The Two Alphas' Fated Witch

Courageous Coward

"Fuck."

Mrs. Santiago and Cassie instantly stop packing my stuff at my sudden exclamation, turning towards me.

"What is it?" Cassie asks, rushing to my side and looking out. Once she sees him too, she has the same reaction as me, though a bit more volatile. "f**k, why the hells is he back?!"

Mrs. Santiago goes pale. "You don't mean..."

I barely have the strength to nod and answer her, though in barely a whisper. "He's here."

My father is home.

"Why though? Doesn't he have work or something?" Cassie exclaims.

Yes, he does. My father is a strict man, but he is the most strict on himself. Ever since my mother died, he's never taken a day off. Not for a vacation. Not for a sick day. Not even when my youngest brother had a horrible flu. I ended up having to leave class and take care of him for a week. But my father? Absolutely not. In fact, there were some weekends he went into work when he should've been off. Just because his boss asked him to work on a case or file some arbitrary paperwork. He always had time for work, and never for his household.

So why is he here? And why, by all the gods, did he have to be here today?!

I can hear the Santiago women behind me, cursing and musing potential reasons, but it's all muffled as my heartbeat increases with every inch his car gets closer. The entire time he parks, I can't take my eyes off him. I'm not even sure if I blink. But I do when he stops, shoves his car door open, and slams it so hard he makes me flinch. That, of course, startles me back to my senses.

"Guess that means he's not here for anything small "

Turning away from the window, I remember I'm not the only one about to feel his wrath. "You have to get out of here!"

"How?" Mrs. Santiago asks. "The only way to the first floor is the staircase, and if he's heading up here-"

"Maybe he just forgot a file from his study?"

Cassie's last ditch effort to calm the situation is immediately nullified by the slam of the front door and the last voice I ever want to call my name doing exactly that.

"Alyssa Diana Solomon! Where the hell are you?! I know you're here!"

"Nevermind," Cassie squeaks.

At this point, we're all terrified, but none more so than me. I can feel it: the ice clogging my veins and locking up my muscles, freezing in place as we listen to aggressive stomps taking the stairs two at a time. My arms instinctively wrap around myself as my breathing becomes more erratic. But still, nothing else matters other than the footsteps marching rapidly closer and closer until the door swings open.

There's nowhere to run.

Nowhere to hide.

There never is when Matthew Solomon is home.

And there he stands in my doorway. Tall, well built and well groomed, not a single hair out of place. Not even when he's so angry behind those thin glasses. But I can tell. It's in the way his green eyes burn a hole into my core, like acid dissolving anything in its path simply for it existing too close.

That's how he's always been with me, ever since she died. My sheer existence in his presence has always pissed him off.

But never as much as today.

Of course, he's always careful with his image. He must assess every situation before decreeing a verdict, ever the lawyer. Sure enough, his glare leaves my frozen form and finds a scared Cassie and a nervous Mrs. Santiago. That's when he smirks, having found the perfect evidence.

"So you didn't know where she was, was it?"

"Mr. Solomon, I can explain-"

His hand shoots up, cutting Mrs. Santiago off, as he returns his fury to me. "So while I've been covering for you at work, telling Mr. Furbank not to worry, that you'd be back soon, you've been what, laying about with the Santiagos?"

His voice is cool, calm even, but I know the fury behind his words. He's laying a trap, a false sense of security for me to fall for. I used to, but I've learned there's no winning with him. There's just silence and hoping for a swift punishment, or giving him answers and receiving far worse.

My body chooses the former, too terrified to even breathe.

"Still being silent, are we? No answer when I call, phone turned off. Even your car is in a tow yard, so I would have no idea where you are. Thought you were being clever for once?"

This raises questions in the back of my mind, like how he knows my phone is off or where my car is. Still, my brain can only focus on one thing at a time, and his moving towards me like a prowling cat cornering a mouse has far more precedence than those meager questions.

"But of course, the moment I call your friend here and mention what I'd do, what any good landlord would do if their tenant ran off without a word, suddenly you miraculously appear. Oh, Alyssa..." he shakes his head, and then it comes.

His judgement.

The slap rings across the room and across my face so hard, I'm knocked into my desk, cowering over it. I can hear the gasps from the others over the blood rushing through my cheek, but that doesn't stop him from unleashing his rage to its fullest.

"How dare you! How dare you turn your back on your job, one I so graciously acquired for you when no one else would hire your worthless fat ass! How dare you make me look like a fool in front of Me. Furbank for ever giving you a chance! How dare you waste your time with these stupid immigrants! And how dare you break into my home and try to rob me blind, thinking I don't know when someone enters a code to the house or couldn't see you on the f*****g camera! How stupid are you?!"

Apparently pretty stupid. That's all I've ever been: the stupid, fat, ugly, useless waste of space he has to call a daughter. This isn't the first time he's said this to me, nor the first time he's ever struck me. I'm used to this. This has been my life for the past eight f*****g years; each time worse than the last. And I deserve it, I always have. I'm always in the way. I'm never doing what I'm supposed to be. I just cost him money, time, and energy he could spend somewhere else.

But not the Santiagos.

"You're wrong."

Silence fills the room as all eyes turn to me. Slowly, while trying to move my tensed limbs, I stand up. My breath is still rapid and my brain is still telling me to cower, but my heart won't let me. My father just crossed a line I didn't know existed.

Not until now.

"What did you just say?" My father barely says above a whisper. "That I'm wrong?"

"Yes," I state, turning my head towards this still raging man. Then, I repeat, as if testing the words, "You're wrong."

By the way his glare intensifies from behind those glasses, I can tell he's debating on whether to slap me again or let me play this little game. I guess he thinks he can knock me down even further by proving his point further, because he asks, "How, pray tell, am I wrong?"

I breathe. Somehow, I breathe, and then finally find the means to glare back at him. "They are not stupid immigrants."

He actually laughs at that. "That's what you want to prove me wrong about? You really are pathetic."

He hisses this word at me like an arrow meant to kill, but I shrug it off. "You're probably right. I am pretty pathetic. I'm fat. I'm stupid. I f**k up constantly, and make you look foolish by being related to you.

"But the Santiagos are not even close to stupid immigrants. They are a proud lineage, going back three generations in this country alone, and they are anything but stupid. Both Dylan and Cassie got scholarships to college and straight A's in school. Dylan was even valedictorian last year."

He goes to open his mouth, but now it's my turn to give him the hand, shocking even myself.

"I'm not finished, because they are so much more than just their nationality and intelligence," I continue. "These people are kind, caring, and encouraging. They would give anyone a home, even someone as worthless as me, and they'd do it gladly. They are generous and forgiving, and they don't push people around just to get what they want."

He snorts. "Well, if they've been so generous, as you say, then why haven't you moved in as they asked?"

"For many reasons. First, because you are right that people should learn to take care of themselves, which is why I pay you rent and for the car and for food. Second, because I don't want to take advantage of their generosity, though I know they'd never see it that way."

A motion in the background reminds me my father isn't the only one present. A glance behind him shows Cassie and Mrs. Santiago hugging tightly, with Mrs. Santiago trying to wipe away her tears before they reach that ever-proud smile.

"Anything else?"

Turning back, my father's face remains the same. Ever smug. Ever angry. Ever vindicated. It makes me cower a little, but that glance gave me the strength to tell him the words I haven't been able to say in eight years.

"Because I love you, Dad, and I don't want to lose you, too."