Alpha’s Virgin Stripper

JOJO:

When the security guard called me from my room, the last person I would have thought I would meet on the ground floor of my new workplace was Aunt Elowen. I should have picked up Mel's calls earlier, this was certainly what she had been trying to tell, or warn me about. If only I had picked up, it would have been easy to avoid all of this.

Ashley had accompanied me downstairs when she saw the disgruntled look on the face of the security guard that stood in front of our door. Now, I wished she had not. I wished she did not have to see or hear my aunt smear my image with mud and dabble my name in a paint bucket filled with black polish. Now, I just wished that the ground would open and swallow me. I never wanted to be seen by any of these people again.

"No." That was the first word that slipped out of my tongue as I stood there, listening to my aunt lie through her teeth in the presence of the alpha, Bentley, and Neil. I had not taken note of the tears that streamed down my cheeks until I opened my mouth to speak but only heard a muffled sound escape my lips. I wanted to turn my back and run when all eyes rested on me, but I fought hard.

I was tired. Done with and tired of turning my back and running from things, from her. I don't know if it was my mother's successful surgery, but something gave me new strength, new and refreshing strength. When I told the truth about her to the whole world, I would come face to face with her part of my past, and I would address it accordingly; by placing it underneath my feet and trampling upon it.

"I'm grateful for everything you did for me, auntie, but I won't stand here and watch you lie against me, not when you know I only defended myself from your son that night." I spat out. I loved how the words rolled off my tongue. Even though it took much effort, it felt as though a heavy weight had been lifted from my chest once I was done.

"Don't you dare..." She was going to charge toward me with vicious eyes and vile teeth when a guard pulled her back. Even after everything she had done, it pained me to see her like this.

"Why did you have to defend yourself against him?" The alpha's voice growled beside me. I swallowed hard as I turned slowly toward him. If my heartbeat had been racing before, it was running ten times faster now. There was a dangerous glare in his eyes, one that warned me against lying.

My throat ran dry again at the thought. The rough skin of Mykel's palm against my body. The smell of alcohol fanned my nose from his breath. I parted my quivering lips to speak.

"He was going to rape me."

There it was. I dropped the missile right in the middle of everyone.

I wanted to claw at my skin and scratch his touch away from it until I bled out. However, I settled for letting tears wet my cheeks. My Aunt shook her head frantically, as a sign for no. I could see the panic in her eyes, feel it in her stare. For the first time, I was seeing tears roll down her cheeks. Even though I knew it was an act, my stubborn heart still reached out to her.

"Mykel did not mean to hurt her, he had only been trying to get her to return the food she had been stealing from my kitchen. She steals too! She had stolen so much money from us, I'd lost count at this point. Yet, she's trying to paint me bad, how could you, JoJo?" She continued to wail like a distraught mother, which she was.

I could see Neil and Bentley exchange glances and settle their eyes on me. No one here had ever been a witness to any of it, it was my word versus hers. And from the looks of things, hers were winning. I could not let that happen. I had not mustered enough courage to speak only to be swept underneath the rug.

"I have scars! Evidence. I could show you the scars he inflicted on me that night..." I drawled, only realizing how crazy I was to scream like that after I had already screamed. What was I thinking? Surely they wouldn't care that...

"Show me." The alpha's voice rested on my ears again. I did not wait for a second longer. I ignored the heat that rose from my stomach to my cheeks.

I raised my long-sleeved t-shirt to expose my stomach. I had not applied any concealer yet, so they were very visible, though they were turning purple from healing.

"Not everything is from when he hit me... only this... and this... and then-" Alpha Lake cut me short again.

"And how did you get the others?" His cold voice silenced the atmosphere. No one dared speak, but I couldn't tell which rendered them speechless; the scars on my skin, or the alpha's domineering presence. For me, it was the latter. "I... She used to hit me, too." I had wanted to sound bold, and daring, but no matter how hard I tried, my voice came out as a bare whimper.

"No! That's a lie! She used to harm herself! Yes, she was depressed, I have nothing to do with anything she's talking about. I'm innocent." Aunt Elowen lied, throwing her hands into the air as she screamed.

"Where's your son?" Alpha Lake asked. She spoke immediately.

I stared up at him, it was easier to do so now that his eyes were not on me. Aunt Elowen swallowed hard before she replied.

"The hospital. I don't have money for his treatment. She... she stabbed him, alpha. You have to believe..."

"Which hospital?" He pressed on.

She called out the name of a familiar hospital close to her house. Alpha Lake turned to the guards standing beside him and spoke calmly.

"Take her away. Put her under police custody, get her son and arrest him too." His tone was definite, dangerously definite. I watched as three guards matched my aunt and picked her up from the floor. She screamed and struggled to wriggle free, but none of it ended well for her. She was dragged by her feet towards a black van.

"I will come back for you, JoJo! Don't you dare think you won this fight! I will kill you!" She cried out.

"Follow me."

The voice crept into my mind once more. I prayed, more than anything else, that it was my subconscious speaking.

But, I was wrong.

It was him, and he was looking down at me.