I’d decided early on in my confinement that the room’s lack of use was due to the faces staring at the diners from the wall. One face in particular.

“Who is she?”

I spun, startled by the unexpected yet familiar voice, to find a stranger standing behind me, leaning against the doorway. My gaze caught on him and stuck there, and for a moment, I could only stare at him with my mouth hanging open, like most of the toms around here look at me. His strong features and piercing eyes were unfamiliar—an unsettling rarity over the past two months—but one whiff of his scent provided his identity.

Stray.

Titus Alexander.

Why had no one told me the stray Alpha was gorgeous?

I glanced around the dining room, expecting to find one of the Southeast enforcers acting as escort for the guest. Bert Di Carlo never left me alone with strange toms, and this was the strangest—and prettiest—one I’d ever met.

Titus didn’t wear dark clothes like an enforcer—intended to hide the inevitable bloodstains. He wore a suit, like the older generation of Alphas.

Yet he wore his suit nothing like the older generation of Alphas.

His steel-colored jacket exactly matched the shade of his eyes, and the material lay perfectly against every artfully sculpted plane and angle of his body. That suit hadn’t come off a rack. Every stitch and fold was designed specifically for the man wearing it.

“Um…” I blinked, then tore my gaze away from him. I could feel my cheeks warming.

My hesitance seemed to amuse him, which only made my face burn hotter.

“Sara Di Carlo,” I mumbled, forcing my focus back to the photo at the center of the arrangement on the wall. Like most tabbies, she’d been the youngest of her siblings, after a long line of sons.

The stray extended one hand toward me; he thought I was introducing myself.

“Not me. That was Sara.” I gestured at the framed photo. “I’m Robyn.” When I clasped my hands behind me, declining his handshake, he withdrew his hand, yet somehow made the motion look…cool.

“Robyn Sheffield, the only American female stray.” He inhaled subtly, confirming my identity with a whiff of my scent. “I’m Titus Alexander. The only stray Alpha. It seems we’re both somewhat anomalous around here.” His smile kindles an intimate fire deep inside me, and I scramble to put out the flames. I do not like Alphas.

“Marc Ramos is a stray Alpha,” I inform him. Though the truth is that Marc is his wife’s co-Alpha. The council would never let him run a Pride on his own.

His smile falters. “Yes. Of course.” He clears his throat and refocuses on the photograph. “What happened to Sara?”

“She died. She and Abby—” And Faythe Sanders, the only female Alpha. “—um…ran into some trouble several years ago. Sara never made it home.” I turned to point at another picture of a young man with beautiful blue eyes, just like his sister’s. “Anthony died trying to get justice for her.”

“The kidnapping.” Titus nodded solemnly. “I heard about that.”

“Abby told you?” I frowned. Abby never talked about whatever happened to her at the hands of those rogues.

“No.” The realization that he’d said too much seemed to hit him all at once, and he shifted his weight onto one foot.

“Jace,” I guessed.

“He only told me what I needed to know.”

“As an Alpha?”

“And as their host,” Titus clarified. “Sometimes Abby has nightmares.”

Oh.

Whatever trauma Abby had suffered still haunted her. But not like it haunted Bert and Donna Di Carlo. Sara had been their only daughter, thus their Pride’s only hope of producing a next generation. Losing her was both a personal and societal tragedy. I sympathized, though I also understood that when Donna looked at me, more often than not, she was seeing Sara. Figuratively, if not literally.

The Di Carlos seemed determined to protect me where they’d failed Sara. Even if that meant not letting me out of their sight until I was successfully rehabilitated—a moving target, at best.

“So, Jace and Abby are still staying with you?” I asked, looking up into the stray’s dark gray eyes.

Titus shrugged, then slid his hands into his pockets, pulling his shirt tight against his chest beneath his open suit jacket. “The house is too big for one person.”

But that wasn’t the whole story. Several times since my incarceration, I’d overheard Donna Di Carlo worrying about Abby. Jace was exiled without his assets, and the Di Carlos seemed to think that Abby wouldn’t be safe enough in the free zone to get a job. Because she was the only tabby in a territory full of male strays.

Titus had given Jace and Abby not just a place to stay, but a sanctuary, of sorts. Even if he wouldn’t take credit for that.

“Mr. Alexander?” We both turned to see Teddy Di Carlo, the youngest of the Di Carlo boys and a senior Southeast Pride enforcer. “Did you get lost on the way to the bathroom?”

Titus smiled with a glance at me. “No, just…distracted.”

“This way.” Teddy gestured toward the guest bath. I watched them go long enough to determine that the back of Titus’s suit fit as nicely as the front. Then I wandered toward Umberto Di Carlo’s office.

Bert’s enforcers had been picking Alphas up from the airport all day, but they were still waiting on a straggler before they could officially begin their meeting, and Teddy had left the office door cracked open.

I started to peek inside, then the mention of my name caught my attention, and I pressed myself against the wall instead. Eavesdropping without shame.

“So, which way is Robyn leaning?” The voice sounded gruff and middle-aged, and though I recognized it, I couldn’t identify the owner. I’d only met most of the Alphas once, the day of the plea bargain that stuck me in this purple-walled, ceramic-angel hell, and I wasn’t even sure I remembered all of their names.

“She isn’t leaning at all,” Bert answered. “That girl stands up straight every second of the day, afraid that if she bends even a little, we’ll break her in half. She doesn’t trust us.”

“Do you blame her?” As the only woman on the council, Faythe’s voice was easy to identify. “She wasn’t born into this. Hell, I was born into this and still spent half my life rolling my eyes at you old coots. You’re not exactly tuned in to the needs and wants of a young woman.”