Chapter 7 Mattaniah
Mattaniah
The alarm goes off at six and I'm already awake, my body having dragged me to the surface every time sleep tried to pull me under with sense-memories of Dominic's mouth on my skin and his voice vibrating against my throat and two words cracking me open until the pleasure wiped my brain clean.c
My stepbrother did that to me, and my body arched into all of it because apparently four years of discipline evaporate the second a Hale boy calls me good.
"You're an idiot," I mutter to the ceiling, the sound of my own voice in the empty room making me flinch because it comes out hoarse from the sounds I made last night that I'm choosing not to think about.
The bathroom mirror agrees with my assessment by the time I get over there, showing someone who looks thoroughly wrecked, curls tangled from the pillow, lips swollen, and a pink mark from his stubble on my collarbone that I catch myself touching before I jerk my hand away.
Even my scent has changed overnight, carrying a sweetness the shower does nothing to fix, and that sweetness follows me to the sink where I shake the blocker bottle and count what's left.
Two pills first, then a long look at my own reflection, then a third even though triple-dosing is the kind of stupid that comes with heart palpitations and nausea and crashes that leave you shaking for hours.
The pills go down dry as I grip the porcelain while I wait for them to hit, running through the thoughts that have kept me controlled since Marcus: stay muted, don't respond, don't let anyone see.
They used to feel like armor. This morning, standing in a bathroom that smells like someone else's soap with my stepbrother's mark on my skin, they feel like a shirt two sizes too small.
I get dressed and push that observation somewhere I don't have to deal with it, rushing downstairs to find the house empty of my new family, and a small plate of cold food waiting for me on the table.
It takes me a few seconds to scarf it down, my mother hanging by the edge of the room before ushering me into the car and by the time the driver pulls up to the front of Hale Industries with us stuffed in the backseat, I've done my best to reassemble the version of me that functions in public.
She pulls out her phone and starts scrolling with the focus she wears when she's working an angle.
I watch her profile and imagine telling her that the blockers aren't holding, that her perfectly trained Omega let a Hale boy take him apart and wanted more.
Her jaw would tighten the way it does right before a lecture.
I can hear every word she'd say without her needing to open her mouth, so I stare out the window and redirect my thoughts. "Why are we here again?"
"Your new father mentioned that having you continue your job at the restaurant would be a bad look for the family." She says new father without a shred of irony, her eyes still on her phone. "So you'll be working here alongside him and your new brothers. I expect you to be perfect, Mattaniah."
The car pulls up to the front entrance of Hale Industries, the building looming over us, all glass and steel and the kind of architecture that exists to remind you how small you are.
People stream through the revolving doors in tailored suits and polished shoes.
I look down at my own clothes and feel my stomach drop because I dressed nicely this morning, or what I thought was nicely, a button-down and slacks from a thrift store that fit well enough.
But sitting in the shadow of this building, I might as well be wearing the marinara-stained apron from Romano's.
"Mom, I'm not exactly dressed for..." I gesture vaguely at the parade of designer labels passing the windshield.
"You look fine." She doesn't look up from her phone to verify this. "Richard will have something arranged for you eventually. For now, keep your jacket buttoned, and nobody will notice."
They will absolutely notice, but arguing with her about wardrobe is a fight I've never won. I reach for the door handle and pause. "Wait, what are you going to do all day?"
Her scrolling stops. She finally looks at me with the expression she reserves for questions she considers beneath her.
"That doesn't concern you. What concerns you is walking through those doors and making a good impression on your new father and your new brothers.
" She reaches across and straightens my collar with a firm tug that's more correction than affection.
"Richard is going to be good for us. He's the best thing that's ever happened to this family, and everything depends on how the next few weeks go.
" Her voice drops. "So don't fuck this up. "
The casual vulgarity strips away any illusion that this is a mother talking to her nervous son.
She is a handler giving final instructions to an asset before deployment, and both of us know it.
Sometimes I wonder if she’s a Beta masquerading as an Omega because her inability to soften feels impossible for her designation.
"I won't," I say, because no other answer exists in our dynamic.
"Good." She turns back to her phone. "Go."
The lobby is even more intimidating than the exterior. Marble floors stretch toward vaulted ceilings, and a security desk dominates the center of the space. I approach it feeling conspicuous in my thrift-store slacks, the blocker-induced tremor making my hands unsteady.
"I'm, um, I'm Mattaniah." My voice comes out smaller than I want it to. "I'm supposed to be starting today, working with Mr. Hale. Richard Hale. He's my, um, my stepfather."
The guard glances at his screen, then straightens visibly.
"Mr. Mattaniah, yes sir. We've been expecting you.
" He actually inclines his head, the small bow catching me so off guard I almost look behind me to see who he's addressing.
"I'll have someone escort you to the executive floor. Can I get you anything while you wait?"
"I'm, I'm fine, thank you." Nobody has ever bowed to me in my life. The guard is already pressing a button and speaking into his earpiece, and within thirty seconds a woman in a sleek blazer appears and gestures for me to follow her toward the private elevator bank.
The elevator is mirrored on all sides. My reflection multiplies to infinity and I barely recognize the nervous Omega staring back at me, standing too straight in clothes that don't belong here.
The woman beside me makes polite small talk that I respond to with monosyllables, and when the doors open onto the top floor, the air hits me differently.
It is cleaner and colder up here, saturated with Richard's scent in a way that leaves no question about who owns this space.
Richard is waiting at the end of the corridor, and the morning starts off rather tame. He shows me that I’ll be little more than his pet, making photocopies, organizing papers, and being at his beck and call. I can handle all of that.
Except, the moment I bring him a file he requested, the nightmare begins.
"Fix your posture."
His hand cracks across my knuckles, and I straighten my spine so fast my back pops. "Yes, sir. Sorry."
"Don't apologize. Just do it correctly." He doesn't look up from his monitor as I arrange the morning's correspondence on his desk, but his hand shoots out and stops mine when I place the first folder. "The angle is wrong. Tabs face me, not you. How many times do I need to explain this?"
"I apparently need to hear it once more." The words slip out before I can catch them. The silence that follows turns my blood to ice.
Richard's gaze lifts from the screen and settles on me with the flat patience of a man who has all the time in the world to make a point. "Would you like to repeat that?"
"No, sir. I'm sorry, sir, I misspoke." My voice goes small and I hate how fast I fold, my body wanting to bare its throat and grovel when three seconds ago some tiny part of me was actually talking back.
He studies me for a long moment, then returns to his monitor. "Your scent is still not muted enough for my preferences. Increase your dosage."
I'm already at triple. The fact that he can still smell me through it sends a chill through my gut. "Yes, sir."
"And you slouch like your mother. Correct it."
The rest of the morning follows the same pattern.
He critiques my typing speed even though I'm faster than his last assistant.
My footsteps earn a sharp word for being too loud.
My pen grip is apparently wrong in ways I didn't know a pen grip could be wrong.
Each critique is delivered without heat, almost bored, and the boredom gets under my skin because it means I'm not even worth getting angry at.
By the time lunch arrives, my knuckles are pink from a mixture of his hand or the metal ruler he started using and my jaw aches from clenching. The ache in my hands keeps blurring into the ache in my chest from last night until I can't separate what hurts from what wants.
The break room is all vending machines and windows and awful lighting that makes everyone look slightly ill.
Ignoring everyone, I take my sandwich to the farthest corner where I eat in small bites with my eyes down.
Coworkers glance over and whisper before looking away, except for a woman around my age who sets her coffee down two tables over and studies me with a smile she pulls back almost immediately.
Nobody is going to sit with the CEO's new stepson, and honestly I wouldn't sit with me either.
"You look like you're having the time of your life."
Amos appears in the doorway with his hands in his pockets and his glasses halfway down his nose. His scent reaches me before he takes a step forward, my body responding with a pull low in my belly that the triple dose barely dents.
"I'm fine, just eating lunch."