by Aiden Bates
“Mm. You pretty rich boys are all the same.” Rusty closed his eyes, easing into my grip.
“Are we?” I tightened it a little, just enough to see his hazels flash open again. “I don’t think you’re quite right about that, Mr. King.”
“S’pose I could be wrong every once in a while.” He smiled and bucked his hips against my fist. “Want a chance to prove it?”
I laughed. “Don’t tell me you’re already aching to go again.”
“Keep tugging on my cock like that, and I might be.” Rusty pressed a kiss to my cheek, surprisingly tender. “But I was thinking maybe tomorrow…you might wanna come to my fight or somethin’. See me in action.”
“You don’t think I got enough of that tonight?”
“Just an idea.” Rusty curled his arms around me a little tighter. “Think I might like to see you again, anyway. Maybe when we’re both, y’know. Sober.”
“That’s high praise, coming from a man who drinks as well as you do.” But despite my teasing, I couldn’t stop smiling. “Okay. Yeah. Let’s do it. I’ll come watch you oil up and punch some other tatted up jock until you’re both half-concussed to death—”
“Then maybe dinner or somethin’.” He grinned sleepily. “Could be nice.”
I could feel Rusty slipping off into sleep second by second. Post-orgasm, there was something about him that felt like a dream. Closing my eyes and cuddling closer, I let myself dream a little as well. Not just about the fight tomorrow, or about this dinner he’d proposed for after…
No, I let myself imagine something even more dangerous still.
A man like Rusty…what kind of future would that hold for me, if I let it unfold? Parts of it could be glamorous. Flying around the country to attend matches with him on weekends. The way I imagined he’d grin at me while I sat in the crowd and some scantily-clad ring Omega handed him a championship belt.
Other things…well, bringing home an MMA fighter as a boyfriend, for example, might be a little more difficult. It was too early on to really be fantasizing about that—hell, we’d only just met each other.
But I’d picked him out at the bar because I knew that my dad would hate him. I’d come up to his room with him for slightly more complicated reasons, but the point still stood—he was exactly the kind of man that would make all of the Dayglow fade out from my father’s immaculately television-ready face. And as I drifted off to sleep in Rusty’s arms, the last thing I imagined was how shocked dear old dad would be if he saw me showing up to one of his fundraisers with Rusty King on my arm.
Oh, the congressman would just love how that played in the news.
3
Rusty
“You fucked Daniel Rasner?” Six years after that fateful night with Daniel in Vegas, my brother Harper looked like his eyes were about to pop out of his head at the news.
“You had a kid with him?” Kaleb, who had a better sense of priorities, shook his head and blinked like his own eyes were failing to adjust to the reality I’d just laid before him.
“Yes, and yes,” I said slowly, swallowing back my annoyance and running my fingers through my hair. “But can we focus up here? Please?”
Okay, yeah, sure. Having a love affair with the son of congressman Brett Rasner was probably a pretty big bomb to drop on my brothers at the moment.
Considering that there was a solid chance that congressman Rasner was one of the masterminds behind the birth control scandal that had turned all of our lives upside down ever since our youngest brother, Josh, had uncovered the case of the botched pills and lost his life for his efforts, revealing I was the father of Rasner’s grandson was probably an even bigger shock for everyone involved.
One of those bad pills had sent Harper’s Omega, Nick, into such a frenzied, unexpected heat that he’d wound up pregnant in the wake of it. Didn’t even know who the father was—although after Nick and Harper had fallen in love, Harper had made it clear he didn’t care. As far as Harper was concerned, he was the father of Nick’s baby now.
Kaleb’s Omega, Derek, hadn’t come out of the scandal unscathed either. Back when he was still working at the company that had produced the bad pills, Bicroft Pharmaceuticals, Josh had recruited Derek as an inside source. A stolen sample of the chemical that had ruined the same pills that Nick had taken had gotten Derek placed on an FBI’s most wanted list. Bicroft had shifted the blame for the entire pill debacle onto Derek’s shoulders. One of the employees who’d actually been involved in tampering with the pills had finally been outed, clearing Derek’s name, but that didn’t stop Derek from being on Bicroft’s shit list. It was yet another danger we had to keep in mind——especially now that Derek was pregnant with Kaleb’s baby as well.
Add to all of that the fact that I’d just sprung the news of my secret lovechild on my brothers and their Omegas over a pot of Derek’s chili while we sat in Nick’s dining room…and yeah, okay, I could see why they were having a hard time processing it all.
Didn’t mean I was looking forward to spilling all the dirty details, though. Losing Daniel had been painful enough. Missing out on the first six years of my child’s life hurt even more.
“How the hell did you even run into a congressman’s son?” Harper flung his arms out wide. Unsurprisingly, he looked pissed. “And, more importantly, how the hell’d you hide an entire kid from us?”
“We’re family, Rust. You shoulda told us, at least.” Kaleb pinched the bridge of his nose, looking more tired than I’d ever seen him. “Didn’t you think you becoming a father might be pertinent information for the rest of us?”
I glanced over at Nick and Derek, half-expecting them to start in on me as well. But luckily, they looked about as uncomfortable about all of this as I felt. Sharing a glance, they nodded at each other and retreated into the kitchen without a word.
I only wished I could do the same.
Sighing, I leaned back in my chair and shrugged. All of this was always going to come out sooner or later. And now that the cat was out of the bag, there wasn’t really a good way to put it back in.
“It was one wild weekend in Vegas right before my first official MMA match, okay?” I held my hands up in surrender. “I shoulda used a condom. I know that. But he said he was on the pill, and we weren’t…well, we were young. We weren’t thinking. Birth control was only around eighty-five percent effective back then or somethin’.”
“As opposed to now, when it just sends Omegas spiraling out into hyperactive heats instead,” Harper grumbled. To his credit, he had a point. “Jesus, Rust. That’s it—for Christmas, both of you are getting stockings full of condoms.”
“Bit late for Derek and me.” Kaleb shook his head. “Bit late for all of us now, really. So.” He met my gaze, looking more disappointed in me than angry. “You and Daniel Rasner have a kid together. I don’t suppose we’re going to get to meet our nephew any time soon, from the sounds of things?”
“Or niece.” I scowled at the memory of how it had all played out. “I didn’t tell you guys because Daniel didn’t want me involved in the kid’s life at all, okay? I don’t even know if Daniel had an Alpha or an Omega, a boy or a girl.”
“Fuck,” Harper snarled.
“Yeah…fuck,” Kaleb echoed, his voice a little softer and more sympathetic. “But…okay. Unfortunately, this might be the break we’ve been needing in this, Rust. Better late than never, I guess. I think it’s probably best now if you just…tell us how this played out. We can work from there.”
My scowl deepened. Nothing between Daniel Rasner and me had turned out the way I wanted. The way I’d hoped. Dredging up all those memories was only something I did when I’d had too many drinks of cheap vodka. When I wanted to torture myself with everything that I’d missed out on, everything I’d lost.
But Kaleb was right. If Congressman Rasner was behind this thing, or even just involved, we needed to know for sure.
And whether I liked it or not, our best bet for figuring it out laid in a man who, as far as I
knew, still hated me. The father of my child—a kid I hadn’t even been allowed to meet yet.
“Well, like I said. We slept together. There was that first night, then he came to my match the next day. Was so impressed with me when I won, he all but threw himself at me for the rest of the weekend.” I chuckled, knowing that I sounded like I was bragging. Remembering the way Daniel had leapt into my arms, wrapped his legs around my waist and damn near knocked me off my feet as he kissed me after I’d come out of the ring, I wanted to brag. He’d been gorgeous. Charming. Far too good for me—and I’d fucking reveled in it. But like all good things, of course it had eventually fallen apart. “After that weekend, he had to go home. Had some kind of appearance he had to make for his dad’s work—’course, I didn’t know at the time that his father was a congressman.”
“He never mentioned?” Kaleb looked wary. “That doesn’t seem like something you’d omit.”
“It was a fling. Or so we thought at the time. And I think…dunno. Think he was embarrassed by it all. The way he talked, he got along with his dad just about as well as…as…”
I paused, searching for a metaphor.
“About as well as you got along with ours,” Harper supplied, shaking his head sadly. “Makes sense.”
“You two must’ve kept in touch, though, right?” Kaleb asked.
“We agreed to. Didn’t figure that he would, though. It was pretty obvious we were from different worlds. He was obviously looking for trouble when he came onto me. Guess he found it.” I swallowed hard as the memory of a phone call came rushing back to me. The tightness in his voice. The way he’d answered: Rusty, I’m so sorry, but… “He rang me up one night a month or so later to tell me he was pregnant. Heat started the day after we parted ways. And you know how, uh. Strong the King family’s swimmers are.”
Kaleb grunted in agreement. Given how things had played out between him and Derek, he knew that all too well. “He was sure the baby was yours, then?”
“He had no reason to lie about it. I was just a young, dumb MMA nobody at the time. Had nothing to give Daniel or the kid except for my name.” A dull bitterness sank into my stomach. “And in the end, I couldn’t even give them that.”
“He didn’t want you to stay involved?” Harper quirked an eyebrow. “Why even bother telling you if he didn’t want you in the baby’s life?”
“I’ve wondered that myself.” Another shrug. It was a question that had haunted me for going on six years now. One that I didn’t think I’d ever get answered. Always figured I’d just have to live with it. “At first, it sounded like we might, I dunno. End up together or something. Start a life. But then I guess Daniel changed his mind.”
“He told you to fuck off,” Harper guessed.
“Not exactly.” I winced. “His dad did. Cornered me when I came up to see Daniel. Caught me in the driveway and told me that Daniel didn’t want to speak with me anymore. Or ever again, for that matter.”
“He could’ve lied.” Kaleb already looked like he trusted Congressman Rasner about as much as he trusted the Fort Greene P.D. “If you didn’t hear it from Daniel directly…”
“I didn’t. At least, not at first. Tried calling him, but his number had changed. And Rasner…he, ah, made it pretty clear that continuing to badger his son wouldn’t end well for me.”
“He threatened you?” Harper’s fingers curled into a fist. “Fucker.”
“Near enough.” My shoulders stiffened. I didn’t need Harper getting all worked up about this. He was still injured from his own run-ins during this case. The last thing any of us needed was for him to decide he needed to step in on my behalf. “Said he’d put an end to my career—any career I tried my hand at, not just the MMA thing—if I kept fucking up Daniel’s life by trying to be a part of it. Daniel had a real career ahead of him.” I could still hear the sneer in Rasner’s voice as he’d said that word—real. Like anything I could provide his son was a cheap knock-off by comparison. “Didn’t want a low-life like me coming in and wrecking it all.”
“Rusty…was that the last time you heard from Daniel?” Kaleb’s gaze was all-knowing, which only made me more tense than ever.
“Yeah,” I lied, looking away. “Yeah, it was.”
“Rusty.” I knew better than to meet Kaleb’s gaze now. The man was like a human lie detector. Always had been, ever since we were little kids. “Come on. We know you.”
“A King boy wouldn’t stop at that,” Harper agreed.
“Fine.” I pushed a hot breath of air out of my nose. The back of my neck burned with shame. “No, it wasn’t. I called. I wrote. I drove past the house that Daniel had given me an address for. I did everything short of buying a fuckin’ boom box and blasting Peter Gabriel up at it. But whatever Rasner is, he’s not a liar. At least, not when it comes to making good on threats. Fights that Buck booked for me started falling through last minute. Police started showing up at the hotels I was staying in, claiming that someone had reported sounds of domestic abuse or the smell of weed coming from my room.” I shook my head, loathing how it had felt to be singled out like that. Never knowing when the next misfortune was gonna happen, just knowing that it would. “Finally, one night I got a call from Daniel. Would’ve been close to his due date. I’d been doing everything I could so I could be there with him when the baby arrived, but…”
My voice cracked almost painfully. Fuck. As if admitting all of this wasn’t already embarrassing enough.
“It’s okay, Rust.” Kaleb’s voice was full of kindness that I didn’t want right now. “You don’t have to—you know we’re just trying to understand—”
“No, it’s fine.” I waved Kaleb’s words away. They wanted the truth, here it was. I might not have been man enough to tell my family about Daniel and the baby before now, but now that I’d started, I was certainly man enough to finish the tale. “Daniel. He finally called me himself. Told me himself he wanted me to stay away. I had no money. No career—at least, not a real one. Told me the best I could do for any of us was to get my life together. ‘Maybe someday,’ he said.” I glowered. “Maybe someday. Last thing he ever said to me. After that…Christ. I was too ashamed to tell anyone.”
Kaleb reached out to me, laying a hand on my shoulder. “It’s okay, Rusty. Know how hard it must be to talk about it now, but at least now…”
“Now we’ve got a line in Josh’s notes about Rasner getting involved in an assassination attempt.” For once, I was grateful for Harper’s one-track mind. The change of subject refocused our discussion away from my dumbass feelings and back to the matter at hand. “Six years ago. Right around the same time he was making threats to Rust.”
“I remember it. It was all over the news at the time. And right after, Josh mentions…” Kaleb reached for Josh’s journal and squinting at the words before shoving it my way. His dyslexia meant he’d never been all that good at keeping track of letters on the page. “Here. You read it.”
My eyes scanned the page quickly. “Sorenson. That’s the officer you guys have been dealing with here in Fort Greene, right?”
“The man of the hour.” Harper looked like he wanted to spit. “Ruthless bastard, that one.”
“Ruthless enough to shoot the man they pinned the assassination on.” I tapped the line of Josh’s notes that laid it out. “Josh doesn’t seem sure whether Sorenson was in the right about that or not, though.”
“But we know he’s been short-changing the investigation into Josh’s death.” Hell, if we kept talking about Sorenson like this, Harper might actually spit.
“And he didn’t exactly make us feel welcome when Harper and I were nosing into it, either.” Kaleb’s voice shifted a shade more grim. “Question is, is that just coincidence…”
Harper sighed. “Or is that the reason Josh wanted to warn us all not to trust the local police.”
I rubbed my eyes, feeling fatigue set in. It would’ve been a long enough day already without all of these big revelations and unanswered questions. Add to th
at the fact that I was still suffering from jet lag, and even I had to admit that I was beat.
But as Kaleb and Harper’s gazes shifted back over to me again, I knew the night wasn’t done yet.
“Either way, we need some kind of inside connection to Rasner so we can start putting the pieces together,” Kaleb said slowly.
Harper gave me a smirk that didn’t reach his eyes. “And given your history with him, Rust…”
I hung my head. I’d known this was coming. I just hadn’t wanted to hear it. But now that the truth about my past with Daniel was out on the table, there was no turning back now.
“I know.” I finally forced the words out of my mouth as I resigned myself to my fate. “He’s our best bet. Knew it the second I saw Rasner’s name. And, hell, maybe it’s overdue anyway. But…”
But Daniel Rasner hadn’t reached out to me once in the last six years.
But Daniel Rasner had given birth to my child and hadn’t even bothered to tell me the kid’s name.
“I’ll leave tomorrow.” The statement felt like a knife to my throat. “Seems like the kind of thing I should do in person. But I can’t make any promises.” I locked my gaze on Kaleb, then on Harper. “All I can do is talk. But Daniel…he might not want to listen.”
4
Daniel
After the day I’d had, my ears were so tired I wished I could take them off and put them in the glove box of my car. I’d been screamed at, hissed at, spat at. I’d even taken a toy fire truck to the side of the head. I checked the bruise the truck’s wheels had left on my temple with a glance in my rear view mirror as I pulled up to the pick-up lane outside of Lissa’s school. It blossomed on my temple like a little violet, a smudge of purple and green proof that not every trust fund kid grew up to be a Wall Street fat cat or a sleazy club promoter in Malibu.
