Dom tried to suppress the burning in his chest. “They took him away in a chopper. How was I supposed to stay low?”
Nate surveyed the police. In a lower tone, he said, “Might be the best thing to do, short term. Let them go.”
Dom almost punched him. “What the fuck?”
“They took him down with tranq darts, didn’t they?” Nate waited for Dom to nod. “Every one of those darts was an overdose.”
That stirred something in Dom’s memory. “He said they’d save him from an OD.”
“Yeah.” Nate glanced at the sky. “If you’d delayed them, or if you’d taken most of them down, then they wouldn’t have been able to administer the antidote. He would’ve died.”
A cold chill went down Dom’s spine. “What?”
“They’ve done that to him several times. Mostly before they bring him to the operating room. They’d shoot him up with drugs, enough to give him multiple organ failure if the doses weren’t reversed. Then they’d bring him to the operating room, switch him to IV, and pull him off the overdose.”
Dom tried not to think about those people fucking with Sinclair’s life like that. Taking him to the brink of death, over and over. His heart felt like it might shred itself.
Nate led them away from the police. “He’s lived under Larson’s rule for years, Dom. He knows what that man wants, and how to stay alive.” Before Dom could protest, Nate said, “On this, you’ll need to trust him.”
“He fucking put himself in front of their gun,” Dom hissed.
Nate’s gaze sharpened. “Why?”
Dom didn’t want to admit it. In the end, he did. “He took a shot for me. He stood in front of them until I left the parking lot. I don’t even know if they hit a vital.”
“They’ll save him.”
“How the fuck do you know that?” Dom snapped.
“Because he’s worth billions on the black market. Or didn’t he mention it?”
No, Dom hadn’t known that, either.
“He was one of the first with successfully-implanted omega organs. Larson was trying to sell him as a virgin.”
Who the fuck did that? And how had Sinclair not been bought? Because Dom would’ve paid any price for him, really. Anything to see him again. To have him. Except buying Sinclair wouldn’t have endeared him to Dom. No buyer would have seen that soft smile on Sinclair’s lips, they wouldn’t have him so hungry for kisses, not like he’d been in Dom’s arms.
Everything he’d done with Dom, Sinclair had absolutely wanted to happen. The fighting, the sex, the kisses.
A horrible thought occurred to him. “So if—if he isn’t a virgin anymore...”
Nate glanced sidelong at Dom. “Yeah, he might’ve lost a lot of his market value. I can’t be sure what Larson will do when he finds out. He prized Jesse above all the rest.”
Dom forgot to breathe. He’d seen every scar on Sinclair’s body. The monster who had done that—he wouldn’t flinch at giving Sinclair more. Ten times the number of scars. He wouldn’t flinch at mutilating Sinclair. Breaking his bones. Torturing him.
Sinclair had stepped up to the car, knowing all of that would happen.
So Dom could escape.
Dom rubbed his face, his heart splintering.
Sinclair was a bastard. But Dom was even more of one. Because Sinclair had said, You don’t love me, and Dom had let him believe it. And the heartbreak in Sinclair’s eyes had told Dom everything he needed to know.
Dom had let Sinclair go, thinking he meant nothing to Dom. When in truth, Dom would give up everything so he could have Sinclair by his side again.
If he—When he got to see Sinclair again, Dom wouldn’t be an idiot anymore. He’d already lost his alpha. Maybe Sinclair wouldn’t stay with him forever, maybe Sinclair would break his heart in return. Dom wanted a shot at it anyway. It was worth it. Sinclair was worth it.
Dom wanted a life with that alpha, he wanted that cinnamon scent in his chest and his home. Anything Sinclair wanted, Dom would give to him. Because his smile was what Dom treasured the most.
“What are we going to do?” he asked Nate. “Because losing him isn’t an option.”
Nate smiled. “I have some ideas.”
28
Jesse’s in Trouble
Jesse snapped awake to sharp pain cracking through his body.
“Unacceptable. Four years I’ve been away, and you’ve let the fruits of my labor go down the drain.”
That cold, calculating voice appeared sometimes in Jesse’s nightmares. He’d always been so relieved when he woke, and realized he was no longer at the Facility.
Except the pain didn’t abate from his body this time. In fact, there were more sources of it. In his arms, his hip, needles already embedded in various parts of his flesh.
The lash came down, splitting the bare skin of his thighs. Pain shot through his legs, and an instinctual rage snarled in Jesse’s chest. He swore, lunging up. Heavy chains dug into his shoulders and arms. He struggled against them, needing to hurt, needing to erase Larson before his anxiety exploded.
“What the fuck do you want?” he spat.
Larson chuckled darkly. “Only what was owed to me.”
Something moved to the side—a person in a white coat. Jesse blinked several times, but his fuzzy vision didn’t clear. He could barely make out the gray walls of the room, the glinting chains wrapped around his naked body. A tray perched to his side, filled with blurry scalpels and syringes—tools that Larson was planning to use on him. Today. Now.
This wasn’t another dream.
Larson busied himself. Jesse tried to breathe. Vaguely, he heard the heart monitor next to him, telling Larson about his climbing pulse. He glimpsed machines and other equipment lined up on a counter, some petri dishes sitting next to them. Some other figures moved—Larson’s staff, all dressed up in lab coats. Probably the same people who had taken Jesse down.
“Your drug tolerance has slipped,” Larson commented, picking up a syringe and a vial. “Such a disappointment. We’ll work on that today.”
He filled the syringe with fluid and pushed its needle into Jesse’s skin. Dull pain
