Claimed by My Bestie's Alpha Daddy novel Chapter 200

Amelia

When I opened my eyes, the ceiling was different. It wasn’t concrete or reinforced glass; the overhead beams were carved wood, honey-colored and familiar. The walls were painted a soft cream, far from the sterile white I had come to dread, and light filtered through real curtains, soft, diffuse, and warm, instead of the harsh flicker of containment fluorescents.

I was in Richard’s room. Not a cell, not a sterile ward. A real room. His.

It felt startlingly ordinary, the kind of room people lived in without fear or calculation. There was a desk with space for books, a bed that looked like it was meant for rest instead of restraint, and sunlight that didn’t hum with artificial tension. It wasn’t built to contain me. It just existed.

I wasn’t alone. I could hear the guards just outside the door, their shifting weight and quiet comm exchanges muffled through the wood. Beneath that, a low thrum vibrated faintly in the air, Simon’s monitoring system, still active. It brushed along the edge of my awareness like static I hadn’t realized was there until it returned.

Still, I wasn’t behind a barrier. No invisible field hummed around me. No containment grid separated me from the rest of the world. That was new. It meant they thought I was safe, at least safe enough to be watched but notconfined. It meant I’d come back.

I sat up slowly because I wasn’t sure what parts of me might resist. My muscles throbbed with the soreness of overuse, and a dutl ache bloomed behind my eyes like a bruise I couldn’t see. It felt like waking from a fever: too hot, too clear, too exposed.

Richard sat in the armchair by the window. He wasn’t pacing, wasn’t scanning paperwork, just watching.

Motionless, alert, and quiet. His hands rested in his lap, fingers loosely folded. There was something brittle in his stillness, like he was holding himself there with sheer force of will. The shadows beneath his eyes werent just from fatigue, they were from waiting.

“What’s his name?” I asked. My voice rasped like it hadn’t been used in days.

He blinked. “Who?”

“The guard,” I said. “The one I hurt.”

His jaw flexed. “Connor.”

I looked down at the blanket draped over my legs. “Send something to his family. A meal delivery, flowers, whatever they need while he recovers. From me.”

“I already did,” he said. “But I’ll make sure they know it s from you.”

Something cracked open in my chest. That small gesture, something I hadn’t even thought to do, something lcouldn’t do while I wasn’t myself, landed with crushing weight. I had hurt someone who was only doing his job.

And I hadn’t even known I was doing it. That truth didn’t soften anything. It made it worse.

I gripped the blanket tightly, trying to keep myself upright, but the tears surged anyway. My breath hitched as my face twisted, and I buried it in my hands. The sobs pushed up fast, ragged and choking, scraping their way out through a throat too tight to let them pass cleanly. My chest ached with each shallow inhale, and the guilt sat heavy and full in my lungs, thick as smoke.

Richard was beside me before I could speak. He didn’t ask what was wrong or hesitate. He moved with quiet purpose and wrapped his arms around me like he meant to hold me together. I let myself lean into him, clinging without thinking, my forehead pressed to his shoulder as the shaking took over. The pressure in my chest didn’t ease, but his steadiness made it bearable.

“I didn’t know who I was,” I whispered, barely able to get the words out. “I didn’t even know what I was.”

“You were stilt in there,” he murmured, not letting go.” Even when you couldn’t feel it, I could.”

I pulled back slightly, just enough to see his face. “What if they do it again? To someone else?”

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