the Alphas once, the day of the plea bargain that stuck me in this purple-walled, ceramic-angel hell, and I wasn’t even sure I remembered all of their names.
“She isn’t leaning at all,” Bert answered. “That girl stands up straight every second of the day, afraid that if she bends even a little, we’ll break her in half. She doesn’t trust us.”
“Do you blame her?” As the only woman on the council, Faythe’s voice was easy to identify. “She wasn’t born into this. Hell, Iwasborn into this and still spent half my life rolling my eyes at you old coots. You’re not exactly tuned in to the needs and wants of a young woman.”
A smile snuck up on me. No wonder Abby liked her.
Bert snorted. “Better not let Paul Blackwell hear you talk like that.”
“If Paul Blackwell could hear anything, I might be worried,” Faythe shot back, and several of the others laughed.
“My question stands,” the first, unidentifiable voice said. “There are bigger issues at hand than the ‘needs and wants’ of one girl.”
Spoken like a man in a position of power. I had to bite my tongue to keep a growl from rumbling up my throat.
“What are your thoughts on the matter, Bert?” a distinctive, deep voice asked, and that one I recognized. Abby’s father, Rick Wade. The chairman of the territorial council. Maybe he would pass along a message to Abby, if I asked nicely…
Or maybe not. I wasn’t even sure he was still in touch with his daughter since she’d defected to follow Jace into the free zone.
“Donna and I are hoping she takes to Teddy,” Bert said. “They’d make a good match. He’s interested, and since she arrived, he’s developed a lot of potential.”
“He’s too young,” the gruff voice insisted. “Teddy has too little experience.”
“The circumstance makes the Alpha,” a new voice countered, and a chorus of male voices seconded the platitude.
Alpha.Teddy isn’t an Alpha.
All at once, I understood. If Teodoro Di Carlo displayed Alpha potential and I married him, he wouldbecomean Alpha. He would take over his father’s Pride. I would become the daughter Bert and Donna had lost.
