The silence that follows my use of Dominic's first name stretches for five full seconds while she studies my face.
"How long?" Her voice is quiet.
"How long what?"
"Don't play stupid with me, Mattaniah. You've never been good at it." She releases my arm. "How long have you been sleeping with them?"
The floor drops out of my stomach. I could deny it. I could lie, could construct a cover story, could deploy the exact skills she spent years teaching me. But my mother reads lies the way Amos reads spreadsheets, and the warmth in my scent and the looseness in my body are evidence she's already processed. The fact that I'm wearing Amos' t-shirt under my button-down just confirms her conclusion.
"It's not what you think," I say, and her expression tells me I just confirmed everything.
"It's exactly what I think." Her composure holds but something shifts behind her eyes. "You're falling into old patterns. The same thing that happened with Marcus is happening again, except this time you've managed to involve two of them."
"This is nothing like Marcus."
"Really?" She crosses her legs and smooths her robe over her knee, every gesture controlled. "A lonely Omega meets an Alpha who pays attention to him. The Alpha says the right things, makes the Omega feel special, makes him believe the attention is genuine. The Omega lowers his guard because it feels so goodto be seen." She turns her head and pins me with a look that cuts through every defense I have. "You've done this before. I spent four years putting you back together afterward."
The Marcus comparison lands exactly where she aims it. The coordinated approaches, the shared looks, the way they handle me in tandem. My mother is naming the suspicion I've been filing away and refusing to examine.
"They're not running a scheme on me," I manage.
"Everyone is running a scheme, Mattaniah. I taught you that." She leans closer and her scent sharpens with something I can't identify. "But this conversation isn't about whether they're genuine. This conversation is about the fact that you've been letting them distract you from the plan."
"What plan?"
"The plan, Mattaniah. The one I've been running since before we moved into this house." She says it with the patience of someone explaining something obvious to someone very slow. "Richard wants you. He's wanted you since the first dinner. Why do you think I brought you here?"
My mouth opens but nothing comes out. The hallway tilts around me and I grip the edge of the step.
"You thought we moved here for Richard's money." She watches me process it with clinical detachment. "The money is the bonus. Richard is the target, but the real asset was always you. An Omega your age, in his house, under his control. Richard's type. I've known his type since before I met him."
"You..." My voice comes out strangled. "You brought me here for him."
"I brought you here because Richard Hale is worth more as your Alpha than as my husband." She says it without flinching. "A bonded Omega has legal claim to an Alpha's estate. A wife can be divorced. A bonded mate can't be severed. Every time I toldyou to stay away from the sons, it was because they were getting in the way of Richard having clear access to you."
The stairwell spins. My hands are shaking and my vision is narrowing and I'm gripping the step hard enough that the edge cuts into my palms. Every lesson she ever taught me reshuffles in my head with this new context. The blockers weren't to protect me. They were to keep me available, unbonded, unclaimed by any Alpha who might get to me before Richard could. The suppression training wasn't about strength. It was about keeping the merchandise in sellable condition.
"The blockers," I whisper. "Since I was nineteen. You put me on blockers so I wouldn't bond with anyone before..."
"Before the right Alpha." She straightens my collar with a tug that makes me flinch. "Richard is the right Alpha. He has the money, the power, the legal standing. Once he bonds you, everything he owns becomes accessible. And once I have access to a bonded Omega's legal claim on the Hale estate..." She trails off. "You see the elegance of it."
"Richard isn't going to wait much longer." She says it with flat certainty. "He told me two nights ago that he's making arrangements. His patience with the courtship phase is ending, Mattaniah. Whatever he's planning, it's coming soon, and every day you spend tangled up with his sons is a day closer to Richard taking what he's decided is his without you being prepared for it."
"You were grooming me." The words taste like bile. "My whole life. Every lesson about suppression, every warning about letting Alphas in, every time you hit me for responding to a knot. You were grooming me to be handed to a man like Richard."
The slap comes so fast I don't see her hand move. My head snaps to the side and my cheek burns and the sound echoes off the stairwell walls. I press my palm against the sting and taste copper where my teeth caught the inside of my cheek.
"I was protecting you," she hisses. "I was making sure you survived long enough to reach the one Alpha who could actually provide for us. Do you think I enjoyed watching you suffer through suppressions? Do you think I wanted to lock you in that apartment for four years after Marcus?" Her voice drops to something raw. "I did what I had to do. For both of us."
"For both of us." I hear my own voice from very far away. "You trained me to be a sweet little sacrifice for a predator and you're telling me it was for both of us."
"Richard isn't a predator. Richard is an opportunity."
"Richard put his hand on my thigh under the dinner table while you watched." My voice is climbing and I can't stop it. "He backed me against a wall in the copy room and told me he wanted to explore my responsiveness. He touches me every day, Mom. Every single day his hands are on me and you sat across that table and did nothing because it was part of the plan."
Her expression doesn't crack. "He was establishing claim. That's normal Alpha courtship behavior."
"That's not courtship. That's assault." I'm on my feet now, my cheek burning, my hands fisted at my sides. "And you set me up for it. You gift-wrapped me and delivered me to his door."
