The Alpha King's Obsession

7. The Terminator and The Fuzzy Socks

Lilian’s POV

The silence in the back of the SUV was heavy enough to crush a lesser woman.

I sat on the plush leather seat, clutching my phone like a lifeline. The screen was still glowing with the banking app notification.

Balance : $3,000,000,000.

As much as I blinked and refreshed the page, the number didn’t change.

Locking my phone for good this time, I looked up at the rearview mirror. River’s eyes were locked on the road, his expression as unreadable as a slab of granite. He drove with terrifying precision, weaving through the midday Manhattan traffic like the other cars were merely suggestions.

“So,” I said, my voice sounding too loud in the small cabin. “Are you allowed to talk? Or is the silent treatment part of the premium security package?”

River’s eyes flicked to the mirror for a millisecond.

“I talk when necessary,” he grunted. His voice was gravelly, deep enough to rattle the windows.

“Okay,” I nodded slowly. “And is it necessary to tell me if you’re actually a hitman? Because you look like a hitman. Or a terminator sent back from the future to protect me, or possibly assassinate me.”

A muscle in his jaw ticked and, for a second, I thought I’d annoyed him. Then, to my shock, the corner of his mouth twitched upward.

“I’m Head of Security, Miss Jones. If I were a hitman, you wouldn’t be sitting in the back seat. You’d be in the trunk.”

“Comforting,” I muttered, sinking back into the leather. “Truly heartwarming.”

I watched him for a moment. He was massive. His neck was thick with muscle, and his hands on the steering wheel were scarred and calloused. He smelled of leather, gun oil, and…something woodsy. Pine, maybe? It was faint but distinct.

“How long have you worked for him?” I asked as curiosity got the better of me.

“Long enough.”

“Does he always buy people?”

River hit the blinker, merging smoothly onto the bridge toward Brooklyn. “He didn’t buy you, Miss Jones. He made an investment.”

“That makes me sound like a stock option.”

“Better than a liability,” River countered. “The Boss doesn’t take interest in people often. If he brought you into the fold, it means you have value.”

“Value,” I repeated, looking at the skyline. “Right. I’m a shield against the scary Board of Directors.”

River didn’t respond to that. He just hummed, a low sound that vibrated through the seat. It sounded skeptical, as if he knew something I didn’t.

When we pulled up to my apartment building in Brooklyn, the contrast was almost comical. The sleek, black, armored SUV looked like a spaceship landed in front of the peeling brick facade of my walk-up.

The two guys that were arguing on the stoop went silent as River stepped out of the car, straightening his suit jacket. He didn’t even look at them, but the sheer size of him made them scatter like pigeons. At six-foot-six and built like a tank, River didn’t need to make threats. His existence was a threat.

He rounded the vehicle and opened my door.

“I can pack myself,” I told him as I hopped out. “You can wait here. The stairs are narrow, and it smells like boiled cabbage in the hallway.”

“Negative,” River said, closing the door and locking the car with a chirp. “Orders are to stay with you. Not to let you out of my sight.”

“My roommate is going to freak out,” I warned him.

“She’ll live.”

We walked up the three flights of stairs and I was panting by the second floor - cardio was not my friend - but River didn’t even breathe harder. He moved silently for a big man, his footsteps making zero noise on the creaky wood. It was unnerving.

“Kelly! I’m back!” I unlocked my door and pushed it open. “And please don’t scream, but I brought a-”

“Oh my God!” Kelly shrieked, dropping a spatula onto the linoleum with a loud clang.

She was standing in the kitchenette, a tiny whirlwind of chaos. She was wearing neon pink fuzzy socks that made her look even shorter than her five-foot-three frame, and an oversized t-shirt that hung off one shoulder. Her strawberry blonde hair was in a chaotic bun held together by a pencil.

Her eyes went from me to the mountain of a man filling our doorway. He literally blocked out the hallway light, casting a massive shadow over her.

“Lil!” she squeaked. “Is he arresting us? Did you rob a bank? I told you that credit card scheme was a bad idea!”

“I didn’t rob a bank,” I said quickly, stepping in front of River. It was laughable, like a sapling trying to hide a redwood. “Kelly, this is River. He’s a…colleague.”

River stepped into the apartment. And then, he stopped dead.

I felt the air in the room shift. River’s entire body went rigid, like a pointer dog spotting a pheasant, and his nostrils flared wide, taking in a sharp, deep breath.

He wasn’t looking at the windows. He wasn’t checking the fire escape. He was staring at Kelly.

His dark eyes were blown wide, pupils dilating until the black nearly swallowed the iris. He looked at her terrified, wide eyes, his gaze traveling to the spatula on the floor, then slowly down at her feet.

“A colleague?” Kelly squeaked, holding her hands up defensively, backing away until her hip hit the counter. “You work at a dive bar! He looks like eats boulders for breakfast!”

River didn’t blink, not even once. He took a slow, dazed step toward her, the floorboards groaning under his weight. The sheer difference in their size was staggering. He was practically a giant, and she looked like a doll he could crush with two fingers.

“Hey!” Kelly bristled, her fear momentarily replaced by indignation as she noticed him looming. She grabbed a wooden spoon from the counter, brandishing it like a sword. “Back off, giant! We have pepper spray! And I have a baseball bat under my bed!”

I expected River to scoff. I expected him to be annoyed. Instead, a slow, dopey grin spread across his scarred face. It completely transformed him from the terminator to something…softer. Dangerous, but soft.

“A baseball bat,” he repeated, his voice dropping to a low, reverent rumble that seemed to vibrate the floor. “Feisty.”

Then, his gaze dropped to the neon pink fluff on her feet again. He seemed oddly fixated on those socks, as he stared at them like they were the Eighth Wonder of the world.

“And fuzzy socks,” he rumbled again, a hint of awe in his voice.

Okay…this is getting weird.

Kelly blinked, looking down at her feet and then back up at the tower of a man. “They…they keep my toes warm. The floor is c-cold.”

“Tactical,” River nodded solemnly, his eyes crinkling at the corners. “Pink. Fuzzy. Tactical.”

Kelly flushed a deep scarlet. “Are you making fun of me?”

“Never,” River vowed, looking offended by the suggestion. “They are…small. Cute.”

Unable to take this anymore, I grabbed Kelly’s arm and dragged her into the bedroom, shutting the door in River’s dazed face.

“Okay, listen to me,” I whispered frantically. “I quit the bar. I got a new job.”

“What kind of job?” Kelly hissed, peeking at the door. “And why is that behemoth staring at my feet like he’s never seen fluffy socks before?”

“He’s…eccentric. He’s security. For a CEO. Alexander DeLuca.”

I could hear Kelly’s jaw drop and hit the floor. “The DeLuca guy? As in the same man that owns half the city? The one that looks like a Greek god? Lil, are you serious?”

“Dead serious. But the catch is, I have to move into his place. Immediately. Like, right now.”

“Oh,” Kelly’s face fell. “Right now? But…but you just got back.”

“I know,” I said, guilt gnawing at me. “I’m sorry. But this job, Kelly. The pay is insane.”

I pulled out my phone and opened the banking app again. I tapped the transfer button.

“Check your phone.”

She frowned as she pulled her phone from her pocket. A second later, it pinged and the silence that followed was deafening.

Her eyes moving from the phone to me then back at the phone.

“Lil,” Kelly whispered, her eyes filling with tears. “This is…this twenty thousand dollars. Did you add too many zeroes?”

“No,” I choked out, grabbing her arms. “That’s rent for the next year. Plus utilities. Plus that trip to Italy.”

I’d wanted to give half the money Alexander had paid me to Kelly, but ultimately decided against it. If she saw 1,5 million dollars in her bank account she would have a heart attack and I would have to tell her the truth about the deal I’d struck. But Alexander’s instructions where clear. No one was to know.

Instead, I’d settled on giving her a small amount. And I planned to continue sending her money until the amount I’d been given was split in half. Kelly was my best friend, my sister is everything but blood, and if I was rich, then so was she.

“I can’t take this,” she sobbed.

“You have to. I’m leaving you with the lease. Consider it…severance pay.”

With another hiccuped sob she threw her arms around me, hugging me, and we cried for a solid minute.

When we finally composed ourselves and walked back out, River was standing exactly where I’d left him.

But he wasn’t inspecting the perimeter or doing anything remotely related to security.

He was holding Kelly’s favorite mug, a delicate, chipped thing with a cat on it. In his massive, scarred hand, the mug looked like a thimble. He was staring at it as if it held the answer to some great question, then at the dying spider plant on the windowsill.

He looked up as Kelly entered and his gaze locked on her instantly.

“Too much water,” he said, softly, as he took a step toward her, and Kelly froze, looking up…and up…and up.

“Excuse me?” she squeaked again.

River gestured to the plant with his free hand. “The roots are rotting,” he explained, his voice gentle. So gentle it was kind of jarring coming from a man who looked like he could punch through a wall. He leaned down, bringing his face closer to hers, invading her space completely. “You’re drowning it because you care too much. Let it dry out. It’s resilient.”

He paused, his dark eyes burning into hers. “Like you.”

Kelly’s face turned the color of a tomato. She stared up at him, her mouth slightly open, trembling under his intensity. “Oh. Uh…thanks?”

River just stared at her, a look of pure, unadulterated fascination on his face. He inhaled deeply again, his chest expanding as if he were trying to suck all the air out of the room. Or memorize her sent.

“Two hours, Miss Jones,” he said to me, though he didn’t look away from Kelly for a second. “We’re on a schedule.”

Packing was a blur after that.

River wasn’t just a bodyguard. He was a machine. He grabbed the boxes I filled and carried them down three flights of stairs like they were filled with feathers. But every time he came back up. He lingered.

He fixed the wobbly leg on our kitchen table without using any tools. He just gripped the wood in one massive hand and shoved it back into place with a terrifying crack.

Then he looked at Kelly for approval, like a golden retriever who had just brought back a bird.

“Better,” he grunted.

“Thanks,” Kelly whispered, eyeing his biceps with a mix of fear and awe.

When I tried to lift the heavy box containing my textbooks, River appeared at my elbow.

“I got it.”

“It’s heavy,” I warned, and he ignored me as he picked it up with one hand. One. Hand.

As he leaned to grab the box, he paused. He was so close, I could see the pores on his skin. I saw his nostrils flare again as he took a subtle breath near my hair.

“What?”

River pulled back, a furrow between his brows. The dopey, love-struck look he had for Kelly vanished instantly, replaced by sharp, clinical confusion. He looked at me, then sniffed the air again, puzzled

“You smell…” he trailed off, shaking his head. “Never mind. Just…weird static.” He turned and walked out with the books without another word..

I touched my hair self-consciously. Weird static? Alexander had said something similar.

Thirty minutes later, the apartment was stripped of my existence, and I stood on sidewalk, hugging Kelly one last time.

“Call me every night,” she demanded. “If he turns out to be a vampire, text me the code word.”

“Garlic,” I smiled.

River was standing by the car door, ignoring the street and the traffic completely. He was just looking at Kelly standing on the stoop, wiggling her toes in her neon socks.

“Goodbye, Kelly,” he rumbled. He said her name slowly, emphasizing every letter, his voice deep and rough.

Kelly waved awkwardly. She looked so small standing there. “Um..b-bye, River. Thanks for..fixing the table. And not killing us,” she mumbled that last part but I still heard her, and I was pretty sure River did, too.

River nodded solemnly. He took a step closer to her, then stopped himself, his hands clenching into fists at his sides.

“I’ll be back,” he stated, his tone leaving absolutely no room for argument.

“You will?” Kelly blinked.

“To secure the perimeter,” River said quickly, his ears turning a dark shade of pink. “The lock is substandard. And…” He glanced at her feet. “To get you more socks. You need to be warm.”

I climbed into the car, hiding a smile at his bizarre fascination with my best friend...and her socks.

As we pulled away from the curb, leaving my old life behind, I looked at River’s reflection in the mirror, his eyes glued to the shrinking figure of Kelly until we turned a corner.

“River?”

“Yes, Miss Jones?”

“You really like spider plants, huh?”

He cleared his throat, his knuckles white on the steering wheel. “She needs better locks. The neighborhood is not safe for someone so…small.”

“Right. Locks.”

He merged onto the highway, heading toward the glittering spine of the DeLuca tower.

“One thing you should now, Miss Jones,” he said, his voice taking on a serious note, the fascination vanishing as the imposing building came into view. “Where we are going…it’s not like here. The rules are different. The Boss…he lives in a different world.”

“I know,” I replied, thinking of the obscene amount of money he’d offered me just to pretend to be his wife. “Rich people world.”

River glanced over at me in the mirror, and for a second, I saw something like pity in his gaze. He sniffed the air again, that puzzled look returning as he caught my scent in the enclosed car.

“Yeah,” he muttered. “Something like that.”

He knew. He knew I had no idea what I was walking into.

And as the city skyline loomed closer, blocking out the sun, I finally let the fear settle in.

I was Alexander’s asset now. And apparently, River was my roommate's future husband.