“Morning, firefly.” I press my mouth against the mark on his neck and his eyes flutter shut. Amos groans from the other side.
“You’re doing it on purpose now.” Amos shifts against the pillow.
“I’m greeting my mate.” I press my lips to the mark again and the sensation pulses through all three of us, Mattaniah’s shiver traveling through the bond into Amos and back into me in a loop that makes the Omega’s breath stutter. “The mark is right there. I can’t help where my mouth lands.”
“Your mouth lands with military precision and we both know it.” Amos sits up and pushes his glasses on. “How are you feeling, Niah?”
“Sore.” Mattaniah stretches against me and winces. “I’m sore everywhere. Like I ran a marathon and then got hit by a truck and then the truck backed up and ran over me again.”
“That’s approximately what happened to your body over the past three days.” Amos' hand finds Mattaniah’s forehead. “Your fever is gone. Your scent has stabilized. The bond marks are inflamed but that’s normal for the first forty-eight hours.”
“They hurt.” Mattaniah’s hand comes up and touches the mark on the left side of his neck, the one I left, and when his fingers graze the scar tissue I feel the contact through the bond as a pressure in my own chest. “But it’s a good hurt. Like a bruise you keep pressing because it reminds you of something.”
I sit up and swing my legs over the edge of the bed. The apartment is quiet and for a few minutes everything is exactly what it should be.
Then I pick up my phone from the nightstand and the screen lights up with forty-seven missed calls. My stomach drops as I scroll through them, communications from twelve different contacts, the oldest timestamp at two in the morning, the most recent from three minutes ago. Father’s number appears fourteen times and the PR director’s nine. Three board members, the company’s outside counsel, and Amos' assistant account for the rest.
“Amos.” My voice changes and Mattaniah flinches against the pillows before the word has left my mouth. “Check your phone.”
Amos reaches for the nightstand on his side. His screen lights up with a similar wall of notifications and his expression goes flat.
“What’s happening?” Mattaniah sits up between us, the blanket falling to his waist, the bond marks vivid against his throat. “I can feel something through the bond. Something just changed in both of you.”
“Give me a minute.” I scroll through the text messages, each one worse than the last. The PR director’s texts are professional: PHOTOS LEAKED. TABLOIDS HAVE THEM. CALL ME IMMEDIATELY. Father’s texts are a single repeated command: CALL ME NOW. The board members’ messages are variations on the same theme, ranging from concerned to furious.
I open the link the PR director sent, the images loading on my screen one by one.
The first image shows Mattaniah in the kitchen of our house, my hand on the back of his neck, his body pressed against mine. The angle is from above, taken from the second-floor landing looking down through the open archway. The second shows Mattaniah on the couch with Amos’ arm around him, his face turned into Amos’ chest. The angle is from the hallway, partially obscured by the door frame. The third makes my blood freeze. Mattaniah is curled in the nest in the closet, my cardigan visible beneath him, his eyes closed.
Someone photographed him sleeping in his nest.
“Dom.” Amos has the same images on his screen. “The photos came from inside the house, the angles only possible from someone living there. The kitchen shot is from the second-floor landing and the closet shot is from inside the bedroom.”
“It was her.”
“She was never going to stay bought.” Amos sets his phone down. “We should have known.”
Mattaniah has gone rigid between us. He can’t see the phones from where he’s sitting but his face has drained of color.
“Tell me what’s happening.” His voice is small and tight. “I can feel you both going into threat mode and it’s making my chest hurt. Tell me.”
I hand him my phone. He looks at the images and the sharp intake of breath that follows hits me through the bond. His hand goes to his throat, covering the bond marks.
“My mother.” He says it flatly. “She took these.”
Amos sits on the edge of the bed beside him. “Being controlled by us must have been intolerable for her. When she realized she couldn’t use you as leverage against us anymore, she went nuclear.”
“So she burned everything down.” Mattaniah’s fingers tighten on the phone. “If she can’t have security through me, nobody gets anything.”
The pain that pulses through the bond from him hits me in the sternum. It isn’t surprise or shock. The resignation underneath it is old. He expected this.
“How bad is it?” He asks it without looking up from the phone.
“The tabloids have them.” I take the phone back and set it face-down on the nightstand. “By tonight every outlet in the city will be running some version of ‘CEO’s sons in relationship with CEO’s stepson.’ The board is already calling. Father has been trying to reach me since two in the morning.”
“The company.” Mattaniah’s voice catches. “The stock price, the board presentation you’ve been building, everything you’ve worked for...”
“All of it is still there.” I sit beside him and my hand finds the back of his neck, the grip firm enough that the bond mark throbs under my palm. He shivers. “The photos are embarrassing butthey’re not criminal. The forensic evidence against Father is on three separate drives and none of it is connected to these images.”
