Chapter 47 Dominic
Dominic
The attorney's conference room smells like expensive coffee and furniture polish.
I catch the artificial sweetness before the door is fully open.
Mattaniah's mother is already seated. Her perfume reaches me three steps into the room, floral enough to coat the back of my throat.
Everything about her scent tries too hard.
She's dressed for the role. Tailored blouse, minimal jewelry, her hands folded on the table in a posture designed to project a dignity she hasn't earned. Her makeup almost hides the shadows under her eyes. She's been losing sleep and wants me to think she hasn't.
"Dominic." She uses my first name as if we're still family. "Thank you for agreeing to meet."
"I agreed because you requested it." I sit across from her and don't remove my jacket. "This isn't a negotiation."
"Everything is a negotiation." She unfolds her hands and refolds them. "I'm sure you understand that better than most."
"I understand that you have conspiracy charges, fraud charges, and two families willing to testify about how you trafficked your own son." I keep my hands flat on the table. "None of those charges are going away. The only negotiation available to you is with the DA."
Her fingers tighten on each other. Her composure has a crack running through it that widens every time I say the word charges.
"I was protecting him." She leans forward and her perfume intensifies with the movement.
"Everything I did was to protect Mattaniah from a world that eats Omegas alive.
You don't understand what it's like to raise an Omega son alone, to know that his biology will be used against him by every Alpha he meets unless he learns to use it first."
"You didn't teach him to use it. You taught him to surrender it." I stay where I am. "You taught him that his value was in his compliance, in his willingness to perform for the highest bidder."
"I was protecting him from weakness."
"You tried to destroy the part of him that makes two Alphas willing to burn your life to the ground." I mean his softness. I mean his ability to need people without it destroying him. "You spent twenty-six years trying to beat that out of him and it survived anyway."
Her hands separate on the table and then come back together with more pressure than the gesture requires. "You don't know what his softness costs. You've had him for a month and I've had him for twenty-six years."
"Your own son, marketed with the same language you'd use for commercial real estate." I let the words land. "Compliant, trained, and available."
The color drains from her face, the blood pulling back from the surface as the words hit somewhere the composure can't cover. Her hands flatten on the table.
"Those communications were private."
"Those communications are evidence. They're in the hands of the district attorney along with the phone records. Seventeen messages to the man who broke my mate's ribs while trying to reach your pregnant son."
"I didn't know Richard would—"
"You knew exactly what Richard would do.
" I lean forward. "You tracked Mattaniah's doctor appointments and you knew about the pregnancy specialist. You sent a drunk, enraged Alpha to an office where you confirmed your pregnant son would be vulnerable.
You provided everything Richard needed except the fists. "
Her mouth opens and her hands press flat against the table. Underneath the perfume something sour is bleeding through that her manufactured scent can't mask.
"Trust." She says the word and her voice has found its footing again, the recovery faster than I expected. "Trust is how Omegas end up bonded to Alphas who started their relationship as a scheme."
My hand grips the arm of the chair. For two full seconds I can't speak.
"You're right." I release the chair arm. "The scheme was real and the beginning was wrong. Mattaniah knows everything. He chose us knowing we lied and manipulated and used him as a catalyst. He chose us because we earned it by doing the one thing you never did."
"And what's that?"
"We told him the truth. We told him the truth and then we let him decide what to do with it." I stand. "You've never let him decide anything."
Her composure cracks for two seconds and in the gap I see fear.
"You'll never see him again." I button my jacket. "You won't contact him or send messages through third parties or appear anywhere he might be present. The restraining order takes effect tomorrow and any violation triggers automatic arrest."
"He's my son."
"He was your son. Now he's my mate. He's carrying my child and he's protected by every legal instrument I can file.
Your ability to reach him ended the night you sent Richard to his office.
" I pick up my jacket from the chair back.
"The attorney will explain the terms. I suggest you read them carefully. "
I leave without waiting for a response.
I drive in silence. The look on her face when the composure cracked stays behind my eyes. Her perfume clings to my jacket and shirt, the artificial sweetness contaminating every breath. I crack the window and the city air pushes some of it out but not enough.
I made six phone calls yesterday. Two families dropped her from their social circles before I'd finished talking.
A third called back within the hour to confirm her country club membership had been suspended.
The network she spent years building collapsed in an afternoon.
Pull the foundation and the rest collapses.
The apartment hallway smells like home the second the elevator opens. The tension in my shoulders loosens before I've reached the door.
Amos is asleep on the couch with his laptop closed on the coffee table and a blanket draped over his legs. The Percocet took him under sometime in the past hour. Mattaniah's scent is concentrated toward the bedroom.
He's sitting cross-legged on the bed with files spread around him and my shirt hanging off one shoulder. He looks up when I appear in the doorway.
"How was it?"
"She tried the protection angle and I shut it down. The restraining order takes effect tomorrow." I lean against the doorframe. "Her social network is gone. I made the calls yesterday and she's done."
"Did she ask about me?"
"She called you her son."
"She was my mother." He holds my gaze. "Was."
Mattaniah sets the files aside and looks at me for a long moment. His nostrils flare.
"You smell wrong." He says it with his eyes narrowing. "You smell like her perfume and I don't want it on you."
"Then take it off me." I say it from the doorway.
Mattaniah unfolds from the bed and crosses the room.
His hands find the lapels of my jacket and push it off my shoulders.
The jacket drops to the floor and he's already working the buttons on my shirt, pulling the fabric away from my skin.
The shirt joins the jacket on the floor and his hands press flat against my bare chest. He leans in and breathes against my sternum.
"It's still there underneath yours." He says it against my skin. "I can still smell it."
His mouth finds the hollow of my throat and his tongue traces the line of my collarbone before his teeth catch the skin above my bond mark. He's marking me and my hands grip his hips without my permission.
"The shower would be faster." My voice comes out rougher than I intend.
"I don't want faster." His hands slide down my chest to my belt. "I want her gone."
He walks me backward until my legs hit the bed.
I sit and he climbs into my lap facing me, his knees bracketing my hips, the position mirroring the hospital chair except there's no urgency in his body this time.
His mouth finds my neck again and he works his way up to my jaw, his lips and tongue pressing his scent into every inch of skin the perfume touched.
His hips settle against mine with a weight that's deliberate.
"Lie back." He says it against my jaw.
I lie back and the unfamiliarity of the position sends something electric through the bond.
He strips my pants off with the same focused efficiency he used on the shirt.
His own clothes follow, the borrowed shirt pulled over his head.
He's bare above me with the late afternoon light catching the curve of his stomach.
"That's better." He says it looking down at me. His hand presses flat against my chest. "You're starting to smell like you again."
"You could speed up the process."
His hips roll against mine once, grinding, and the friction makes my hands tighten on his thighs. "You said you didn't want faster."
"That was you."
"Then shut up and let me work."
His hand wraps around me and strokes once from base to tip, his grip firm enough to make my breath stutter.
He shifts his weight and positions himself above me with a control that makes my fingers dig into the soft skin of his hips.
He sinks down slowly, taking me in increments, his body opening around me with the slick heat that pregnancy has made even more abundant.
His head tips back and his mouth falls open.
The sound he makes is quiet enough for the apartment but loud enough that I feel it in my chest.
He sets the pace. Slow rolls of his hips that take me deep on every downstroke, his hands braced on my chest, his thighs doing the work while I grip his hips and let him ride.
His chest is fuller and his hips are wider.
The curve of his stomach brushes against my abdomen on every forward roll.
The contact makes my fingers bruise on his hips.
"You're mine." He says it between breaths, his hips working in a rhythm that's building toward something I can feel through the bond before his body shows it. "Not hers. Not your father's. Mine."
"Yours." He clenches around me as I say it and my vision grays.
The slow rolls give way to something faster, his breathing going ragged, his hands pressing harder against my chest. I reach between us and press my thumb against him where our bodies are joined, circling with a pressure that makes his rhythm stutter.
His head drops forward, dark curls falling around his face, his scent so thick I can taste it on every breath.
"Come for me, firefly." I press harder with my thumb and thrust up into the downstroke.
His whole body locks above me and the orgasm rips through the bond with a force that drags me over the edge. I come inside him with my hands on his hips and his name in my teeth.
He collapses against my chest with his breathing ragged and his heartbeat hammering against my ribs. My arms close around his back and his face finds the hollow of my neck.
"She's gone." I say it against his hair. "From everything."
"I know." His lips move against my throat. "I just wanted to make sure you knew it too."
We stay in the bed until the sweat cools and Mattaniah's breathing evens out. His fingers trace lazy patterns on my chest while the afternoon light moves across the wall.
"Amos is going to know." He says it without lifting his head.
"Amos knew the second I walked in smelling like someone else's perfume." I press my mouth against his temple. "He probably calculated the probability of this outcome before the Percocet knocked him out."
Mattaniah's laugh is quiet against my neck. He shifts off me slowly, both of us wincing at the separation, and pulls the borrowed shirt back over his head. I find clean clothes in the dresser.
The living room is dim when we come out. Amos is awake on the couch with his glasses on and his laptop open, his eyes tracking us as we emerge from the bedroom.
"The meeting went well." He says it without looking up from his screen.
"The meeting is over and she's contained." I sit in the chair across from the couch.
"I can tell." His eyes move to Mattaniah, who is settling onto the floor beside the couch.
"The Percocet helped. Your delivery method was more effective than the water." Amos' fingers find Mattaniah's hair automatically, threading through the curls.
"I'll keep that in mind for the next dose."
I watch them from the chair, Amos' hand in Mattaniah's hair while the Omega's eyes close against the couch cushion. The apartment smells like us again.
"It's over." I say it to both of them. "The charges are filed, the restraining order activates tomorrow, and there's nothing left for her to use."
"You sound like you're presenting to the board." Mattaniah's voice is drowsy against the couch cushion.
"Force of habit. The board meeting is easier. The board doesn't try to convince me that trafficking is parenting."
Amos' fingers resume their rhythm in the Omega's hair. "She said that?"
"She said she was protecting him. I explained the difference between protection and inventory management."
Mattaniah's mouth curves without his eyes opening. "Inventory management. That's good."
"It's accurate." I sit in the chair across from them with my jaw finally unclenched. "She won't try again. The fear in that conference room was real."
"How do you know it was real?" Amos asks.
"Because her perfume couldn't cover it." I close my eyes.