Ryan

Alpha’s Pack house resembled a majestic royal palace. If the situation hadn’t been so tense, I would have admired it.

The man was imposing, yet charismatic. He reminded me of my father’s youth.

"Shouldn’t we have told him about the flash drive?" I asked, looking from my father to Holly. We hadn’t reported it to the police yet and wanted to see the contents ourselves before revealing what was on it to them.

"No, I don’t trust him. We’ll take the device and see what’s on it before deciding whether to hand it over to the police or conduct our own investigation," my father declared immediately. He settled down on the sofa in the hotel room we’d booked.

"I agree with Dad. There’s just something about him I don’t trust," Holly agreed, sitting down next to me.

Since we learned about Zara’s kidnapping, we’d forgotten to smile.

"Did she tell you both anything about someone bothering her? You saw her about two weeks ago," Dad asked when Holly offered him a glass of water.

I shook my head.

"No, she seemed fine. We didn’t get the feeling she was hiding anything." It seemed Zara had matured significantly since the fiasco with Marcus and was hiding things from us.

Perhaps it all came with age, with the responsibility of being an adult trying to deal with her problems without worrying her loved ones.

"I still can’t believe she told Alpha and not us," Dad gulped down the water, and I sensed he was still in denial. He turned his attention to Holly. "Is something going on between them?"

She nervously brushed a strand of her chocolate-brown hair behind her ear and answered rather quickly,

"I don’t think so. She would have told me something if they were both involved." Her father seemed disbelieving of her answer, and she looked nervous, clutching her tablet too tightly.

She knew something and didn’t want to reveal it to her father.

"I don’t know, Holly. I think Zara hid too much from us after Marcus. I understand she was trying to act independently and mature, but family comes first. I can hardly breathe every second thinking about the state she’s in."

Pain crossed her father’s face as he closed his eyes for a second, and I leaned over and whispered in his ear, "The police are coming to take your statement. They’ll need to see this video."

Holly turned her head towards me and gestured towards the door. I realized she wanted to talk privately. Standing up, I quietly left while Father was busy with mobile. Holly followed me and closed the door.

She quickly grabbed my hand, her face flushed with embarrassment. What? "We need to talk privately." She pulled me into her room, and I followed.

As soon as we were inside, she closed the door and looked at me with a grim expression. I had rarely seen her so serious before. "I promised her I wouldn’t tell anyone, but I simply can’t bear the burden of this secret anymore."

Anxiety pierced my soul. "What secret?"

Holly exhaled, her soft blue eyes, her arms crossed, expressing pain. "Zara was bound by a contract with Alpha."

Goosebumps appeared on my forehead when I asked. "Who was she?"

"Yes! There was no physical relationship, but besides being his secretary, she was supposed to pose as his girlfriend in the company. So all that media hype wasn’t just hype; there was some truth to it," Holly declared, leaving me perplexed.

So many secrets. Alpha hadn’t even bothered to mention any contract. Was that why he brought her home with him before Christmas—because his mother was there? Questions swirled in my head.

"The thing is, this whole thing seemed really suspicious to me, and I didn’t like how he tried to use her for his own ends. I told her not to, but she didn’t listen. Maybe, maybe... we shouldn’t have let her in here."

All that tough facade and iron will Holly had tried to maintain for her father’s sake cracked, and tears streamed down her face. Instinctively, I moved, and before we knew it, I was hugging her, and she was sobbing into my chest.

"Ryan! What... what if something... happens to her?" Her voice wavered as she clutched at my shirt.

At the thought, my eyes squeezed shut, and an unbearable pain tore at my heart. The video of her tied to a chair, it seems... The thought flashed through my head: "Loneliness."

But I have to I had to be strong for all of us. Placing my chin on the top of her head, I whispered,

"We’ll get her back, don’t worry. Zara is the strongest of us. She always has been. Remember when we were little and thunderstorms scared us? She always calmed us with funny stories about storms, saying they were just an angry god." My fingers entwined with Holly’s soft hair, her sweet scent lingering on me.

She sobbed slowly.

"I just want her to be safe. I can’t even imagine what she’s going through right now. What you’re all going through," she whispered, and my phone beeped.

Holly released me, taking her warmth with her, and I reached into my pocket for my rectangular phone.

It was a text from Govinda.

"Call me, I have something important to tell you." I turned the phone toward Holly, and she nodded in agreement.

I pressed the call button.

***

Zara

Numbness pierced my soul. Not just mentally, but physically and emotionally. My hair... he destroyed my hair for some kind of revenge against my family. From the length of the strands and the feel of the scissors, I realized he’d cut it very short, literally cut it.

For years, I’d been growing it. But what worried me most was that Dad would see this hair. It would break him...

I wanted to cry, but I couldn’t; I was keeping all my emotions bottled up for now.

My stomach twisted into a knot—and all I cared about was the nascent life in my belly.

"Please! Be careful," I muttered under my breath.