Claimed by My Mafia Alpha King

Irina’s POV

"Where were you? The baby cried all night!"

Mia’s exhausted, frustrated voice felt like a physical slap to my face. The sheer guilt crashed heavily over me, stealing the breath right out of my lungs. My chest physically ached.

I stood frozen on the cracked, dirty concrete walkway. The freezing autumn wind whipped aggressively around my bare legs. I clutched the heavy, dark wool blanket tightly to my chest. My fingers were completely numb. I felt like the absolute worst mother in the entire world.

I had left her alone. I had left my tiny, fragile baby crying in the dark while I was trapped in a nightmare, suffocating under the terrifying weight of my past.

"Mia," I choked out. My voice was incredibly raw and raspy. I sounded completely broken. "Mia, I am so, so sorry."

Mia froze on the porch. She blinked, her furious expression faltering.

"I didn’t mean to leave," I whispered, my voice trembling uncontrollably. A hot tear slipped down my frozen cheek. I couldn’t tell her the truth. I couldn’t tell her that I had been kidnapped by a werewolf king. I couldn’t tell her that monsters were real, and that the most dangerous one of all was standing right behind me. "I ran into... some special circumstances last night."

Special circumstances.

It was the understatement of a lifetime. My mate had found me. The Alpha who terrified me to my very core had finally tracked me down.

Mia’s angry posture slowly melted away. She took a good, hard look at me. She saw my bare, dirt-stained feet. She saw the dark, ugly bruises forming on my pale skin. She saw the massive, expensive wool blanket draped over my shivering, fragile frame.

Her dark eyes softened instantly. The exhausted frustration was replaced by pure, unadulterated concern.

"Oh my god, Irina," Mia breathed out, stepping down the rotting wooden stairs. She pulled her oversized t-shirt tighter around herself. "Special circumstances? You look like you just survived a horrible car crash. What happened to you? Where are your shoes? Are you hurt?"

I wanted to throw myself into her arms. I wanted to collapse onto the dirty pavement and sob until my throat bled. She was my only friend. She was the only person in this entire miserable city who had ever shown me any real kindness.

But I couldn’t move.

Because right behind me, casting a massive, terrifying shadow over the small yard, was Nicholas.

Mia looked past my shoulder. Her dark eyes widened drastically. She stopped dead in her tracks.

The air in the front yard completely shifted. The heavy, suffocating scent of dark rain and ozone rolled fiercely over the small space. It was completely overwhelming.

I didn’t have to turn around to know what he looked like. Nicholas was a towering, lethal titan. He was dressed in a bespoke, dark designer suit that probably cost more than this entire duplex. He was radiating absolute, crushing power. He looked completely out of place in this cheap, dirty human slum. He looked exactly like what he was—a predator. An apex predator who had just invaded a very small, very fragile nest.

All the softness in Mia’s face vanished instantly.

A fierce, protective fire ignited in her exhausted eyes. She didn’t cower. She didn’t run away. She was completely oblivious to the fact that the man standing on her lawn could snap her neck with a single flick of his wrist.

She marched right up to me, grabbed my arm, and aggressively shoved me behind her back.

She stood firmly between me and the Mad King. She used her own fragile human body as a physical shield to protect me.

"Who the hell are you?" Mia demanded. Her voice was sharp, hostile, and completely devoid of fear. She glared fiercely up at the giant man towering over us.

My blood ran completely cold.

My heart completely stopped beating. Pure, unadulterated terror violently seized my throat. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t think.

*No, Mia, no.*

You don’t speak to an Alpha like that. You definitely don’t speak to *this* Alpha like that. Nicholas was ruthless. He was volatile. He was a king who demanded absolute, unwavering submission from every breathing creature in his presence. If a werewolf disrespected him, they lost a limb. If a human did it...

"Hey! I’m talking to you, buddy," Mia snapped again, her voice echoing loudly in the quiet, smoggy morning air. She crossed her arms tightly over her chest. "Are you the guy? Huh?"

Nicholas didn’t move a single muscle.

He stood perfectly still on the cracked pavement. His massive hands hung loosely at his sides. His jaw was clenched so tight that the muscles ticked dangerously under his skin. His pitch-black eyes were completely unreadable. He just stared down at her, silent and absolutely terrifying.

His silence only made Mia angrier.

"Are you the one who did this to her?" Mia interrogated, gesturing aggressively toward my bruised, blanket-wrapped body. "Are you the asshole who’s been bullying Irina? Because if you are, I swear to God, I will call the cops right now. You don’t get to just show up here and—"

Panic violently exploded in my chest.

I couldn’t let her finish that sentence. I couldn’t let her push him any further.

I reached out frantically from behind her. My shaking fingers grabbed a tight handful of her oversized t-shirt sleeve. I yanked on the thin cotton fabric, hard.

"Mia, stop," I whispered desperately.

My voice was shaking so violently I could barely form the words. I tugged her sleeve again, practically pleading with her.

"Please, Mia. Just stop. Don’t say another word," I begged quietly, my eyes darting nervously to Nicholas’s imposing figure. "Please."

Mia looked back at me over her shoulder. Her brow was deeply furrowed. She was incredibly confused, but she could clearly see the sheer, absolute terror written all over my pale face. She opened her mouth, ready to argue, ready to defend me again.

But before she could utter a single syllable, a sound cut sharply through the freezing morning air.

*Waaaaah!*

It was high-pitched. It was desperate. It was completely unmistakable.

The piercing wail of a crying baby echoed loudly from inside the small, run-down house.

The sound hit me like a violent bolt of lightning. Every single muscle in my body jolted. The suffocating fear, the terrifying presence of the Alpha, the cold wind, the biting concrete—it all completely vanished. My entire world instantly narrowed down to that one, single sound.

My son.

My baby was crying. He was awake, he was scared, and he needed me.

The fierce, undeniable maternal instinct violently overrode every single ounce of trauma and fear in my body. Nothing else mattered. Not the Mad King standing on the lawn. Not the guards waiting in the armored SUV. Absolutely nothing.

I dropped Mia’s sleeve instantly. 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝓮𝒘𝙚𝙗𝒏𝙤𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝒐𝙢

I pushed right past my friend, ignoring her startled gasp. I completely abandoned the heavy wool blanket, letting it fall into a dark heap on the dirty porch. I sprinted through the open front door on my bare, freezing feet.

I ran frantically down the narrow, messy hallway. The desperate cries grew louder and louder.

I burst into the tiny bedroom, my eyes immediately finding the small, cheap crib in the corner of the room. I didn’t hesitate for a fraction of a second. I reached down into the crib.

I immediately rushed in and gathered the baby into my arms.