All Chapters of The Alpha's Fated Encounter: Chapter 101 - Chapter 110

Thank God Mom had some rubber gloves under the sink to deal with the chicken. Nico took care of that because I didn’t think my stomach could take it. He stripped the gloves off and started rinsing out the sink and washing his hands. “I should have thought about this too,” he said. “I could have had a team come and clean things up before we got here.”After another fifteen minutes, the kitchen was back in better order, and the window over the sink had been opened to air out the stench. As bad as the kitchen had been, I had no desire to cook. I pulled my phone out and put in an online order for Chinese delivery.“General Tso?” I asked Nico.He wrinkled his nose at me. “Maybe we don’t do meat. I’m gonna have PTSD from that rotten food for a while.”I glanced at the sink. “God. Right. How about vegetable fried rice?”He gave me a relieved smile. “Much better idea.”While we waited for the food to arrive, I took him up to my dad’s study. It was one of the best places I could think of where

NICOI left Maddy to sleep the next morning and went downstairs to scrounge up some breakfast. Most of the stuff in the fridges had expired and rotted. I threw out the milk, eggs, and everything else that looked dangerous to consume. In the freezer, I found some frozen burritos. Shrugging, I went ahead and threw the burritos into the oven.I walked around the kitchen and took a closer look at the refrigerator doors. It was completely covered in photos and magnets commemorating a visit to Disney World, another for Disneyland, and there was a magnet with a beach scene from a trip to Jamaica. The photos were the best part, though. There was one of Maddy when she must have been twelve or thirteen years old with a mouth full of braces. Then there were several with her at various ages through middle and high school. The senior picture showed the beautiful girl I knew so well.I checked on our frat house breakfast and found they were almost done, so I headed upstairs to wake Maddy. To my sur

“Why?” Maddy sobbed, covering her face with her hands. “Why did they hide these from me? She loved me and missed me. She wrote all these letters, and I never even knew.”I put an arm around her and pulled her close, letting her cry into my shoulder as I looked down at the dozens of items that had come out of the box. So many. It looked like Maddy’s birth mother had sent a letter for every single birthday and holiday she’d missed, plus a lot more that must have been sent at random times. Moments when she missed the baby she’d given up and wanted to make contact. This confirmed my theory. Gabriella hadn’t died a few months after Maddy had been born. These letters went on for years and years. She’d survived. She might still be out there.Once Maddy had managed to pull herself under control, we organized the letters by date. I could tell she was trying not to read the words, but I kept seeing her pause every few minutes to glance at a line here or there, and her eyes would well up again.

“Shit.” Maddy huffed the word out and stood, pacing the room. “It’s… I don’t know. What if we do find her? What should I say? What should I do? Do I shake her hand or hug her or what? What if she wants to kiss me on the cheek or something? I have no idea what to do here, Nico.”I put my hands on her shoulders, stopping her pacing. “That’s why I’m here. If it gets too much, I can take over and do all the talking. It’ll be fine.”Maddy sagged under my hands. “I hope you’re right.”We went through the house one more time, making sure all the lights were off. Maddy stopped in the doorway of her parents’ room and looked in. She stood there for several seconds, gazing around the room. I let her be, knowing she was taking one last look. I assumed she was soaking it all in. If we were unsuccessful, then this would be the last time she was in that house when her parents were still alive. The next time we were here, it would either be a family get-together or to prepare for a funeral.The thoug

Nico showed me the filing cabinets, and I flipped through the files to see for myself. He was right. Almost every kid here had a birthday within a month of mine. It was like she was trying to match these other kids to me. Or see if they had the same marker I did? I scanned through every file, desperate to figure out what exactly she was looking for. I wasn’t a geneticist, and neither was Nico. Without more information, there was no way we’d figure out what this marker was or what it meant.Between the files and the closet, it was obvious Doctor Stanford had been keeping tabs on me my whole life. It was enough to take away almost all the doubt I had about her being my birth mother. Why would a random pediatrician do all this? Why would a pediatrician have pictures of me in her closet? Sure, there were unhinged people who created relationships in their heads. Stalkers. But this didn’t feel like that. This wasn’t sinister. Most stalkers tried to make contact with their target. She’d gone