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“I have my bois,” he reminded her. He did, three huge German shepherds that he’d nurtured and trained since the day he saved them. They were his loyal companions. They kept him company. He didn't need shit.
“They’re dogs,” she pointed out correctly. “And they're great dogs. But you need human companionship. And Zephyr is good people. If I were you, I’d marry her. Just food for thought.”
Alpha had never wondered if Jasmine was swung that way. Not his business though. As long as she stayed a good sentinel and never came on to him, she could do whatever she wanted in her private life. He never mixed pleasure with any of the girls under his protection, which also made it tough to find women willing to fuck him. Normal girls took one look at him and ran in the other direction. The rebellious ones wanted a walk on the wild side and risked it, which left him feeling slightly empty. Given his background, paying for sex was something he never did, and taking advantage of the workers who came to him with trust just went against his personal code. There weren't many things he was righteous about but vulnerable women and kids were it.
Which again begged the question, why would a girl like Zephyr, from a seemingly good family and in complete contrast to his world, run to him, jump him, kiss him, and then get on her knees to pop a crazy question? Why would she be okay with everything he said he'd do to her? She wasn't a groupie, she wasn't a rebel. And he doubted she couldn't find someone else for her scheme. So why him? What was up with her?
As Jasmine left the office, Alpha walked to his windows, mulling over her words.
So, Zephyr helped out battered and abused women at his center. He wasn’t sure why but that did something to his chest. But he still didn’t understand the marriage proposal. What could she possibly know about him? There was nothing.
She was slightly crazy, he decided. But at least she was a distraction.
For the first time in years, Alpha could feel the lull of ennui breaking. Everything had become the same—the underworld remained the same, his empire remained the same, his loneliness remained the same. He realized a while ago that each fight, each fuck, each finale had become the same old shit he lived through.
Some days, he didn’t understand the point. And on those days, he missed his ma. To others, she might have been a sex worker off the streets of Los Fortis, to Alpha she’d been nothing but an amazing mother who had lost too much too early in life. Her parents dead, she had taken care of her younger sister the only way she’d known, going to the streets and selling herself to give her sister a chance at a better life, only to have a monster rip it all away.
Lorenzo Maroni had swept in like a storm in the lives of the Villanova sisters and left behind nothing but debris. He had raped his mother, abducted his aunt, and left her for the dead. And even though Alpha had been the seed of a monster, his mother had decided to not only carry him full-term but raise him to be nothing like his sire.
He grew up on the streets, surrounded by hollow humans who had once had aspirations for themselves and then had none.
And he had built an empire, fist by fist, to escape that.
As he stared out with his limited vision at the expansive jungle beyond the city from his tower, to the compound that he called home, Alpha wondered what the point of it all had been.
And then the rainbow had come barrelling into him, like a burst of color after endless gray, kissing him like he wasn’t a mangled man, looking at him with genuine desire in her eyes like she appreciated all that he was. In his experience, he was either a walk on the wild side for a woman or a scary monster out of her nightmares. But Zephyr, the tiny button of a woman who’d strolled through his testosterone filled foyer like she was a queen, looked at him differently, and he couldn’t put his finger on why.
That baffled him.
“So, should I get my good suit out?” Hector joined him on the side, a grin on his face.
“Eavesdropping. Nice,” Alpha shook his head, knowing Hector had listened in at the door like the nosy bastard he was. Hector and Victor, brothers and sons of the streets like him, had been with Alpha for as long as he could remember. Hector had stuck with Alpha while Victor had joined the military, coming back after an injury to his leg, angrier and darker than the young boy Alpha had remembered protecting. But Hector was the closest thing to a friend Alpha had, and when he'd asked him to give Victor a job in the company, Alpha had. He wasn't as close to the younger boy, but he wondered what had made him so volatile.
“After the way she jumped you that night,” Hector said interrupting his train of thoughts, stepping into the peripheral vision of his good eye, something Alpha always appreciated him doing. “There was no way I was missing out. Is that why you didn’t get your dick sucked? Because you knew I was listening?”
“You know why,” Alpha gazed out, and heard Hector sigh.
“Your celibacy is wasted, boss. It was an accident.”
An accident where he’d fractured a woman’s hip because he’d been too rough. He liked when his partners screamed but not in that kind of pain. Although he was usually careful because of his size and knew that most women needed adjusting to his dick, his last partner had wanted the beast, and high from a fight, he’d delivered. The sound of her bone breaking still haunted him, made him feel like a fucking monster.
It had shaken him enough to make him celibate for over an entire year.
“Who’s her tail?” he asked, changing the topic.
“Victor.”
Of course, Hector would put the best-looking of their squad on her tail, knowing it would rile him up. He didn’t know why he’d declared she was with him when she’d been talking to Victor earlier, but he’d seen her on the camera for the last two weeks, lingering, watching, essentially stalking the building. She was a curious little creature.
“Any update on why she was here this week?”
“Beside stalking you, you mean?” Hector grinned, his white teeth gleaming against his darker skin. “You must have kissed her real good if she’s proposing so soon.”
Or she had an ulterior motive. There was no other explanation for why someone like her would want to tie herself in matrimony to a man like him. It wasn’t a lust for his money. No, had it been mercenary, she never would’ve suggested a prenup.
Alpha looked down at the busy street below. “Any news on Reyes dealing at the fight?”
Hector’s voice sobered. “Yeah, you were right. He’s gambling his money on fights. Word says he'll go in debt once the season begins.”
