Chapter 14 Dominic
Dominic
Amos has been watching Mattaniah all morning, and I've been watching Amos watch him, and the data I'm collecting makes my jaw tight in ways I need to address before the afternoon.
I booked the executive floor conference room for my morning meetings specifically because the glass walls give me a direct sightline to Mattaniah's cubicle.
The quarterly review with the department heads could have happened on any floor, but I wanted eyes on the Omega while Father has his claws out, and I wanted to see who else gravitates toward that desk when I'm not standing next to it.
The three of us rode into the office together because Mattaniah has apparently stopped pretending he doesn't want to be near us.
The car ride involved Amos in the front seat twisted around to explain a financial discrepancy in the Southeast division reports while Mattaniah leaned forward from the back with his elbows on his knees, asking questions.
His scent warmed every time Amos praised one of his observations.
Amos' scent shifted too, deepening into something I've only ever smelled from him in our bedroom, and his hand found Mattaniah's knee at a red light and lingered there four seconds longer than strategy requires.
That's the problem. Strategy doesn't linger.
At the department briefing, I watch through the conference room glass as Amos positions himself between Mattaniah and Father without being asked, his body angling to block the Omega from direct line of sight.
During a coffee break, Amos brings Mattaniah a cup without being told how he takes it. He already knows. That's not observation, that's someone who cares enough to memorize preferences that have nothing to do with leverage.
A junior associate from legal touches Mattaniah's arm in the hallway around ten, just casual contact while asking about a document. Amos' head turns from fifteen feet away as his scent sharpens and his shoulders square, the associate removing his hand so fast he nearly drops his coffee.
The moment that tips me from observation into action comes just before lunch. Mattaniah is at his desk and Amos has found yet another a reason to be on the executive floor despite his own office being four stories down.
He's leaning against the partition beside Mattaniah's cubicle, explaining something, Mattaniah looking up at him with an expression I recognize because I've seen it directed at me.
It's the look the Omega wears when someone is treating his intelligence as worth engaging, and it softens every line in his face.
Amos tucks a curl behind Mattaniah's ear, the Omega’s eyes fluttering closed for a half-second before he catches himself and pulls back, glancing around the office to see if anyone noticed.
That curl-tuck is what does it. Amos can't help himself around this Omega anymore, and a man who can't help himself isn't running a scheme.
My phone buzzes, Father's blinking name on the screen.
My office. Now.
The walk to the executive floor takes four minutes. I use every second of it to lock down my scent and my expression, building the mask I've worn in his presence since I was old enough to understand that showing him anything real was handing him a weapon.
Father is standing at his window when I enter, his back to the door, his posture radiating the kind of calm that means he's about to draw blood. He doesn't turn around. "Close the door."
"You wanted to see me."
"I've been watching you this week." He still doesn't turn around, his reflection in the glass studying me, though, tracking my face for micro-expressions the way he's done since I was a child. "You and your brother both. You've developed an interesting new hobby."
"I don't know what you mean."
"Don't insult me, Dominic." He turns now, his expression pleasant in the way that means nothing pleasant is coming. "Your new stepbrother. The pretty one with the curls and the inadequate blockers. You've been circling him since he arrived."
"He's part of the household now. I'm being welcoming."
"You're being territorial." Father growls out, crossing to his desk and sitting, gesturing for me to take the chair across from him.
I remain standing, the defiance in my choice making his smile widen.
"I've seen the way you look at him. The way Amos looks at him.
The way both of you position yourselves between him and everyone else in any room he enters. "
"Amos is protective by nature. I'm observant. Neither of those things is unusual."
"No. What's unusual is that you're both directing those instincts at the same Omega." He steeples his fingers. "An Omega who belongs to this household. Who works for me. Who is, technically speaking, your stepbrother now."
"Is there a point to this conversation?"
"The point is that I'm not blind, and I'm not stupid, and I know when my sons are sniffing around something I haven't given them permission to touch.
" His voice stays pleasant but his eyes don't. "Mattaniah is a complication I'm still assessing.
His mother is useful for now, which means he's useful for now, which means I need him functional and focused and not distracted by whatever games you and Amos are playing. "
My jaw tightens before I can hide my response. Father's gaze drops to the tension and his smile widens.
"There it is." He sounds almost fond. "You've always had tells, Dominic.
You think you've mastered that face of yours, but I built that face.
I know where the cracks are." He leans back in his chair.
"Here's what's going to happen. You're going to leave Mattaniah alone.
Both of you. Whatever you're doing with him stops today.
He answers to me, he works for me, and when I decide what role he's going to play in this family, you'll be the first to know. Until then, he's off limits."
The rage that moves through me is all too familiar. I've been swallowing it in this office since I was fourteen, and I swallow it now, letting nothing reach my face. "Understood."
"Good." Father waves a hand toward the door. "That's all."
I make it to the elevator before I let my scent slip.
The leather and smoke turns sour, fury bleeding through the control I maintain in his presence.
The executive floor secretary glances up as I pass and quickly looks away.
By the time I reach my office, the cold rage has settled into something more useful.
Father must have seen Amos’ with Mattaniah, the same way I did.
Father thinks he can claim Mattaniah. He believes his sons will step aside and let him take what he wants because that's what we've always done, watched him take, watched him break, and watched him collect people like chess pieces and discard them when they stopped being useful.
Not this time.
The moment I get to my office, I text Amos three words: Come find me, before heading back to my space so I can deal with this privately.
He shows up twelve minutes later with a stack of reports that give him a reason to be on my floor. I'm standing at the window with my back to the door, Father's words still circling in my head, and I wait until he closes the door and the blinds are drawn before I turn around.
"Father just summoned me to his office."
Amos goes still in the middle of the room, the reports lowering to his side. His scent shifts from curious to wary. "What did he want?"
"To inform me that Mattaniah is off limits." I watch his face as I deliver that bit of information. "That he belongs to the household. That he answers to Father. That whatever games we're playing need to stop immediately because Father hasn't given us permission to touch him."
The change in Amos is immediate. His scent spikes from wary to furious, the muscles in his jaw tightening "Permission? He thinks we need his permission?"
"He thinks Mattaniah is his to allocate. Another asset. Another piece on his board."
"Mattaniah isn't a piece. He's not Father's anything. He's—" He stops himself, but not fast enough.
"He's what?"
Amos pulls his glasses off and presses his thumb and forefinger against the bridge of his nose.
The tell is familiar. It's what he does when he's trying to manage information he doesn't want to release.
But his scent is still broadcasting fury, and underneath the fury is something more dangerous: fear.
Not fear of Father. Fear of losing something.
"Amos." I cross the room toward him. "Finish the sentence."
"It doesn't matter what I was going to say."
"It matters because you just heard Father claim ownership of an Omega and your first instinct was to bare your teeth." I stop a foot in front of him. "That's not strategy. That's not the scheme. That's a man defending something that belongs to him."
His throat works as he swallows.
"You're in love with him."
Amos' hand drops from his face as his eyes meet mine, and I see the moment he stops trying to hide it.
"Don't." I hold up a hand before he can speak. "Don't manage me. Don't strategize your answer. I'm not asking a question. I'm telling you what I see."
He sets the reports on the nearest surface without looking at where they land. "I didn't mean for it to happen."
"I know you didn't."
"It was supposed to be the scheme, I know that.
It was supposed to stay tactical." He pulls his glasses off and presses his thumb and forefinger against the bridge of his nose.
"But he looks at me like I'm the first person who's ever seen him as smart instead of pretty, and his scent changes when I walk into a room, and when he laughs, Dom, when he actually laughs without catching himself. .." He trails off. "I'm sorry."