20. San
“I knew we couldn’t trust them,” San seethed, ears so hot he was certain he’d see smoke billowing from them soon.
His blood rushed in his ears, heart racing, as he caught Binnie and Saint exchanging concerned looks from the corner of his eye. They acted as if they weren’t the ones who’d just dropped this in their laps. San paced around the living room, shaking his head, fuming. How dare Bas try to get close to Deke just to use him? To maybe use Ollie…and the baby.
San would’ve expected that from Deke’s shithead father. But Bas had seemed…nice. San had wanted Deke to have this. He’d wanted him to have some family he could trust. But he guessed it was too much to ask. Family could never be trusted. San’s mouth felt pasty. Maybe it was his rapid breathing. Maybe it was the way his heart raced. Fen and Seth didn’t look surprised by his rage, but the others eyed him warily.
San spun on his heel, now pacing in the opposite direction, his thoughts a chaotic flurry. And that girl? Win? She was obviously trash, no matter how much money she had. No matter what that article said about her altruistic nature. No matter how normal and friendly she appeared. She was just as bad as all the others, beta or no.
If she even was a beta. What beta could sense an omega pregnancy? There was something…off about her. Who smiled with that many teeth? Who wore white to a funeral? What rich corporate mogul would let his daughter marry a nobody and give them a fancy corporate job? None San had ever heard of.
“We don’t know anything yet, love,” Binnie said carefully. “Please, relax.”
San cut his eyes to his mate, glowering at him even as his stomach swooped at the pet name. Binnie continued to give him that patient look, the one that said “you’re crazy and unreasonable but you’re mine and I love you.” San hated that look. Well, he loved that look but hated how often Binnie had to use it on him.
San wasn’t being unreasonable. He wasn’t. The others were being far too calm about this. They clearly weren’t seeing the bigger picture. They’d all seen this movie before—big evil corporation performs horrible experiments on unsuspecting victims. Veritas Biotech. Even the name was bullshit. Truth? Right. They absolutely couldn’t trust them or anyone involved with them. Why was everyone so fucking calm about this? How was he the only sane one in the room?
He huffed out an angry breath through his nose, looking at Saint, Fen, and Loch where they sat on the couch, all watching him warily, like he was the crazy one. Meanwhile, Seth was laid out across all three of them—on his stomach, no less—like a fucking weirdo. And they all acted like it was perfectly normal. Seth’s head rested on Saint’s thigh, his ass in Fen’s lap, his feet tucked between Loch’s thighs.
When Fen noted him staring, he began slapping out a nervous rhythm on Seth’s ass, which made the other omega wiggle happily like a puppy. San would have laughed if he didn’t feel like his head was two seconds away from exploding. Seth was the closest thing he’d ever seen to a human lap dog. Even Wolf seemed to think the boy’s need for affection was over the top. Luckily, there was no shortage of people within the pack willing to coddle or cuddle Seth, much to the omega’s delight.
San flicked his gaze to Ollie, who sat on the other end of the sofa from Binnie, Deke on the floor between his knees, scratching Wolf’s twitching ears where he’d flopped down beside him. “Tell them I’m not being unreasonable.”
Ollie’s brows shot up, like he hadn’t expected San to single him out as an ally. He didn’t know what he was so shocked about. Ollie was usually the grown up in the room, even more so now that he had so many people to look out for. San crossed his arms and tightened his jaw, nostrils flaring with each heavy breath.
Ollie started to stammer. “I-I mean, they didn’t really confirm anything. It’s just a bunch of random information.”
San sucked his teeth. “They implied it, though. Heavily.”
“They didn’t really imply anything,” Ollie corrected timidly. “You’re inferring it based on the limited information received from four?—”
“Five,” Binnie interjected.
Ollie nodded once. “—five strangers in a bar. But we don’t know that the information we have is the whole picture. We don’t even know if it’s true.”
“They were gossipy,” Saint said begrudgingly. “They seemed like the types to embellish a good story.”
“See?” Ollie said.
San narrowed his eyes at Saint. “Are you trying to piss me off?”
Saint shrugged. “Surprisingly, no. We’re just playing devil’s advocate.”
“You can’t be serious,” San muttered.
San felt like he was stuck in a bad dream where everyone had turned against him. Yes, he knew that was dramatic, but Ollie had been freaking out about this very topic for weeks. No, months. They all had. Now that they had information that all but confirmed their suspicions were correct, everyone was suddenly willing to give everyone the benefit of the doubt? What the fuck?
“We need to be careful of confirmation bias,” Ollie said, like he’d plucked the thoughts from San’s head. “We can’t just go looking at the pieces of data that support our ideas. We need to look at all the facts objectively.”
San’s mouth fell open at his words. “We can’t afford to be objective. You’re pregnant! People know you’re pregnant. People who could be very dangerous. People connected to other people who could be dangerous. What is wrong with everyone? I feel like I’ve taken crazy pills.” He dropped his gaze to Deke. “Why aren’t you more mad about this? You should be furious. That’s your baby in there.”
Deke blinked up at San, his expression and tone giving nothing away. “To be fair, I think you’re mad enough for all of us.”
San paused, tilting his head and giving him a flat stare. “That’s not funny. This isn’t funny.”
“Who’s trying to be funny?” Deke countered. “It’s like you’re expecting me to be shocked that my shitty family did something shitty. My dad and brother being in some kind of epic conspiracy against me isn’t exactly off brand for them. The sky is blue. The grass is green. My family sucks. It’s hardly headline news.”
“Deke’s right. His family sucks. You might be right, too. But I’m maybe siding with Ollie on this,” Seth said, voice partially muffled by Saint’s thigh. “We are, sort of, just jumping to conclusions, no? Like…we know nothing for sure. We don’t know that Deke’s dad knew he was an enigma. We don’t know that Bas and Win do either. It’s possible Dutch talking to the two Veritas guys in suits had nothing to do with the enigma or Deke and everything to do with Bas.”
“And Dutch talking about some kind of genetic legacy?” San countered, tone pissy.
Seth hesitated. “Yeah, that’s definitely kind of fucking weird. But, like, we don’t know for sure. People embellish shit about their families all the time.”
“Nothing we’ve learned in the past three or so days supports the theory that this is all coincidence,” San said. “Nothing. And everything we’ve learned makes it seem like Bas and Win can’t be trusted.”
Seth struggled into a sitting position, ending up on Fen’s lap. “Win’s dad could just be a shit alpha douchebag who conducts shady research experiments on people without it being about an enigma. Or he could be some super great guy that people totally misunderstand because he’s so secretive. We don’t know he’s a bad guy. Not yet, anyway.”
“Well, based on the knowledge we have, we can infer it, can we not?” San asked, looking pointedly at Ollie. “Why are you all still looking at me like I’m crazy? We’ve spent the last few weeks stressing about someone performing horrific experiments on Ollie or Deke or the baby. An idea you brought up by the way,” San reminded, pointing an accusatory finger at Ollie. “Now, everyone is acting like we should just make nice with the daughter of a goddamn supervillain who has his own actual fucking lab. Why not just gift wrap Ollie and the baby for them? Set them on his doorstep. It would be easier.”
Binnie’s hand darted out, wrapping around San’s wrist and hauling him into his lap. “You have to relax, love. You’re going to rupture a blood vessel.”
San was tempted to fight it, to wrench himself from his grip. He was agitated, his blood boiling. His heart was racing. He was even sweating a little. Binnie’s hand slid under San’s loose tank top, fingertips stroking along his spine until San felt some of his anger melting. The fight bled from him a little with each second that ticked by.
He should be mad that Binnie was clearly trying to manipulate his emotions with his touch, pumping that calming energy through their mating mark, but he really just wished they were alone so he could strip down and feel Binnie everywhere.
When Loch spoke, San had to force himself to pay attention, Binnie’s fingers continuing their exploration beneath his shirt. “We’re going to do our research. We will figure out who we can trust and who we can’t. In the meantime, we can track down Shane and talk to Darnell’s sister. Then we’ll have a better understanding of what’s happening. Okay?” Loch asked.
“I think we should also find out who that private investor was. The one that saved Hearst’s company,” Saint said.
Goosebumps erupted along San’s skin. He’d forgotten all about that. Unease made his stomach churn. There were just too many players in this game.
“Why?” Fen asked.
“Just a hunch,” Saint said.
“You think it’s Dresden. Don’t you?” Fen asked.
Saint shrugged. “If there’s one thing we’ve learned about this fucking town, it’s that if there’s fuckery happening, all roads lead to Dresden, either directly or indirectly.”
“Fenny, did you go through all the encrypted files Josh sent you?” Ollie asked suddenly.
Fen shook his head. “It would be impossible to go through everything without knowing what I was looking for. He had servers full of information. Pretty much anything Cerberus had on their mainframe, but it’s not in any cohesive order. I have a program attempting to organize it.”
“But you can search it if you know what you’re looking for?” Ollie asked.
Fen nodded. “Sure. That’s how I found all of Dresden’s shady holding companies. Why? What am I looking for?”
Ollie sat forward, carding his fingers through Deke’s hair like a nervous tic. “What Saint said made me remember something.”
“Which is?” San prompted.
“When I first applied at Cerberus, they considered bringing me in as a medic. They were really stoked that I was a beta, which isn’t that unusual by itself. Betas do better in medical fields since they’re able to care for both alphas and omegas. But once they started handing me the clearance forms, I refused the job. I figured that was the end of it, but two weeks later, they called and offered me the logistics and supply coordinator job.”
“We all had to sign a bunch of forms,” Binnie said, frowning. “What’s so weird about that?”
“These forms were specific to the medic program. It required a completely separate NDA for the job that came with a substantial monetary penalty for violating it.”
“Isn’t that how NDAs work? Is it weird that Cerberus wouldn’t want you blabbing their secrets to the world?”
“They didn’t want to hide their secrets from the world. They wanted to hide them from the other soldiers,” Ollie said, like he was looking back on it all, spinning it around in his head to examine it from every angle. “They said that all Cerberus soldiers could be utilized for research purposes but that we’re under no obligation to tell them what agents they were given or even that they were part of any clinical trials at all. I didn’t want any part of that, so I turned down the job.”
“That…is that something that happens?” Seth asked. “I know it used to happen, but does it still happen today? The government experimenting on soldiers?”
Ollie, Binnie, Loch, and Saint all exchanged glances, but it was Binnie who finally spoke.
“Depends on who you ask. They can require us to do certain things as a requirement of our job, say vaccines. But they can’t just subject us to shady research practices. Not legally, anyway. They’ll always find a way. They think we belong to them. They can punish us as they like under the guise of something they can’t be sued for. Ask Loch. He once got barracks restriction for two days over a sunburn.”
“What?” Fen asked, glancing at his mate.
“Damaging government property,” Loch said with a fond smile.
“While the military would likely not be involved in shady underground research anymore, Cerberus certainly would. Hell, the government could pay Cerberus to conduct their research for them and it’s a win-win for everyone,” Ollie said.
“It’s not exactly something they advertise,” Ollie said. “Even though the military wasn’t doing it, Cerberus would.”
“What the hell kind of research does Veritas do that would interest Cerberus?” Deke asked.
“They used to research drugs for everything from heart disease to skin disorders,” Fen said. “Once they were bought out by a private investor, they grew really hush hush about their research. It’s all very vague. Stem cell therapies. Biologics. They claim they are trying to better lives across the world with advanced technologies.”
“See? That sounds shady as fuck,” San said, gesturing wildly. He looked at each of them in turn before turning to Binnie. “Tell me that doesn’t sound fucking sus.”
“It’s…sus,” Binnie agreed, nodding emphatically, like he was trying to appease a crazy person on the edge of their sanity.
San tried to glare at him but Binnie’s fingertips grazed his stomach just below his belly button, tracing a path to his waistband, hovering there for a moment before moving back up. San was distracted just enough to lose his train of thought temporarily.
“We need a murder board,” Seth cried, sticking a finger in the air. San half-expected a lightbulb to appear over the omega’s head.
“A what?” Loch asked, huffing out something close to a laugh.
“A murder board,” Seth repeated. When most of the alphas looked at him in confusion, he clarified, “Big white board, dry erase markers, some colored string…a printer?”
Binnie raised a brow. “That sounds more like an arts and crafts project.” When Seth pouted, Binnie folded like a cheaply made lawn chair. “What do you want us to do with this murder board?”
San almost laughed at how offended Seth looked. “Have you people never seen a thriller? We need to break down the players, the information, and then figure out who’s connected to who.” He looked at Ollie. “Think of it as an old school PowerPoint presentation.”
“I don’t like your tone,” Ollie muttered.
Seth stuck his tongue out. Saint chose that moment to scoop his mate from Fen’s lap and into his own, his thumb digging into the base of the omega’s skull until he whimpered. For a moment, San thought Seth might start drooling.
Deke brought San’s attention back to him. “Seth’s right. This is getting way too convoluted. If by some weird twist of fate, this is all connected, we need to break this down into bite-size pieces. My head is starting to hurt.”
They were both right. This was insane. It was all too big. Too all encompassing. Or they were all really fucking paranoid. Either way, they needed a clear, concise way to lay out all this information. Bringing Dresden down while keeping all of them alive was starting to sound like an insurmountable task.
“Just leave it to me,” San said, then patted Binnie’s cheek. “Well, me and his credit cards. I’ll get the supplies and then we can all compare notes once we’ve talked to Shane and the sister. What’s her name?”
Saint pulled the napkin from his pocket. “Loretta.”
“We’ll break it all down once we talk to Loretta,” San finished.
“They’re our credit cards,” Binnie murmured, pressing a kiss into San’s palm.
San couldn’t stop his goofy smile. How was this man real?
When Loch cleared his throat, Binnie broke his gaze, looking to their leader.
“I can dig into Veritas tomorrow at work,” Binnie said. “If I can’t find the information online, I can make some…discreet inquiries.”
“I’m still working on the National Registry for Ollie,” Fen said. “But when I get home tomorrow night, I can create a bot to sort through the Cerberus data to look for any talk of research projects…just in case.”
“And I’m gonna have lunch with my brother,” Deke said.
San sucked in a surprised breath, choking on his own spit. “What?”
“What, what?” Deke said. “I already set it up for tomorrow. Besides, we need to know what’s going on. If my brother and Win are part of some grand conspiracy, then we have the upper hand because they don’t know that we know.”
“Now, my head is starting to hurt,” Ollie said, squeezing the bridge of his nose.
“Do you think it’s a bad idea?” Deke asked, turning sideways to squeeze Ollie’s knee. “I won’t go if you think it’s a bad idea.”
“I’m not the pack leader,” Ollie said carefully. “But I don’t think it would hurt for you to meet your brother in a public place. On your terms. But not alone.”
“I’ll go,” Saint said. “I can sit in the car across the street and just make sure nobody snatches him on his way in or out.”
“Fine, then I’m gonna go find Shane tomorrow,” Ollie said. “See if I can suss out what he knows.”
“Not alone you’re not,” Deke snapped.
“I’ll go with him,” San said. “Divide and conquer, remember?”
“No,” Deke said, shaking his head. “No offense, but it’s not like you can protect Ollie in a fight against another alpha. The others have combat training.”
San snarled, his temper flaring once more. Deke sat forward, eyes narrowed, his lip curled. Binnie’s hand curled around San’s forearm just as Ollie put a hand on Deke’s shoulder.
“Enough,” Loch growled. San and Deke both shrank back but continued to glower at each other. So, now Deke didn’t think San could protect Ollie? What about all those times San had protected Deke? He was an alpha. Just because he wasn’t a soldier didn’t mean he couldn’t fight if he had to.
“Okay, new plan,” Loch said. “I go with Deke. Saint goes with Ollie and San.” He looked at the baby alpha. “How do you feel about wearing a wire?”
“Do we have a wire?” Fen asked, amused. “Are we people who have wiretapping equipment in the house?”
“We’ve been stockpiling equipment we might need,” Saint said, sounding almost sheepish. “While you two are at work, Loch and I have a lot of free time on our hands.”
“And Binnie’s credit cards,” Fen added with a smirk.
“Yeah, those, too.”
“You go shopping together?” Seth asked, huffy, heading directly into full pout mode. “I can’t get you to shop anywhere but Costco, but you and Loch go out shopping all the time? Wow.”
Saint gave Seth a patient look, one similar to the one Binnie had given San earlier. “If you wanted to go shopping at The Spy Store or one of the many gun shops in the area, I’d happily escort you.” When Seth’s pouting only increased, Saint sighed. “I’d be much more inclined to go shopping with you if you wanted to buy clothes for yourself and not me.”
“I don’t want to buy clothes for me until they’re mater—” Seth cut himself off. “Until I need them,” he finished quietly, lying back down and turning to face Saint’s stomach, shoulders hunching inward.
San and Fen exchanged uneasy looks. They needed to talk to Seth. Soon. It was clear he wasn’t over the whole negative pregnancy test thing. San was sure Saint wouldn’t do anything to make Seth feel bad about it, but he also didn’t know Seth like they did. He needed a place to be sad for a while, judgment free.
It was the least they could do for him.
“Please, tell me this meeting is adjourned,” Seth said, voice muffled.
Loch sighed, scrubbing his hands over his face. “Yeah. You’re all free. Go, live your lives.”
Fen caught San’s gaze once more, no words needed. San turned to Binnie. “Baby, I think I need to?—”
Binnie nodded. “Go. Talk to your friends. I’m gonna turn in early anyway.”
“Okay,” San said. Just as Binnie started to walk away, San snagged his arm, drawing him back and kissing him deeply. “But…take a shower. Just in case.”
Binnie grinned. He did not ask any follow-up questions, just leaned in for another kiss. “Yes, alpha.”