Fuck. I hate that Mattaniah thought he had to stand there rather than push back. Granted, pushing back against Father never ended well for anyone and we still don’t know what Father’s endgame is.
Come to my room tonight. Both of us will be there,I text back. I refrain from adding anything about needing to reclaim him in my text because I don’t know how he’ll respond and I’m not sure how to feel about that emotion either.
His response is immediate.Okay.
The rest of the day passes uneventfully, my luck running out when I find Mattaniah’s mother in the sunroom just after seven, draped across a chaise with a glass of wine and a magazine she's not actually reading. She’s the picture of leisure, bought and paid for with Richard's money while her son gets cornered in hallways by the man footing the bill.
"Dominic." She doesn't look up from the magazine. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"
I close the door behind me. The click of the latch makes her glance up, something in my expression finally getting her attention. She sets the magazine aside.
"You know what he's doing to your son."
She doesn't flinch or feign confusion. She just takes a slow sip of her wine and regards me over the rim of the glass. "Richard is a man with appetites." Her voice is rather calm "That's not news to anyone who's spent more than five minutes in his presence."
"He had Mattaniah cornered in a hallway today with his hand on his ass, talking about exploring his 'responsiveness' tonight." I keep my voice level even though every word tastes like acid. "You knew this was happening."
"I suspected." She sets the wine glass down with a delicate clink. "Mattaniah is a beautiful Omega. Richard has eyes. The math isn't complicated."
"And you're letting it happen."
"I'msurviving, Dominic." The pleasant mask slips just enough to show the steel underneath. "Something you wouldn't understand from your position of privilege. You've never had to calculate the cost of every meal, every roof, and every pair of shoes. You've never had to look at a man and see the dollar signs instead of the threat."
"You're using your own son as bait to keep yourself comfortable."
She laughs, the sound almost genuine, and it makes my skin crawl.
"Bait implies intention to catch." She picks up her wine again. "Mattaniah has always been useful. That's not cruelty. That's practicality. As long as Richard wants something he doesn't have, he keeps us around. The moment he loses interest, we're out on the street with nothing." Her eyes meet mine. "I've been out on the street before. I won't go back."
"If my father touches him again—"
"You'll what?" She tilts her head, amused. "Protect him? Rescue him? Sweep him away to your tower and keep him safe from the big bad world?" Her smile sharpens. "You're not his savior, Dominic. You're just another Alpha who wants what Richard wants. The only difference is you're pretending it's noble."
The words land harder than they should because there's a grain of truth buried in the poison. I did want him. I do want him. The scheme started with strategy and somewhere along the way it became something else, but she doesn't know that. She sees two Alphas circling the same Omega and assumes we're all playing the same game.
"You don't know anything about what I want."
"I know you've been fucking him." She says it casually, like commenting on the weather. "I know your brother has too. The whole house can smell it. You think you're different fromRichard because you make him come first? You're not. You're just better at packaging the same product."
I take a step closer. She doesn't flinch, but her fingers tighten on the wine glass.
"If you interfere with Mattaniah, if you use what you know against him, against us, I will make sure every man you've ever honey-trapped knows exactly who set them up." My voice stays quiet because threats don't need volume. "Amos has been very thorough. Names, dates, dollar amounts. The network you've spent twenty years building will collapse in a single afternoon."
For the first time, something like uncertainty flickers across her face.
"You wouldn't."
"Try me."
Silence stretches between us, her composure rebuilding itself piece by piece, but I've seen the crack now. I know where to press if I need to.
"We're not enemies, Dominic." Her voice has lost its edge. "We both want to survive Richard. We both want security. There's no reason we can't help each other."
"I don't need your help. And you don't get to touch Mattaniah's life anymore." I turn toward the door. "Stay in your lane. Spend Richard's money. Play the role. But stay away from your son, or I'll end you."
I leave without waiting for a response, hating that she's not wrong about everything. The scheme did start as strategy. Mattaniah was supposed to be a tool, a way to get at Father, a means to an end.
But somewhere between the first kiss and tonight, the tool became a person. The strategy became something that makes my chest ache when he looks at me with those eyes full of trust he shouldn't have. I don't know what that makes me. I don't know if it makes me better than Father or just better at lying to myself.
