by Aiden Bates
“Sorry,” Derek apologized, licking his lips. “It’s just…uh. Can you stop pointing that damn thing at me? Adrian and I knew Harper’s brother, Joshua King before…well. If you’re here and you’re looking ready to shoot me, I imagine you know what happened there.”
Kaleb didn’t flinch. “I do. He was my brother too.”
Derek’s face fell. “Oh. Well…Jesus. I’m sorry to hear that. Sorrier to be bringing more bad news.”
Kaleb lowered his gun by half. “What kind of bad news?”
“Adrian is missing now too,” Derek said, raking the fingers of one hand anxiously through his hair while he kept the other high and in sight.
“Dead?” Kaleb asked.
Sweat began to bead Derek’s brow. “Not sure. Not counting it out, though. Last thing he told me was to find Harper King in Fort Greene. So, here I am.”
Kaleb’s eyes narrowed. “Why?”
“Because…Jesus, man, can you please put that thing away.”
Kaleb grumbled about it, but finally, he holstered his weapon. “Okay. Gun away. Talk.”
“I know who tampered with the pills Josh was investigating. Can prove it was on purpose, too.”
Kaleb looked over his shoulder to me, a glint of danger in his gaze.
“Then you’d better come inside,” he told Derek. “Gang’s all here.”
Book 2
Heated Conspiracies
Kings Of Fort Greene: Book 2
Aiden Bates
© 2019
Disclaimer
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.
This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters, and events are all fictitious for the reader’s pleasure. Any similarities to real people, places, events, living or dead are all coincidental.
This book contains sexually explicit content that is intended for ADULTS ONLY (+18).
1
Derek
An Omega walks into a bar.
He sits down. Orders a drink. Checks his watch and glances toward the door anxiously—he’s waiting for someone. Someone important. Someone he’s been waiting for for a long, long time.
But then, his phone chimes. A look of fear crosses his face.
He’s in trouble, and he knows it.
His heat-tracking app has just sent him a notification. It’s time. Could be in a few hours, could be minutes. Seconds. He glances anxiously around the place—he’s a good-looking Omega, and this place is swimming with Alphas. They’re already eyeing him, sizing him up. Scoping him out. Is there a ring on his finger? Does he look up for a little fun tonight?
Suddenly, the fear shifts to a look of relief. He reaches into his pocket. Pulls out a little packet of pills emblazoned with the Omega sex symbol and two letters, BP, across the front. He pops a pill out. Washes it down with his beer. The Alphas go back to their pool tables, turn back to their own drinks.
A second later, a tall, handsome Alpha in military fatigues comes through the door. The Omega smiles. They embrace. Kiss.
Passionately.
“Did you miss me?” the Alpha asks, then leans into a yawn.
The Omega smiles. “Of course. But not as much as I’m going to need you…tomorrow night.”
The Bicroft Pharmaceuticals logo scrolls across the screen. “It’s your body,” a smooth, deep voice says. “Take control of it.”
I scoffed as I watched the commercial fade out on the big screens in the Bicroft lobby, only to start playing again. Bicroft had made a fortune in Omega birth control pills, heat-suppression meds and fertility enhancers. A big one—they were forerunners of the industry. Not just here in the States, but worldwide. It’s your body. Take control of it. Whatever advertising executive had come up with that line hadn’t just made the company billions—he’d given Omegas in forty-nine countries the words they needed to take their sexual autonomy into their own hands.
And it was bullshit. Every fucking syllable of it.
If I played my cards right, I’d have everything I needed to prove it too. Not in a week. Not in a month.
Today. It had to be today.
“Late start, Stillwell?” Chad O’Connor grinned at me from the guard station on my way in, tapping his watch. “Strange hours for such an early bird like you. Was expecting you a couple of hours ago.”
I forced a smile as I placed a hot cup of Starbucks and a warm breakfast croissant down on the desk in front of him. “Had to make a detour. Caramel macchiato, right?”
O’Connor’s grin broadened. “You might just catch that worm yet, Stillwell. Go on through.” He pressed his index finger to his lips and gave me a wink. “I won’t tell if you don’t rat me out to the husband. This no-caffeine diet is fucking killing me.”
“I can imagine. Appreciate it, man.” I breezed through security. Metal detector. Pat-down. X-ray. The lot. I had no reason not to, I supposed. I wasn’t bringing anything into Bicroft that day that I shouldn’t have been—O’Connor’s coffee notwithstanding.
What I was taking back out, on the other hand…that would be the hard part.
In the elevator beyond security, my finger hovered over the fifth floor button. Distribution—my department. It struck me how easy it would be to just go in to work like normal. Sit down at my desk, work my way through the emails, memos and meetings that comprised my days. Talk about last night’s episode of Almega Island at the water cooler and make it until 5:00 p.m. I could go home after, roast some chicken and vegetables for dinner, hit the gym and fall into bed like none of this had happened.
Slip right back into living a normal life.
But it wouldn’t be a normal life. I’d have to live the rest of my days with the guilt of what Bicroft had done hanging over my head—and that wasn’t a life worth living.
I jabbed the button for floor one, knowing I was in trouble as soon as I did it.
Floor one. Bicroft labs.
Exactly where I wasn’t supposed to be.
The lab floor was a big, open space. Stark white with lights overhead bright enough that I had to blink for a couple of seconds before my eyes adjusted. Clean, sterile, and mapped out for efficiency. And best of all—empty. The science team usually grabbed an early lunch at a pub that did noontime trivia on Wednesdays, which meant that unlike any other day…
I could just stroll on through.
But just because I was alone didn’t mean I could move slowly. One idiot chemist popping back in during his lunch break was all that stood between me and getting found out—and I couldn’t let that happen. Not now that I knew what was on the line if I failed.
A pair of keys jingled in my pocket as I moved toward the labs’ backroom. Stolen, of course. I’d picked them up off a coffee-addicted Alpha lab tech, Randy Argent, in the Starbucks less than an hour earlier. Randy was dating an Alpha himself, but I’d known for a while that they were always on the hunt for an Omega third—and Randy never could help himself when I pretended not to understand how my own hormones worked. I could still remember the way he’d licked his lips while he explained it—“And during heat, you’ll find that your testosterone levels become, ah…elevated…”
Dumbass. My heart had been pounding in nervousness the whole time, but he’d been too distracted by his own boner to realize that I’d unclipped his keychain off of his belt before the barista had called his name.
In the back room, I found exactly what I’d been looking for. A briefcase, prepped for my would-be Alpha loverboy to take to a conference with him as soon as he got back from lunch that day. A turn of the right key popped it open, revealing several rows of tubes nestled into a foam liner and a fat stack of files strapped into the lid. I rifled around in my pocket for the numbe
r Adrian Wells had given me about a month ago, along with a plastic sleeve to seal the appropriate tube into once I’d finally tracked it down.
Sixteen. It was right there, tiny and delicate, filled with a clear liquid and stoppered with a black cap.
I lowered it into the sleeve with care, then folded the plastic over and tucked it into my pocket. Locking the case behind me, I took a moment before I exited the lab to breathe a sigh of relief.
That was that, then. I had what I’d come for—now I just needed to get it out of the building with me.
As I took the elevator back down to security, I could feel my palms sweating. This recon bullshit, sneaking around, stealing keys and breaking into labs—this wasn’t my area of expertise at all. I’d done my undergrad degree in chemistry, my master’s in supply chain management. All on the straight and narrow, always. I hadn’t even been able to bring myself to miss a deadline back in college. Cheat on a test? Forget about it.
But that had all changed ever since Joshua King came into my life. In hindsight, the second that Adrian had made the introduction, I should have settled up my tab at the bar and called a cab. Should have never let Adrian talk me into this mess. Should’ve told Josh to stay away from it as well.
I should have, but I couldn’t bring myself to. This was the right thing to do. I knew it in my bones.
But now, Joshua King was dead. Adrian had no doubt as to why. And now that I was in this…
There was only one way out.
“Back so soon?” O’Connor narrowed his eyes as he caught sight of me coming out of the elevator. “What’re you up to, Stillwell?”
“I, ah…” I stammered, feeling my brain screech to a halt.
O’Connor was onto me. He must’ve been. Must’ve seen me in the labs through some camera—probably called the rest of security already. It was only a matter of time before they all came racing up from the basement to cuff me, force me into some little backroom where Bicroft kept troublemakers, and then…
“Wrong set of keys,” I lied, reaching into my pocket and jingling the pilfered key chain. I could feel a blush rise to my cheeks as I said it—I’d never been a very good liar. “I, ah… well, there was this guy last night, and I guess I must have grabbed his set by mistake this morning…”
O’Connor held my gaze for a second, then tilted his head back to roar with laughter. “Grabbed his set by mistake, huh? Heh. No wonder you were late, Stillwell, you dog! And here I was, just worried that the husband had sent you back down to take my damn coffee away.”
“Ha ha. Nope, just, a, uh… a silly mix-up.” He’d bought it. Holy shit, he’d actually bought it.
“Well, come on back through then.” O’Connor waved me over, raising his Starbucks cup to me in a toast.
I tossed the keys into the bucket before the metal detector, along with my wallet and phone. Taking a deep breath, I passed through it without issue.
One step down. Two more to go.
The X-ray scanner was next. Of course, the metal detector hadn’t picked up anything—the vial was glass. The cap, plastic. But what the metal detector had missed…
“So tell me about this guy, Stillwell. What’s he look like? Handsome?”
I licked my lips, tracking the arms of the X-ray as they spun around me, my feet spread and my hands tucked behind my head.
“Would I have spent the night with him otherwise?” I had to play this cool—even though now, I’d manage to wrap my first lie up in a second, stupider lie. “He’s, yeah, pretty good-looking. Dark hair. Ah…hazel eyes.”
O’Connor grinned as he waved me through to the other side of the X-ray machine. “Don’t even remember what color his eyes were? Jesus, Stillwell. Didn’t take you for the one-night stand type.”
I let out my breath as I passed through to grab my things. Through the X-ray safely. I was doing well—and now that I’d passed Bicroft’s security, all I had to do was get out to my car and—
“Hang on a sec,” O’Connor said as I reached for my wallet, phone and stolen keys.
My heart skipped a beat. “Yeah?”
O’Connor shrugged apologetically. “Sorry, man. I know after your, ah, wild night with this handsome mystery man, the last thing you’re probably looking for is to be manhandled some more, but…”
I swallowed hard, then nodded. The pat-down. Of course. Fuck. “Right, sure. Gotta follow procedure, don’t you?”
O’Connor grinned. “I’ll make it quick. Believe me—pat-downs are as awkward for me as they are for you.”
Naturally, the most dangerous step of all as I tried to make my way out of the building was the one I’d forgotten about. As O’Connor clapped his hands against both of my biceps, then ran his hands down the sides of my legs, I ran a dozen different scenarios over in my head. Maybe he felt the vial in my pocket. Maybe Randy Argent would come back from his pub quiz early and notice that his keys were sitting on top of my stuff in the security bin. Maybe, maybe, maybe—each of them ending in the same fucking way.
I’d be handcuffed. I’d be locked away. And not long after, I’d end up six feet under, just like Josh King had. Only before that, I’d probably get a hell of a lot worse than a knife between the ribs. Josh was a journalist. He’d only been following a story. I was a Bicroft Pharma inside man, stealing evidence from one of the richest companies in the world. If a violent stabbing was what they did to outsiders who fucked with their plans for world domination, I could only imagine what they’d do to one of their own.
“You’re set, Stillwell. Good luck with your switcharoo,” O’Connor said, giving me a final, fond pat on the head and moving for the security bin.
“Huh?” I blinked as O’Connor handed me my things. Wallet, phone, keys.
“With your Alpha, I mean. Hope he hasn’t taken off with yours already too.” O’Connor gave me another wink, then a clap on the shoulder.
I’d made it through undetected. Stolen keys, stolen vial and all.
“Thanks, O’Connor. Enjoy that coffee—you’ve earned it.” My heart was racing harder than ever as I took to the doors, using up every ounce of willpower in my veins to stop myself from breaking out into a sprint.
But just as I reached for the doors, I heard O’Connor call out to me again.
“Hey, Stillwell…”
“Yeah?” I turned, feeling my heart turn stone cold as it plummeted into my gut.
This was it. I didn’t know if it was going to be, How’d you drive to work if you didn’t have the right keys, or if it’d be, Wait a second, looks like the X-ray scan picked up something after all. But either way, it was over. The jig was up. I was a dead man walking now—at least, until O’Connor’s bosses made him break my kneecaps.
“You didn’t take your new Alpha’s keys on purpose, didja?” O’Connor’s grin was positively wicked from across the room “Maybe keep him from heading home?”
This time, my smile was genuine. What O’Connor didn’t know was that it was only because I was thanking the good lord for the use of my kneecaps for another day.
“You know how it is, O’Connor,” I said with a laugh. “You catch a good Alpha, you’ve gotta pin him down. Any way you can.”
“Heard that, man.” O’Connor waved goodbye to me, and just like that, it was over.
I was out the door.
Once I put my Lexus into gear, I didn’t stop until I couldn’t see the looming heights of the Bicroft building in my rearview. Barely even slowed down to flash my badge to the security guard who let me out the front gates. But when I was finally far enough away for comfort—that’s when I finally broke.
“Fuck,” I swore, pulling over to the side of the road and slamming the heel of my hand against the grip of my steering wheel. “Fuck!”
Nothing like a quick little nervous breakdown to calm the nerves, right?
My heart was thrumming like the turbines of a jet engine. There was a ringing in my ears that wouldn’t quit. My every sense was heightened, on high alert. I could smell the leather
of my car’s interior with every breath I took toward hyperventilation. Could feel the weight of the stolen keys in my pocket—and the somehow heavier weight of the vial I’d snatched right next to it.
It was a dumb thing to do. It was a dangerous thing to do.
But it was also the right thing to do, and more importantly, it was already done.
That thought eased my panic a little—enough, at least, to pull out my phone. There was only one number left on it that I knew I could call for help right now. Now that Josh was dead, there was only one man who I knew would be there for me while we figured out what to do with the evidence I’d just put a target onto my back over.
“Adrian—hey,” I said into the phone as soon as the ringing stopped. “I’ve got it, man. Saw my chance, took it. No going back now. But look—I’m freaking out over here, and I need a place to go, so—”
“I’m out, Derek,” Adrian Wells said, with all the sharpness and precision of a fucking guillotine.
“What? Adrian—no! Fuck no! Not like this—not now, you asshole!” Just like that, the panic was returning. And this time, the kid gloves were off. “I have the vial, Adrian! If they see it’s gone, they’re going to check the cameras, then they’re going to run their personnel files, and then they’re going to know it was me who took it. You can’t drop out now.”
“Yeah, well, already did it, okay? I’d say I’m sorry, but, y’know, I’d rather not end up dead over this.”
I blinked, biting back an entire string of four-letter words as I tightened my grip on the wheel with my free hand. “You don’t think I’d like to keep breathing too? You can’t leave me alone on this, Adrian. I’ve done everything you told me to. I went to all this trouble, put myself in danger, definitely ruined my job—I’m sure as hell never going to be able to work for another pharma company again after this—and now—”
