"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."
Dominic
Theattorney'sconferenceroomsmells 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. "Youspent 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."
