Chapter 19 Dominic #2
The meeting runs for ninety minutes. Father's hand migrates from Mattaniah's lower back to his hip, then to the back of his neck, his thumb pressing into the same groove he's been wearing into the Omega's spine since the first week.
Every touch is plausibly professional. Every touch makes my blood run hotter.
The moment the meeting breaks, I lose sight of Mattaniah in the shuffle of bodies filing toward the door, and by the time I make it to the hallway he's not at his desk.
Concern wells up in my chest when Mattaniah's terrified scent hits me, cutting through the stale office air like a blade.
I follow it around the corner toward the copy room alcove and stop dead.
Father has Mattaniah backed against the wall.
His palm is flat against the wall beside the Omega's head, his body angled to cage him in, close enough that Mattaniah would have to push past him to escape.
His other hand is on Mattaniah's hip, thumb pressing into the hollow above the bone, fingers curling toward his ass.
Mattaniah's face is blank, his body present but his mind fled to wherever he goes when he can't fight and can't run.
"—been thinking about your development." Father's voice is low, pitched for an audience of one. "Your mother's talents are considerable, but yours are different. Softer. More... responsive."
"Thank you, sir." Mattaniah's voice comes out completely flat
"I'd like to explore that responsiveness further. Privately." Father's hand slides lower, his fingers spreading across the curve of Mattaniah's ass with a possessiveness that makes my vision narrow. "Tonight, perhaps. After the house quiets down."
I swallow back a snarl as I stalk forward, refusing to let this play out, regardless of the consequences. Mattaniah is mine, ours, Amos’ and mine.
My hand closes around Mattaniah's wrist and I yank him out of the cage of Father's body, pulling him behind me in a single motion that puts my body between them.
The Omega stumbles against my back, his fingers clutching at my jacket, his scent flooding with something that isn't quite relief because relief requires safety and we're not there yet.
Father straightens. His expression doesn't change but his eyes track from my hand on Mattaniah's wrist to my position between them to the set of my shoulders.
"Dominic." He says my name like an observation. "I didn't realize you were still on this floor."
"Clearly."
Silence filters between us, only Mattaniah’s uneven breaths to be heard, the Omega pressed completely against my back.
Father's smile doesn't reach his eyes. "Careful, son. People might get the wrong idea."
"People should."
Father's smile fades. For a moment, something flickers behind the mask, a flash of the predator that lives underneath the civilized veneer. "I see." He buttons his jacket with unhurried movements. "We'll discuss this later. In private."
"I look forward to it."
He walks away, his footsteps echoing down the hallway and around the corner and into the elevator. I don't move until I hear the doors close.
"Dominic." Mattaniah's voice is barely a whisper against my back. "He's going to—"
"I know what he's going to do." I turn and cup his face in my hands, tilting it up so I can see his eyes. They're wide and wet and full of a fear that makes something in my chest crack. "And I don't care. Do you understand me? I don't care what he does to me. He doesn't get to touch you like that."
"You just challenged him. In public. He's never going to—"
"Mattaniah." I brush my thumb across his cheekbone as his breath catches in his throat. "I need you to hear me. Whatever comes next, whatever he does in retaliation, it was worth it. Watching him put his hands on you and doing nothing was never an option."
His face crumples, his composure cracking. He leans forward and presses his forehead against my chest, his hands fisting in my shirt.
"Thank you." The words are muffled against my chest. "I know that's not enough but thank you."
I hold him in the copy room alcove for thirty seconds longer than is safe, my hand cupped around the back of his neck, his scent slowly shifting from sour fear to something warmer.
When I finally release him, he straightens his shirt and runs a hand through his hair before reconstructing his composure piece by piece.
"Go back to your desk," I tell him. "Text me if you need me, okay?"
He nods and slips past me toward the main floor. I watch him go, Mattaniah squaring his shoulders, the fact that he can still perform after what just happened telling me more about his survival instincts than any file ever could.
Amos is waiting in my office when I get there, his feet propped on my desk and his laptop balanced on his thighs. He sets the laptop aside the second he sees my face. "I heard you pulled Mattaniah out of Father's hands in the copy room alcove. And told Father that people should get the wrong idea."
Of course. Information always travels fast in the office.
People have already been whispering about our connection to Mattaniah.
They used to whisper about Amos and I as well but we’ve continually squashed those rumors.
"Who told you? Scratch that. It doesn’t matter.
" I drop into my chair and loosen my tie, my fingers working the knot with more force than necessary because the image of Father's hand curling toward Mattaniah's ass is still sitting behind my eyes.
"Someone messaged in the super secret work chat that no one knows I’m in." Amos swings his feet down. "How bad was it?"
"He had him backed against the wall. Hand on his ass. Talking about exploring his responsiveness tonight." I yank the tie free and toss it on the desk. "So I told him exactly what I meant by pulling Mattaniah away."
Amos leans forward with his elbows on his knees. "You know that escalates the timeline. Father doesn't take public challenges lightly, especially not from you."
"Father had him cornered in the copy room with his hand on his ass." I meet his eyes across the desk. "The challenge was his."
The silence between us carries the weight of thirteen years of navigating Father's retaliations. Amos holds my gaze for a long moment before nodding once. My phone buzzes against the desk. A text from Mattaniah: Thank you.
I pick it up and type back with my thumb while Amos watches from across the desk: For what?
The dots appear, disappear, and appear again. For stepping in. I know what he was doing. I felt his hand going lower.
Fuck. I hate that Mattaniah thought he had to stand there rather than push back. Granted, pushing back against Father never ended well for anyone and we still don’t know what Father’s endgame is.
Come to my room tonight. Both of us will be there, I text back. I refrain from adding anything about needing to reclaim him in my text because I don’t know how he’ll respond and I’m not sure how to feel about that emotion either.
His response is immediate. Okay.
The rest of the day passes uneventfully, my luck running out when I find Mattaniah’s mother in the sunroom just after seven, draped across a chaise with a glass of wine and a magazine she's not actually reading. She’s the picture of leisure, bought and paid for with Richard's money while her son gets cornered in hallways by the man footing the bill.
"Dominic." She doesn't look up from the magazine. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"
I close the door behind me. The click of the latch makes her glance up, something in my expression finally getting her attention. She sets the magazine aside.
"You know what he's doing to your son."
She doesn't flinch or feign confusion. She just takes a slow sip of her wine and regards me over the rim of the glass. "Richard is a man with appetites." Her voice is rather calm "That's not news to anyone who's spent more than five minutes in his presence."
"He had Mattaniah cornered in a hallway today with his hand on his ass, talking about exploring his 'responsiveness' tonight." I keep my voice level even though every word tastes like acid. "You knew this was happening."
"I suspected." She sets the wine glass down with a delicate clink. "Mattaniah is a beautiful Omega. Richard has eyes. The math isn't complicated."
"And you're letting it happen."
"I'm surviving, Dominic." The pleasant mask slips just enough to show the steel underneath.
"Something you wouldn't understand from your position of privilege.
You've never had to calculate the cost of every meal, every roof, and every pair of shoes.
You've never had to look at a man and see the dollar signs instead of the threat. "
"You're using your own son as bait to keep yourself comfortable."
She laughs, the sound almost genuine, and it makes my skin crawl.
"Bait implies intention to catch." She picks up her wine again.
"Mattaniah has always been useful. That's not cruelty.
That's practicality. As long as Richard wants something he doesn't have, he keeps us around.
The moment he loses interest, we're out on the street with nothing.
" Her eyes meet mine. "I've been out on the street before. I won't go back."
"If my father touches him again—"
"You'll what?" She tilts her head, amused.
"Protect him? Rescue him? Sweep him away to your tower and keep him safe from the big bad world?
" Her smile sharpens. "You're not his savior, Dominic.
You're just another Alpha who wants what Richard wants.
The only difference is you're pretending it's noble. "
The words land harder than they should because there's a grain of truth buried in the poison.
I did want him. I do want him. The scheme started with strategy and somewhere along the way it became something else, but she doesn't know that.
She sees two Alphas circling the same Omega and assumes we're all playing the same game.
"You don't know anything about what I want."