Chapter 13 #2
Three hundred families. Hundreds of people who went home and had to tell their spouses, their children, that they’d suddenly lost their jobs.
People who might have been struggling to pay mortgages, medical bills, college tuition.
People who had nothing to do with Vertex’s harassment campaign but got caught in the crossfire anyway.
“People who were part of a system designed to destroy everything you care about,” Dominic said firmly. “People who would have eliminated your shop, your friends’ businesses, your entire way of life without a second thought.”
“You don’t know that! You don’t know anything about those individual people. For all you know, some of them were just clerks and accountants trying to pay their bills.”
My hand moved protectively to my stomach again, the gesture unconscious but fierce. Those people had families too. Children who depended on them.
How could I raise a child with someone who saw human suffering as acceptable collateral damage?
“It doesn’t matter,” Dominic said, his alpha authority bleeding into his voice. “I will always choose to protect you over strangers. That’s not a moral failing, the way I see it.”
“That’s exactly the problem!” I was shouting now, weeks of stress and pregnancy hormones and moral outrage finally boiling over. “You see the world in terms of us versus them, and anyone who isn’t us is expendable!”
“Yes,” Dominic said without hesitation. “That’s exactly how I see it. And it’s how I’ll always see it.”
His complete lack of remorse was somehow more infuriating than if he’d tried to justify his actions. But there was something else, something that had been nagging at me since Sarah’s call. The way they’d looked at each other, the careful evasiveness, the sense that I was missing something crucial.
“This was always the plan, wasn’t it?” I said quietly, the words coming from somewhere deep and certain. “You weren’t saving my community. You were claiming it.”
The silence stretched too long. Blake’s carefully neutral expression flickered, and Dominic’s jaw tightened.
“That’s not—” Dominic started.
“Blake,” I turned to face him directly, my voice sharp. “You were part of this from the beginning. What was the original plan? Before everything changed?”
"Well…" Blake's mouth opened, then closed again. His blue eyes darted toward his cousin.
“When did the plan change, Dominic?” My voice was quiet now. “When did you decide to be the hero instead of the villain? Was it before or after you got me into bed?”
“You don’t understand—”
“Oh god.” I stepped back, pieces clicking into place with horrible clarity. “The seduction was part of it, wasn't it?"
“It wasn’t like that—”
“When did it stop being like that? When did I stop being a mark and become your mate?” I asked. “Or did it ever stop?”
“You’re twisting this,” Dominic said, but his scent carried guilt and old shame.
“Am I? Because your methods haven’t changed, have they? You’re still destroying people to get what you want. The only difference is now you’re doing it for me instead of to me.”
Blake looked deeply uncomfortable under my direct scrutiny. “Leo, the circumstances have changed completely—”
“Answer the question, Blake.” My voice carried a steel I didn’t know I possessed. “You’re the architect of corporate strategies. This was your plan originally, wasn’t it? Before Dominic developed feelings for me. What were you two actually planning to do to my community?”
Blake glanced at Dominic, who nodded grimly.
“Complete acquisition,” Blake said quietly. “We were going to systematically acquire every property in the historical district, modernize the buildings, and lease them to high-end retailers. Turn it into a luxury shopping destination.”
“And my shop?”
“Would have been demolished,”Dominic said, his words clipped and distant. “Along with most of the original structures. We were going to keep the facades for historical authenticity, but gut the interiors.”
The words hit me like a physical blow. Everything I’d inherited from my grandfather, everything I’d worked to preserve and protect—they would have destroyed it all.
“And me?” I asked, though I wasn’t sure I wanted to know. “What was I in this plan?”
“You were supposed to be temporary,” Dominic said, the words seeming to tear themselves from his throat. “A way to understand the community's potential for resistance, to find pressure points. I intended to seduce you, gain your trust, maybe get you to influence others to sell willingly.”
“Instead of?”
“Instead of forcing them out through harassment and financial pressure the way Vertex was doing,” he finished. “It would have been cleaner, less public scrutiny. Less painful.”
My throat constricted. My eyes burned, but I blinked hard against the tears. I would not cry. "Maybe for you."
Through the doorway, I caught a glimpse of Jake hovering in the hallway, his face pale as he took in the full scope of what was being revealed. His fingers trembled as he gripped the doorframe, his green eyes wide with shock.
“So when you told me you were falling in love with me,” I said slowly, turning my attention back to Dominic, “when you said I meant something to you—was any of that real?”
“All of it,” Dominic said desperately, moving toward me. “Everything changed the moment I met you. The plan, my priorities, everything. You completely rewired who I am as a person.”
I barked a harsh laugh, my hand going to my stomach again, protective and unconscious. My chest tightened with fresh pain.
What kind of father had I given this child?
“It doesn't matter anymore! I chose you, chose this community, chose building something instead of tearing it down.” His voice carried a note of desperation now.
“You were right… you never actually lied to me, did you?” I said, the realization hitting me with fresh horror. “You just… never told me the whole truth. You let me believe your feelings developed naturally, that your interest in protecting the community came from getting to know us.”
“Leo—”
“You omitted the part where I was supposed to be a tool. Where my grandfather’s shop was marked not for revitalization, but strategic demolition. Where every conversation we had was supposed to serve your original plan.”
“You chose to destroy different people instead,” I continued. “Three hundred families, Dominic. You didn’t become a better person—you just found new targets.”
The weight of their scents—Dominic’s pine and spice now bitter with guilt, Blake’s sandalwood and amber heavy with discomfort—was making it hard to breathe. I needed space, needed to get away from the oppressive atmosphere of their presence.
Through our bond, I could feel his desperate need to fix this, to make me understand. But I could also feel that core certainty, that unwavering belief that his methods were justified as long as they served his goals.
“I can’t be with someone who thinks like that,” I said quietly.
The words hung in the air between us, sharp and final. The ultrasound photo in my pocket felt like it was burning against my ribs.
“You don’t mean that,” Dominic said, moving toward me with predatory grace. “You’re angry, but you don’t mean that.”
“I do mean it.” I backed toward the guest bedroom. “I mean every word of it.”
“Leo, stop.” His voice carried alpha command now, the kind of authority that made my knees weak and my resolve crumble.
The omega response was immediate and involuntary.
My knees buckled, my body preparing to drop into submission before I could even think to resist. Behind me, I heard Penny’s sharp intake of breath as the command hit him too, and from the hallway came a muffled sound that suggested Jake had been affected as well.
My legs gave out beneath me, the world tilting as gravity claimed my body.
But Dominic’s reflexes were faster—his hands caught me before I could hit the floor, steadying me against his chest as my body trembled with the conflicting impulses of submission and barely restrained fury.
“Dominic, please!” Penny’s voice was shaking now, torn between his protective instincts for me and his body's own involuntary need to defer to the alpha command. “Let him go! You can’t force him to—”
Penny's voice reached me from somewhere far away and I heard Blake say something to Dominic, but my focus remained locked on my alpha's steel-gray gaze. My beautiful, ruthless alpha.
“Please,” I whispered, my voice shaking as much as my body. “Release the command.”
His hands tightened on my arms for a moment, and I felt his reluctance through the bond—the alpha instinct to keep me close, to make me listen, to fix this through dominance.
But then he exhaled slowly, and I could sense Penny’s relief as the oppressive weight of alpha authority lifted from the air.
“You’re released,” he said quietly, and immediately the compulsion lifted.
I straightened carefully, his hands still steadying me until I found my balance again. “You made your choice. You chose to be the kind of person who ruins lives without regret. Now I’m making a choice too.”
“What choice?”
“I’m choosing not to share a bed and my nest with you tonight.” The words came out more broken than I’d intended, my throat constricting as moisture blurred my vision. “Sleep on Blake’s couch. I need time to think.”
“Leo, we’re bonded. You can’t just—”
“I’m not asking for forever,” I said. “I’m asking for time to figure out if I can accept who you’ve shown me you really are.”
I didn’t stop to listen to anything else he had to say. My feet carried me down the hallway, each step putting distance between us. The guest room door clicked shut behind me, my trembling fingers fumbling with the lock until it turned with a final, decisive snap.
Through the bond, I felt his shock and anger and desperate need to fix whatever was breaking between us. But I also felt something else—that persistent bitter satisfaction that suggested he still believed he’d made the right choice.
And that, more than anything else, told me just how far apart we really were.