Chapter 46 Dominic
Dominic
The Percocet negotiation is in its eighth minute when I come out of the kitchen with coffee.
Mattaniah is kneeling on the floor beside the couch with the pill bottle in one hand and a glass of water in the other.
Amos is propped against his pillow stack with his laptop open and his jaw set in the expression that means the pain is bad enough to medicate but his pride won't let him admit it.
He's been home from the hospital for three days and the bruising on his left side has spread from his ribs to his hip in mottled purple and green.
"The color in your face is gone." Mattaniah holds the pill out. "Your breathing has been shallow since you woke up. Take the Percocet."
"My breathing is fine. The shallow pattern is protective, not symptomatic.
" Amos adjusts his laptop without wincing, which means the morning dose from six hours ago has worn off completely.
"I have three documents to review before the end of the day and Percocet turns my analytical capacity into oatmeal. "
"Your analytical capacity is already compromised because you're in pain." Mattaniah sets the water glass on the coffee table and opens the pill bottle. "Take it or I'm sitting on you."
"You're welcome to try. My ribs would like a word with you first."
"Then take the pill and I won't have to."
Amos looks at me over Mattaniah's head with the expression that used to work when he wanted me to intervene. I sip my coffee and lean against the kitchen doorway.
"Don't look at him." Mattaniah puts the pill on his own tongue. "He's not going to help you."
Mattaniah shifts on his knees and moves between Amos' legs at the edge of the couch.
The position is deliberate, his thighs pressing against the inside of Amos' calves, close enough that Amos would have to physically push him away to create distance.
Amos can't push anyone away right now. His ribs won't allow it and Mattaniah knows it.
"Open." Mattaniah says it with the pill balanced on his tongue, his mouth parted just enough for Amos to see it sitting there.
"That's not how medication compliance works, Niah."
"Open your mouth, Amos."
Amos opens his mouth. The surrender is visible in his jaw before Mattaniah even leans in, the resistance giving way to something his body wants more than his pride wants to fight.
Mattaniah closes the distance slowly, one hand coming up to cup the back of Amos' neck, tilting the Alpha's head to the angle he wants.
Their mouths meet and Mattaniah controls the kiss from the first second, his lips parting Amos' with a patience that has nothing to do with medication.
His tongue finds Amos' and pushes the pill across, but the transfer takes longer than it needs to because Mattaniah doesn't pull back after the pill is gone.
He deepens the angle instead, his fingers tightening on the back of Amos' neck, his mouth working against Amos' with a slow thorough heat that makes the Alpha's good hand fist in the fabric of Mattaniah's shirt.
Amos' breath catches and the catch turns into a wince because a sharp inhale moves the broken ribs.
The pain doesn't stop him from kissing back.
His hand drags Mattaniah closer by the shirt, pulling until the Omega's chest is pressed against his right side where the ribs are intact.
His scent shifts from the flat medicinal smell of someone managing pain into something warmer, cedar deepening beneath the surface, his body responding to Mattaniah's mouth with an arousal his injuries can't suppress.
Mattaniah swallows the sound Amos makes against his mouth.
His hips shift between Amos' knees and I watch from the kitchen doorway with the coffee mug growing warm against my palm, my grip tighter than the ceramic requires.
Mattaniah's scent has gone thick and sweet in the space between them, the coconut undertones rising through the pregnancy notes into something that reaches across the room and makes my bond mark throb.
The Omega kneeling between my mate's legs with his hand on the back of his neck and his tongue in his mouth is not the same Omega who flinched at a thumb on his lip a month ago.
Amos swallows the pill. His hand stays fisted in Mattaniah's shirt.
Mattaniah pulls back slowly, his lower lip dragging against Amos' as he withdraws, and the thread of saliva that catches between their mouths breaks when Mattaniah sits back on his heels.
His cheeks are flushed from the collarbones up and his breathing is uneven and the look he gives Amos from between his knees carries a satisfaction that his body wears better than any expression his mother ever trained onto his face.
"That's cheating." Amos' voice has gone rough and his pupils are blown wide behind his glasses. His breathing is shallow but the shallowness has nothing to do with the ribs.
"That's problem-solving." Mattaniah picks up the water glass and holds it out. "Drink."
Amos drinks. His eyes stay on Mattaniah's mouth while he does it. On the couch his hand has finally released the Omega's shirt but his fingers are still curled in the shape of the grip, slow to let go of what his body doesn't want to surrender.
My coffee has gone cold in my hand. I drink it anyway because the alternative is crossing the room and putting my mouth where Mattaniah's just was, and the three documents Amos needs to review aren't going to survive what would happen after that.
My phone buzzes on the kitchen counter. I set the coffee down and check the screen. The forensic accountant I hired last week.
"She's been skimming." I say it from the kitchen. "Three accounts tied to the household operating budget that Father gave her access to when they got together. She's been siphoning between two and four thousand a month into a personal account under a different name."
Mattaniah's hand stills on the water glass and Amos' laptop lowers an inch.
"How much total?" Amos asks.
"Just under seventy thousand over the last few weeks." I pull a chair from the kitchen table and sit. "The forensic accountant traced the withdrawals through the household account she managed. Father either didn't notice or didn't care."
Amos' eyes sharpen behind his glasses. "Below the audit threshold. I designed that threshold. She knew the detection parameters for the forensic audit I was running."
"That means she understood your methodology well enough to stay under it." I hold Mattaniah's gaze across the chair. "She wasn't just skimming. She was skimming specifically to avoid your audit."
"She sat through my presentations." Amos' voice goes cold. "The quarterly financial reviews. Father made the whole household attend. She was taking notes on my detection methods while I presented them."
"She was stealing from the family she moved into while grooming me to secure her position." Mattaniah pushes out. "What else?"
"The restraining order has been in effect since Thursday. The heir clause notification went to the board Friday and Garrett confirmed acceptance this morning. Amos drafted the filing from the hospital. The attorney processed it on schedule."
"I drafted it on morphine." Amos' mouth curves. "I want that noted."
"The filing was clean and counsel confirmed no deficiencies." I turn back to Mattaniah. "There's more."
Mattaniah sets the pill bottle on the carpet beside him. "Tell me."
"I tasked the security firm with a full background investigation the morning after the arrest. The financial records came back fastest." I keep my voice level because what comes next is going to cost him. "We knew she was running schemes. We didn't know it was six families across eight years."
Amos pushes himself higher against his pillows, his jaw tightening slightly.
"We knew she was running cons. We didn't know the scale.
" I direct this at Mattaniah. "Six families across eight years.
And in three of those cases, you were the one she used to get in the door as a potential match for either a son or the Alpha themself.
The files go back to when you were… sixteen. "
"That was before Marcus."
"Marcus?” The name registers as I say it. “Mr. Bellavio, yes. He was the first placement that went wrong publicly."
Mattaniah lets out a small sigh. "What else?"
"The families she targeted have been contacted through our attorney. Three of them confirmed they were approached with an Omega she described as—" I stop because the words in the correspondence are going to hurt.
"Say it." Mattaniah's jaw is set.
"Compliant, trained, and available."
The air in the living room changes. Mattaniah's scent turns so sharply that Amos flinches on the couch. My bond mark throbs hard enough to blur my vision. The sweetness curdles into distress so concentrated that the apartment fills with it in seconds.
"That sounds like a product listing." Mattaniah says it barely above a whisper, his eyes fixed on a point between the floor and the coffee table.
I cross the room and my hands find his shoulders, pulling him against my chest. His face buries in my neck, not crying, just pressing into the space where my scent is strongest. Behind us Amos reaches down from the couch and threads his fingers through Mattaniah's hair, pulling gently.
We stay like that, Mattaniah breathing my scent with his face in my neck while Amos' hand works through his hair from the couch.
"Two of the families are willing to provide statements.
" I say it against the top of his head once his breathing has evened.
"Those statements combined with the skimming and the conspiracy charges give us enough for prosecution on multiple fronts.
The attorney expects a preliminary hearing within the month. "
"Good." Mattaniah says it into my neck.
"There's one more thing." His body tenses against me and I tighten my grip. "She's requested a meeting through her attorney. She wants to see me."
Mattaniah pulls back. His eyes are red but dry. "I'm going with you."
"No." The bond pulses between us with the impact. Through the bond the anger redirects from his mother to me. "You promised." His voice barely above a whisper. "You promised you would ask instead of deciding."
He's right and I just broke the promise.
"I'm asking." I catch the word before it costs me more. "I'm asking you to let me do this alone. She knows how to take you apart and I don't want to hand her the chance."
"She can't take me apart anymore."
"Hearing about it secondhand is not the same as sitting across from her while she works." I hold Mattaniah's gaze. "I'm asking you to let me be the one in that room."
Mattaniah's mouth thins as Amos’ hand stills in his hair. "He's right, Niah." Amos says it from the couch. "She can't hurt you through Dominic. She can hurt you through yourself."
The silence stretches until Mattaniah speaks.
"Tell her I'm done." He says it looking at me. "Tell her I have a family now and she's not part of it."
"I will."
"And tell her that the Omega she described as compliant, trained, and available just found the legal clause that makes her son's mates untouchable." His mouth curves with a hardness I've never seen on him before. "Tell her that her product listing just took her whole operation down."
My phone buzzes again. The attorney confirms the meeting for Thursday. I look at the screen and then at Mattaniah. "The meeting is Thursday." I set the phone down. "I'll end it Thursday."