Mated To The Crippled Alpha

Chapter 475: HER FINAL WARNING

My gaze snapped to his face the moment that man bowed, and I found Vito already looking at me with that same quiet, unreadable expression , a faint smile sitting on his lips like it belonged there. He had an innocent face, the kind that made adults trust you immediately, but something underneath it made my skin prickle. Something I was too young to name but old enough to feel. I was starting to wonder if I’d made a terrible mistake grabbing his hand.Then his hand came down gently on my shoulder, and I flinched hard.

"Don’t be scared," he said, his voice soft in a way that didn’t quite match the situation. "I’m not one of the bad ones."

The image from that room flashed through my mind , the stone surfaces, the tools, the people lying completely still , and his reassurance landed like a stone in still water. I didn’t know whether to believe him. My whole body was shaking, my face had gone cold, and I couldn’t stop my teeth from nearly chattering. He noticed. He looked at me the way you look at a problem you’re trying to solve.

"Are you hungry?" he asked. "Do you want something to eat?"

I was. I was starving, actually, and the realization hit me all at once the moment he said it. My stomach had been clenched so tight with fear that I hadn’t noticed. I nodded before I could stop myself.

He crouched down in front of me so we were eye level, and the smile he gave me was calm and patient. "Come with me, then."

I looked at him for a moment. Then I said, "Okay."

He stood and held out his hand, and I took it, and we walked. I stayed close to his side, my eyes moving over everything as we went , the bare walls, the pale lights, the doors that were all closed. The place pressed down on me like a weight. I had a hundred questions and no idea which one to ask first.

"Where are we?" I said quietly. "Those people back there , they were doing something terrible. Do you know who brought me here?"

He glanced down at me. "So many questions. Which one first?"

I thought about it. "Are you a good person?"

He tilted his head slightly, the way someone does when they find a question more interesting than expected. "What do you think?"

"I don’t know," I admitted. "Those other people felt bad the moment I saw them. But you’re different. You don’t feel the same." I studied him as I said it. He was dressed neatly, a collared shirt with a small bow tie that made him look like he’d come from somewhere formal, somewhere with rules and expectations. Nothing about him matched this grey, cold place. He’d been gentle with me. In here, that counted for a lot.

A small smile touched his lips but he didn’t confirm or deny anything.

"What’s your name?" I asked.

"Vito Blackwell."

I turned the name over. "Vito," I murmured. "Like someone who sews clothes?"

"Yes."

"My name is Anna Sander," I told him seriously, because it felt important that he know. "It means gracious defender. My parents picked it because they wanted me to be able to protect myself and stand up for what’s right."

Vito looked at me then, really looked at me, and something moved through his expression that I couldn’t quite catch. He said something under his breath , soft enough that the words dissolved before they reached me.

"What?" I asked. "I didn’t hear you."

"Nothing," he said. "Let’s go."

He brought me to a quieter corner of the building, away from the corridor and its closed doors, and set a plate of risotto in front of me. It smelled warm and real, and my stomach pulled toward it immediately. I reached for the fork.

Vito’s eyes shifted past me, and his whole face changed.

It happened fast , one moment he was watching me with something almost like kindness, and the next his jaw had set and his eyes had gone flat and careful, focused on something behind my shoulder. Before I could turn to look, he reached out and knocked the plate off the surface. It clattered to the floor, risotto scattering across the cold concrete.

"Eat," he said. His voice had emptied out completely.

I stared at the food on the floor and then back up at him. My mind couldn’t make sense of it. I knew better than to eat off the floor. Was he testing me? Making a joke? The shift in him had been so sudden and so total that it felt like standing next to a stranger wearing his face.

Then I heard footsteps, and I understood why.

Two people came around the corner , a man with a slight limp and a girl about my age with sharp, watchful eyes that moved over me like she was calculating something. The moment I saw them, something cold settled at the base of my spine. I moved closer to Vito without thinking, my hand finding the fabric of his sleeve.

"Anna Sander?" the man said, his eyes on me.

"Yes, Uncle Hamilton," Vito replied, and his voice had gone clipped and formal, nothing like the quiet boy who’d crouched down to meet my eyes minutes ago.

Hamilton looked at me the way you look at something you’re deciding whether to throw away. "A Sander," he said flatly. "Get rid of her."

My heart slammed.

Vito’s gaze dropped to my hand gripping his sleeve. "There’s no rush," he said, his tone careful and measured, the way someone speaks when they’re navigating something dangerous. "She needs to be observed first. Wisteria needs to understand her , her habits, her background, what she knows."

Hamilton seemed to weigh this. "A few days, then." He gave me one last cold glance and turned away, and I felt the chill of it long after he had gone.

The girl stepped forward. She was about my height, with a face that could have been pretty if it weren’t for what was sitting behind her eyes. When she smiled at me, it was sweet the way certain things are sweet right before they hurt you.

"I’m Anna Sander now," she said.

I blinked. "What do you mean?"

"You’ll understand eventually." She tilted her head, still smiling. "I’m Wisteria Blackwell. But soon enough, I’ll be you."

She extended her hand toward me. My instincts said reach back , it was just politeness, just what you do when someone offers a hand , so I did. And the moment our palms touched, she shoved me hard. The floor came up fast and I hit it on my hands and knees, gasping.

Her hand pressed down on the back of my head, pushing my face toward the scattered risotto. Above me, she laughed, and it was a bright, delighted sound that had nothing warm in it at all.

"Poor little thing," she said. "You must be starving. Go ahead , eat. You’re nothing more than a dog now."

I stayed very still with my cheek almost touching the cold floor, my hands flat against the ground, and I understood something for the first time , something that settled into my bones and stayed there. Whatever was happening in this place, whatever I had stumbled into, it had already decided what I was worth.

I just hadn’t decided yet whether I would let it be right.