"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.
