Chapter 44 Amos
Amos
The transition documents have been spread across Dominic's desk for three hours and my eyes are starting to blur on the column headers.
It's past eight on a Tuesday evening and the building has emptied out floor by floor since five.
The security guard Dominic hired after Richard's removal is stationed at the elevator bank on our floor.
The office is quiet enough that I can hear the ventilation system cycling and Mattaniah's breathing from the armchair in the corner.
He fell asleep forty minutes ago with his laptop still open on his chest.
He works until his body overrides his brain, then drifts off in whatever position he was sitting in. Tonight he made it to the armchair before sleep took him, his legs tucked beneath him. His scent fills the office, sweet enough that I can taste it from across the room.
"The Delaware filings need to be resubmitted with the updated board signatures." Dominic circles a line item on the document in front of him. "Garrett's counsel flagged the original submission as incomplete because Father's signature is still on the authorization page."
"I'll have the amended filing ready by Thursday.
" I make a note on my legal pad. "Vasquez confirmed the pregnancy at last week's appointment, so the medical documentation is clean.
Outside counsel flagged two provisions in the original clause language that needed additional verification against the amended filings.
It pushed us back a week but the corrections went to them this afternoon. The heir clause notification is ready."
"A week longer than we planned." Dominic's voice goes flat.
"A week that produced a stronger filing.
If we'd submitted with the ambiguity intact, Father's attorneys would have challenged the qualifying language and the court would have given them standing.
" I push my glasses up and rub the bridge of my nose.
"The delay was the right call even if it didn't feel like one. "
"And the restraining order?"
"Filed tomorrow. The sequence stays the same as the original plan. The protections will activate on acceptance, which Garrett has indicated will be immediate." I make another note on the legal pad. "By Monday, Richard's ability to challenge any corporate action drops to zero."
"Monday." Dominic sets his pen down and leans back in his chair. "Five more days."
The concern in those three words is the same one that's been running beneath every conversation for the past two weeks.
Five days is a long time for a man who has lost his company, his sons, his legacy, and his access to the Omega he decided was his property.
Five days is plenty of time for Richard Hale to calculate a response.
The shouting starts in the hallway at eight seventeen.
The sound registers before the words do, a male voice raised to a volume that doesn't belong on an empty executive floor at this hour.
The security guard's voice follows, trying to de-escalate the situation.
Underneath both voices a scent pushes through the gap beneath the door, sour with alcohol and stripped of anything civilized.
Dominic is on his feet before the second shout. His eyes find mine across the desk. He moves toward the door while I move toward the armchair.
Mattaniah's eyes open. The shouting has penetrated his sleep and his face shifts from drowsy to afraid in two heartbeats. His hand goes to his stomach and his scent spikes sour, curdling into distress that floods the office and hits my bond mark like a fist.
"Stay here." I say it low and firm. "Don't move from this chair."
The office door slams open before I've finished the sentence.
Richard fills the doorway. His suit jacket is missing and his shirt is untucked on one side.
The mottled flush across his face and the rage in his eyes have burned past calculation into something feral.
His scent is overwhelming at this distance, amplified by scotch and sweat until it coats the back of my throat.
The security guard is behind him, one hand on Richard's arm, blood running from a split lip.
"You." Richard's eyes find Mattaniah in the armchair behind me. "You did this. You poisoned them against me."
Dominic steps between Richard and the rest of the room. "Get out of my building, Father."
"Your building." Richard's laugh is ugly, thick with scotch.
"Your building that I built with my hands and my money and my name while you were still learning to wipe your own ass.
" His voice is louder than it needs to be, the volume control gone along with everything else.
His body sways and his hand grabs the doorframe to steady himself.
"My building, my company, my legacy." His eyes move past Dominic to Mattaniah and his scent surges possessive beneath the alcohol.
"And my Omega, the one his mother brought into my house for ME. "
Behind me Mattaniah makes a sound that isn't a word. Everything he ever suspected about why his mother brought him to the Hale household just got confirmed in six words. His distress scent goes so sharp that Dominic flinches from across the room.
"Security is calling the police." The guard speaks from the doorway, his phone already at his ear. "Sir, I need you to step back from the office."
Richard doesn't step back. He steps forward, past Dominic's outstretched arm, moving with the sloppy momentum of a drunk. He stumbles against the corner of the desk, rights himself, and keeps coming. He pushes past both of us toward the corner where Mattaniah is curled in the armchair.
I step into Richard's path before I've finished thinking about it.
The impact of his shoulder against my chest is harder than I expected.
His hand grabs the front of my shirt and his fist connects with my ribs before I've braced for it.
Something cracks inside me. The pain is immediate, wrapping around my left side and stealing my breath.
The instinct to swing is so strong that my arm coils back and my weight shifts to my rear foot. For one second my body is ready to put everything into Richard Hale's jaw. I force my fist open and push against his chest to keep his body moving toward me instead of around me.
His second punch catches the same ribs and the crack this time is audible, a sound my body produces that I've never heard from the inside before.
"Amos." Mattaniah's voice, terrified, from behind me.
Richard's third punch doesn't land. Dominic's hands close around his father's shoulders from behind and tear him backward into the desk.
The impact scatters the transition documents across the floor and knocks the desk lamp sideways.
Dominic pins Richard against the desk with one hand on his throat and the other drawn back in a fist. His scent has gone to pure smoke, so acrid it smells like something burning.
"Dom." My voice comes out wrong, the air in my lungs not moving right. "Don't."
His fist doesn't lower. His hand on Richard's throat tightens and Richard's face starts to change color, the flush darkening past rage into oxygen deprivation. His feet scramble against the carpet.
"Dominic." I lean against the bookcase because my ribs have stopped offering the option of standing upright. "If you hit him, he wins. He came here to provoke a response he can use against us. Don't give it to him."
The seconds stretch. Dominic's fist stays raised.
His fist lowers. His hand releases Richard's throat and the older Alpha slides sideways off the desk, coughing.
"Get him out of here." Dominic says it to the security guard without looking away from his father. "He's trespassing. The police are welcome to him."
The guard enters the office with his phone still broadcasting to the 911 dispatcher. A second guard appears in the doorway, called from the lobby. Between them they get Richard's arms behind his back and walk him out, his feet dragging, his voice reduced to incoherent fragments.
The office goes quiet but the air is still thick with what just happened. Dominic crosses to me in three strides.
"Amos. Sit down." His hands find my shoulders and guide me into the desk chair. The movement jars my ribs and the pain that radiates through my left side makes my vision gray at the edges. "Where did he hit you?"
"Ribs. Left side. Two punches. Something cracked on the second one."
Dominic's hands move to my left side, pressing gently against the ribs through my shirt. The contact makes me hiss and pull away.
"Don't touch them." I press my own hand against the injury and the shape beneath my palm is wrong, a ridge where there should be smooth bone. "I think two are broken."
"Firefly, call an ambulance." Dominic turns toward the armchair.
Mattaniah is already on his feet with his phone pressed to his ear, his face white. "I need an ambulance at Hale Industries, executive floor. Broken ribs, possible internal injury. The victim is conscious and responsive." He rattles off the building address and floor number without hesitation.
He crosses the room and drops to his knees beside my chair. His hand finds mine and his fingers thread through my grip. His scent is still sour with fear but something sweeter is pushing through underneath, his body trying to soothe his injured mate.
"You put yourself between us and stepped into his path." His voice shakes.
"Seemed like the right move at the time." My breathing is shallow. "Less optimal in retrospect."
"You could have been killed. He was going for the baby, Amos."
"I know." I squeeze his hand despite the pain. "That's why I stepped in front of you."
"You idiot." His eyes are filling and his voice is cracking, his hand gripping mine so hard his knuckles are white. "You brilliant, stupid, self-sacrificing idiot."
"Noted." I lean my head back against the chair. "Call the lawyer while we wait for the ambulance."
Mattaniah stares at me, some fierce emotion I can’t pick apart through the bond making my bond mark throb. He hesitates for a moment before pulling out his phone and calling the lawyer.
When the paramedics arrive, they confirm what I already suspected: two broken ribs on the left side, no signs of pneumothorax.
They strap me onto a stretcher, the movement sending fireworks through my ribcage but Mattaniah is watching, so I don't make a sound. He’s nearly catatonic, one of the paramedics barring his entry when he tries to climb into the ambulance.
Instead of making a fuss, he just stands there, my heart breaking as someone shouts ‘we need to go’, Dominic dragging him inside with us.
My Alpha holds onto Mattaniah, softly stroking his hair while every minute on the way to the hospital, I spend cataloguing the evidence while the morphine starts to soften the edges.
"The security footage will show Father forcing past the guard." I say it to Dominic, who is sitting beside the stretcher with his hand on my forearm. "Combined with the guard's testimony and my injuries, the assault charges will be straightforward."
"You're lying on a stretcher with broken ribs and you're building a legal case." Dominic's grip tightens on my arm.
"Someone has to. The footage is timestamped. Make sure the building manager preserves it before Father's lawyers can request an injunction."
"Amos."
"The guard's split lip is additional evidence. Make sure he's photographed before medical treatment."
"Amos." Dominic's voice carries enough weight that I open my eyes. "Shut up and let them take you to the hospital."
I quiet, letting the paramedics do their job, bracing myself for the moment Mattaniah finally breaks.
He remains silent, just watching until we get into a hospital room before walking directly to the bed and climbs in beside me on the right side, careful to avoid my left.
His face presses against my shoulder without a word.
He smells like terror and anxiety, his scent finally spiking the way I thought it would before we left for the hospital.
"I'm here." I press my mouth against his head. "I'm not going anywhere."
Dominic stands at the foot of the bed with his arms crossed and his jaw locked.
"You took the punches." Dominic's voice is flat. "You could have blocked or hit back."
"Hitting him back would have given him a mutual combat defense. Blocking would have redirected his momentum toward Mattaniah." I keep my voice level despite the morphine and the pain. "Taking the hits was the optimal outcome."
"The optimal outcome." Through the bond Dominic's composure fractures. "You let my father break your ribs and you're calling it optimal."
"Niah and the baby are unharmed. Richard is in police custody with assault charges, security footage, and medical documentation stacked against him." I reach for Dominic's hand with my right. "The optimal outcome, Dom."
His hand closes around mine and the grip is tight enough to hurt but I don't pull away. Mattaniah's face stays pressed against my shoulder, his breathing damp against my hospital gown.
"You almost died protecting me." Mattaniah says it into my shoulder.
"I didn't almost die. I have two broken ribs. The doctor said six to eight weeks." I turn my head enough to press my mouth against his hair. "I'd do it again."
"Don't you dare." His fingers tighten on my hospital gown. "Don't you dare do it again."
"If someone comes for you or the baby, I will put myself between you every single time." I say it the same way I'd present a quarterly projection. "That's not heroism, it's just the math."
"The math." Mattaniah lifts his head to look at me, his eyes red and swollen. "You got your ribs broken and you're calling it math."
"Everything is math, Niah." I reach up with my free hand and brush a tear off his cheek. "You're the variable I'm not willing to lose."
Dominic's hand squeezes mine. Mattaniah settles back against my shoulder. The hospital room is quiet except for the monitor tracking my vitals and the low murmur of voices in the corridor.
"Call the PR team," I tell Dominic. "Father just handed us enough ammunition to ensure he never gets within a hundred yards of this family again."