The fabric sits snug against his body, designed to fit close without constricting. He turns slightly to examine himself in the mirror, and the way the material cups the curve of his ass makes my jaw tighten because there is nothing clinical about that view.
"How do they feel?" I keep my voice as steady as I can.
"Good." He pulls his pants back up and buttons them. "Different. Like they're actually designed for..." He gestures vaguely at his lower half. "For this body."
"They are." I push off the desk and cross to the bathroom doorway. My hands find his hips, my thumbs tracing the waistline of the new underwear through his pants. "Only we get to see you like this, firefly. Only we get to know what you're wearing under these."
His head tips back against my shoulder. "That's the most possessive thing anyone has ever said to me about underwear."
"Get used to it." I press my mouth against the side of his neck, feeling him shiver through the contact, then release his hips andstep back. "Go back to your desk before Father notices you're gone."
He straightens his shirt and checks his reflection one more time before leaving my office. I watch him go, the slight adjustment in his walk as the new fabric makes itself known with every step, waiting until he rounds the corner before I sit down.
Once he's gone, I pull up the account statements on my monitor, needing to check into the Omega who istrulytrying to ruin all of our lives. Mattaniah's mother has added another six thousand dollars in charges since I last checked, three days of boutique visits and a spa trip that would make most people's rent look modest. The spending has been accelerating, which means she's either getting bolder or getting desperate, and neither option sits well.
I call Amos, needing to run through my thoughts, starting with last night’s dinner.
"Father had his hand on Mattaniah's thigh at dinner last night." I skip the preamble because Amos doesn't need it. "Under the table. You saw it."
"I saw it." Amos' voice carries the tight edge he gets when he's been replaying something he couldn't stop. "Three separate times. And I had to sit there and watch because intervening would have made it worse."
"He's escalating. The first week he was testing his reach. Now he's claiming territory."
"The 'development' comment when he left." Amos' chair creaks as he shifts. "He told Mattaniah they'd continue his development today. That he has ideas about utilizing his talents."
My jaw tightens. "Mattaniah told you that?"
"He told me while we were cooking. His hands were shaking, Dom. I brough him to the kitchen because he needed to smell like something other than Father." There’s a pause. "Well, I wastrying something out and then he took over. The cooking wasn't even about the food. It was about giving him back some control."
I file that instance away, wanting to pry into what happened because I know my little Alpha is falling faster than he likes to admit. However, we have more pressing matters. "Father's going to make a move soon," I say. "The touches are getting bolder, which means the timeline is compressing."
"Then we need to move faster." I can hear Amos leaning forward, the creak of leather hitting my ear. "The forensic data is almost ready. Another week, maybe two, and we'll have enough to present to the board."
"Mattaniah might not have two weeks." The silence on the line carries the weight of that truth. Father doesn't wait when he's decided he wants something. He takes. And there’s Mattaniah’s mother. I run a hand through my hair, a heavy sigh filtering through my lips. “The mom, her purchases are growing, too.”
Amos snorts on the other side of the phone. “The bitch thought she had a leg to stand on as our father’swife.” That would explain the aggressive spending but not why Father is all but ignoring her or why she’s ignoring her own son.
"Keep your ears open," I say finally. "If Father reaches out to Mattaniah outside of normal work channels, I want to know immediately."
"Done."
The executive floor conference room hosts a strategy meeting at two that Father insists Mattaniah attend as his assistant. Amos and I both attend because we have stakes in the discussion regarding our own expertise, though I can admit it’s mostly to ensure Father doesn’t try something stupid.
Mattaniah takes his position beside Father's chair with his notepad. His posture is impeccable, his face empty of any and all emotion. Father's hand finds his lower back within the first five minutes.
Mattaniah's pen grip tightens every time Father's thumb shifts, the controlled rhythm of his breathing and the slight lean of his weight away from Father's hand that he covers by reaching for his water glass more than obvious. His scent stays locked down, which is better than it would have been two weeks ago. No trace of slick leaking through either, which means the underwear is earning its price.
The meeting runs for ninety minutes. Father's hand migrates from Mattaniah's lower back to his hip, then to the back of his neck, his thumb pressing into the same groove he's been wearing into the Omega's spine since the first week. Every touch is plausibly professional. Every touch makes my blood run hotter.
The moment the meeting breaks, I lose sight of Mattaniah in the shuffle of bodies filing toward the door, and by the time I make it to the hallway he's not at his desk. Concern wells up in my chest when Mattaniah's terrified scent hits me, cutting through the stale office air like a blade. I follow it around the corner toward the copy room alcove and stop dead.
Father has Mattaniah backed against the wall.
His palm is flat against the wall beside the Omega's head, his body angled to cage him in, close enough that Mattaniah would have to push past him to escape. His other hand is on Mattaniah's hip, thumb pressing into the hollow above the bone, fingers curling toward his ass. Mattaniah's face is blank, his body present but his mind fled to wherever he goes when he can't fight and can't run.
"—been thinking about your development." Father's voice is low, pitched for an audience of one. "Your mother's talentsare considerable, but yours are different. Softer. More... responsive."
"Thank you, sir." Mattaniah's voice comes out completely flat
