I try to ignore the heat building in my belly as I pick at my fingers, silently passing the time until a spread of Thai food arrives, a feast that's better than anything I've ever ordered for myself. My guards slowly come down as I stuff my face, Amos asking about work while Dominic listens with his food in one hand and his other on my knee, his thumb tracing circles I don't think he's aware of.
"How long have you two been working together?" The question slips out between bites of pad Thai. "Not at the company. I meantogethertogether. On the financial stuff."
His chopsticks pause halfway to his mouth and he exchanges a look with Dominic that lasts less than a second but carries a conversation I'm not invited to.
"A while," Amos says carefully.
"A while meaning months or a while meaning years?"
"A while meaning you're asking questions that are going to lead somewhere I can't take you tonight." Amos' voice stays warm but something in his expression sharpens, a line drawn in the air between us. "Not yet, Niah."
I file that away alongside every other piece of evidence I've been collecting. The shared looks, the coordinated approaches, the financial data Amos has been compiling on his own father's company. Something is happening underneath the surface of this family that I'm only seeing the edges of.
"Okay." I lean back into the couch and let it go because pushing Amos when he gives that particular expression is a losing game. "Not yet."
Dominic's phone buzzes on the arm of the couch. He picks it up, swipes through something with his thumb, and then a deviant smirk crosses his face.
"What?" I ask.
"Your mother is bold." He says it with something that almost sounds like admiration. "I knew she was a gold digger. She practically radiates it. But using my father's credit card is a low blow, even for her."
My stomach drops. "What are you talking about?"
He turns his phone toward me. The screen shows an account statement with a string of charges highlighted in yellow, department stores and boutiques and a spa visit that costs more than two months of my rent at the old apartment. My mother's name is attached to every transaction.
"She's been swiping the account every chance she gets." Dominic scrolls through the charges with his thumb. "Looks like she started the day after she stepped into the house and she's been escalating. This charge here is from yesterday." He whistles through his teeth. "Four thousand dollars at Bergdorf's. She doesn't do anything small, does she?"
"She does that." My voice comes out hollow. The food in my stomach turns to concrete because this is what Mom does, this is always what she does, and seeing the evidence laid out on Dominic's phone screen makes me feel like I'm back in every apartment she ever burned through, watching the scheme unfold from the inside. "She... fuck. She always does this. She finds the accounts and she drains them and by the time the mark notices, she's already moved on to the next one. I'm sorry, I didn't know she had access to your father's..."
"Hey." Amos' arm tightens around my shoulders, his thumb pressing against the side of my neck, right over my pulse. "It's all good, Niah. Breathe."
"It's not all good; she's stealing from your family."
"She's stealing from our father." Dominic pockets his phone and picks his food back up with a shrug. "We have enough documentation for whatever scheme she'll try to pull, and Father isn't stupid. Hell, I’m pretty sure he gave her her very own card. If he really cared about the account he would have cut her off immediately."
"Then why hasn't he?"
Dominic and Amos exchange another look. This one lasts longer than the first, and when Dominic turns back to me his expression carries something I can't read. "Because your mother isn't the only one running a long game in this house." He says it lightly but the weight underneath makes my skin prickle. "Father lets people take rope, Mattaniah. He lets them think they're getting away with something. It's how he identifies what they want so he can use it against them later."
The pad Thai sits like a stone in my gut. My mother thinks she's playing Richard. Richard is letting her play because he's building a file on her. Both of them are circling each other in a game I'm standing in the middle of, and until thirty seconds ago, I didn't even know the board extended past my mother's side.
"You look like you're going to be sick," Amos says.
"I'm recalibrating." I press my fingers against my temples. "I spent my entire life thinking my mother was the smartest person in any room she walked into. Finding out she might have finally met her match is... a lot."
"She's smart." Dominic's hand returns to my knee. "She's just not as smart as she thinks she is. That's a different problem."
The food slowly disappears between the two Alphas but I’m left sifting through my thoughts. These two aren't just Alphas who want me in their bed. They're playing a game I don't fully understand against a father I'm terrified of, and they're doing it while simultaneously dismantling my mother's operation andholding me together on a couch with pad Thai and casual touches.
"I have about four hundred more questions," I finally spit out.
"I know you do." Amos presses his mouth against my temple. "And we'll answer them. Just not all tonight."
I settle back into the couch because my body has no interest in going anywhere and the questions can wait. Amos' arm tightens around my shoulder as I let my head drop against the curve of his neck. Dominic stretches his legs out and pulls my feet into his lap, before discarding my shoes on the floor, his thumb pressing into the arch of my foot hard enough that a groan escapes me.
"Good?" Dominic asks, his thumb digging into a knot I didn't know I had.
"If you stop, I'll kill you."
