Chapter Two

She looked at him coldly, her expression a mask of indifference she had spent a decade perfecting. She averted her gaze almost immediately, staring out at the receding landscape of the life she was abandoning.

"Does my father know that I'm coming back?"

"Yes er... He sent me to pick you. I'm now his personal assistant, but he has assigned me to you from today."

She frowned, her lips thinning into a line of pure distaste. "Then I will have to get you removed once we get home." She said it flatly, not liking his striking features at all. In her experience, people with good faces were the problem; they were the ones who hid the sharpest knives behind the brightest smiles. 

The disappointment on his face was lethal. It was a silent, crushing blow that shifted the air in the cabin. He turned his face away, his jaw tight, as the helicopter began its steep ascent, flying so high into the sky.

As the altitude increased, the pressure in her ears triggered a sudden, unbidden surge of memory. It was a "sweet" memory, or at least, she had tried to label it as such at the time.

Five years ago. The kitchen of that cramped, leaky house. She had been holding a plastic stick, her heart hammering against her ribs with so much surge of happiness. 

"Greene! Look!" she had cried, her face radiant, her calloused hands trembling as she held it out to him. "I'm pregnant. We’re finally going to have a family."

Greene hadn't jumped for joy. He hadn't even looked up from the laptop she had worked three jobs to buy him. He only frowned, his handsome face contorting into a mask of irritation.

"Are you serious, Elara?" he had snapped, finally looking at her as if she were a bill he couldn't afford to pay. "I'm in the middle of my finals. I told you I didn't want to have a baby with you just yet. It’s a distraction. How are we supposed to afford a kid when you're just hawking drinks at a club?"

"I'll work more hours, Greene. I'll—"

"No. Just... handle it. I can't deal with this right now."

She had handled it. Nature, perhaps sensing the lack of welcome, had handled it for her a week later in a burst of pain and blood she had suffered through alone while he was out "studying" with his college friends.

The irony was a jagged stone in her throat. After that, her mother-in-law had spent years turning around and calling her "barren" to anyone who would listen. It was a mockery she didn't understand. Alphas always had difficulties having children, their biology was complex and demanding, and she had tried, she had actually tried once but Greene didn't want it.

She snorted out loud, the sound harsh against the hum of the engine. How had she put up with such an idiot like Greene for so long? How had she stayed, serving his family, letting them rot her spirit, and never breaking even once? She felt a sudden, violent urge to laugh at her own stupidity.

The man sitting across from her didn't miss the sound. His blue eyes flickered towards her now and then, tracing the shadow of the snort on her face, but he remained silent.

Eventually, the sprawling, high-security gates of the Vance estate appeared beneath them. This was the fortress she had fled, the cage of gold she had thought was a prison.

Now they ushered her out of the helicopter, the elite guards flanking her with a reverence she hadn't felt in twelve years. They led her in to where her father was standing, waiting for her on the pristine marble steps of the entrance.

She paused in her tracks when she saw him.

For ten years, she hadn't seen him in the flesh. She had only seen him in the news, a distant figure of power and resolve. Whenever Greene tuned on the TV to see the news, he would watch the President with an almost pathetic hunger. Greene was a crazy fan of Mr. President; he always talked about him like he was the son of the president, dissecting his speeches, explaining his policies to Elara as if she were a child who would never understand.

“You see, Elara,” Greene would say, leaning back in his chair, “That’s what real power looks like. You wouldn't get it. You're just a high school graduate.”

He never knew. He never guessed that the woman scrubbing his grease-stained stove was the very blood of the man he worshipped from afar. She had never gone to college because when her mates were running off to school, she was chasing Greene, throwing her future into a fire that only warmed him.

Now she was standing in front of her father and she did nothing but feel little again. Standing under the shadow of the most powerful man in America, she felt eighteen again and not thirty. The weight of her wasted decade crashed down on her. Tears brewed around her eyes, stinging and hot.

Her father’s brow furrowed. He looked at the moisture in her eyes with a stark, cold disapproval.

Of course, she remembered. Alphas never cried no matter what happened. They were the storm, not the rain. They don't show weakness, they embrace it and mold it into a weapon. Life lessons were engraved into the bones of Vance: revenges are meted out, but no tears should be shed. No one, no man, no lover, no enemy is ever worth shedding tears over.

And it was true. It would be such a waste shedding even a cup of her tears for a man like Greene. All she was filled with now was a dark, viscous resentment for all men. Not just Greene, but especially those who were not in her status, the social climbers and the leeches, and for those men with striking features who thought they could navigate the world on a smile.

She forced the tears back, her eyes turning into flint.

She walked up to her father. He didn't offer a gentle embrace. He forced her into his arms, his hold firm and commanding. He gave three distinct, rhythmic pats at her back, a signal of acknowledgment rather than affection, and then pushed her away to inspect her.

"Welcome home," He said as he raised his brow, his sharp eyes scanning her face, her short hair, and her calloused hands, calculating how far his daughter-like son had aged in twelve years.

"Thank you, father."

"How was the journey? Smooth or rocky?"

"Well, it was nice," she replied, her voice steadying, the Alpha in her blood beginning to stir at the familiarity of his command.

"Your old room is still the same," he said, turning slightly toward the grand staircase. "You could wash up. I had the maid servants help clean it up for you. Then join us; we are having a party to celebrate your return. Silas..."

He suddenly called, and that name struck her at first.  She turned, trying to find out who bore the name.

And it was him.

The man from the helicopter. The one who had asked if she remembered him. Those blue eyes were staring at her again, begging for recognition. That strikingly handsome face she couldn't place suddenly felt like a ghost stepping out of the fog. A sharp, electric jolt hit her chest, making her breath hitch.

Silas??

He stepped forward and bowed before her father. "Yes, Mr. President."

"Assist her upstairs and make sure she's comfortable."

Silas... The memories flooded back, not of the man in the suit, but of a boy. The quiet, beautiful boy. The Omega whose heat cycle she had helped take care of twelve years ago in the dead of the night.