Heated Conspiracies

by Aiden Bates

  “I’m on it. Tell Kaleb to give the little one a kiss for me, mio.”

  I hung up the phone, then turned to Kaleb with an eyebrow raised. “Ernesto knows that I’m barely two weeks pregnant, right?”

  Kaleb rolled his eyes as I passed his phone back to him. “Ernesto never had kids of his own. He’s just excited. Any baby anywhere close to him—born yet or not—he sees as his own future grandchild.”

  “That’s kind of sweet.” A soft smile found my lips. “He’s going to look up what he can about Randy, at least.”

  “What’s so special about this Randy guy anyway?” Kaleb mused as he moved to the coffee pot on the counter, prepping it to brew up a caffeine fix. “He wasn’t special enough for you to sleep with, so…”

  I laughed. “Not for his lack of trying, anyway. Randy’s a bright guy. Not exactly innovative, but he’s got people skills that make him an asset in any lab he’s in. Scientists, you know…they’re not always good faces for their own work.”

  “Zeigler and his cronies were proof enough of that, sure.”

  “Randy was good at following orders, too. Not a rebel in the slightest, but a nice guy overall. Can’t imagine Bicroft up and firing someone like that.”

  “Unless he was such a nice guy that he refused to do whatever shady shit Bicroft was ordering him to cook up,” Kaleb pointed out.

  “Maybe. But there are some people on those lists that left Bicroft a year ago. I have a feeling that he was left off the logs intentionally.”

  “You think he’s their tampering guy, then?” Kaleb snorted. “Maybe he’s not so nice after all.”

  “Or maybe he knows who did it. If he got it in his head to play the hero…” I swallowed, not wanting to mention the other thought plaguing my mind. Or if someone were to compromise him by proving that he couldn’t be trusted with something so simple as a set of keys to some top secret chemicals…

  “The people behind this birth control thing don’t have any issue with putting bullets in anyone who gets in their way.” Kaleb grumbled with discontent as the smell of dark roast bloomed in the air, making me ache for a giant mug of coffee—which now, thanks to the little life growing in my womb, I couldn’t have. “Maybe they erased him off the list…then erased him more permanently, too.”

  “That’s what I’m worried about.” A furrow was growing on my brow, deepening with every minute. “Randy had an Alpha partner. They were always looking for an Omega, too—I think they wanted a baby, if I had to guess—but they seemed pretty happy together. I just…I hope he’s okay.”

  “If he got in Bicroft’s way, he might not be. And if he was helping them tamper with birth control formulas…”

  “Randy wouldn’t do that. At least…I don’t think he would. Maybe if—”

  My train of thought was derailed as my ears perked up to an ad on the television. The tinkling sound of a lullaby was playing in the background. When I turned to the screen, the words VOTE NO TO HR 2303 were emblazoned across it.

  “Vote no to attacking American families,” a deep male voice urged. “Vote no to save your children’s futures. Vote no to HR 2303—contact your congressperson today, before it’s too late.”

  “HR 2303?” Kaleb scoffed. “Can’t believe they’re still campaigning against that thing.”

  “What is it?” I asked, curious. The ad reeked of AFF’s particular brand of fear-mongering—and of Governor Delaney’s too, for that matter.

  “That house resolution for Omega rights. Just an equal pay bill with some stuff attached for workplace rights. It’s been buzzing all around DC this year. Talk of the town, actually.”

  “That’s Teddy O’Rourke’s thing, isn’t it?” Brock piped up.

  Kaleb and I were both left with our eyebrows raised. Brock seemed nice and all, but politics didn’t exactly strike me as his kind of thing.

  “You know about this?” Kaleb asked.

  “Sure. Teddy’s a Fort Greene local. Moved out west with his Alpha when he got knocked up. His dad’s military. Alpha is too, I think. Got some congresswoman to push the bill in the house.” Brock knitted his eyebrows together as he gazed over the back of the couch toward us. “Surprised you two aren’t keeping up with this shit better. Kind of important to ignore, don’t you think?”

  “We’ve had other things on our minds lately,” Kaleb grumbled, rubbing his jaw. “But if this bill came from a local and made it all the way to the House…”

  “Could be an interesting motive?” I suggested.

  Kaleb smiled. “Exactly what I was thinking.”

  24

  Kaleb

  Derek and I spent all night researching HR 2303. The ins and outs of it, its history on the House floor, the entire thing. Several times, a number of senators had tried to tack their own pet projects on to the bill—completely unrelated to anything even close to Omega rights—in exchange for their vote, but Teddy O’Rourke’s congresswoman liaison was standing firm. Addendums granting huge payouts to CEOs, compromises that would affect Omega vacation time and sick leave, and even a corporate sponsorship deal or two had been thrown into the mix, but she’d rebuked them all—and not without support, either. The House and the Senate weren’t just Alpha male games anymore. The Omegas and women that were backing HR 2303 were holding down the fort against all odds. At points, it even looked like they might be winning.

  “Let’s call Harper and Nick while we wait for Brock to show up for the day,” I suggested as I dug through the cupboard for some herbal tea. Peppermint wouldn’t do much to satisfy Derek’s caffeine cravings, but at least it might help his on-again, off-again nausea a little. At this point, it was hard to tell if it was morning sickness or just nerves, but I figured anything I could do to make him more comfortable was worth it either way.

  “You think they might have some insight on this?” Derek set the kettle to boil, leaning up against the counter as the gas stove flickered away next to him.

  “Harper, probably not. He’s…not a big fan of politics or politicians in general. But Nick’s a social media guy. He probably has tabs on this kind of thing, at least a little.”

  I sat down at the kitchen table as I dialed Harper up.

  “It’s eight in the goddamn morning, Kaleb,” he answered, obviously already grumpy. When this whole thing was over, I decided, Harper needed a vacation. Or maybe, he just needed the exact opposite. Recovering from his gunshot injuries was obviously annoying the hell out of him. I knew what that felt like—we King boys had never been very good at sitting on our hands.

  “Brainstorming session,” I explained, placing the phone on speaker and setting it down on the tabletop. “Nick around? We’d like to talk to both of you about something.”

  “Better be good,” Harper grumbled. There was a beep as he put his phone on speaker as well.

  “Hey guys! How’re the new digs?” Nick chirped, as chipper as Harper was grumpy. Now that he was a couple months into his pregnancy, he seemed to be getting bubblier and bouncier with every passing day. With a glance at Derek, I hoped the same would hold true in our case. As it was, Derek mostly looked a little green and more than a little stressed these days.

  “They’re…digs,” Derek said, slumping into the chair next to me. “Kaleb and I have been doing some research on a bill that might be connected to this birth control thing. Have either of you heard of HR 2303?”

  “Ugh,” Harper groaned.

  “A little,” Nick admitted.

  “And by a little, he means he talks about it all the damn time.”

  Nick laughed. “Only because everyone else is talking about it too. After the Omega heat crisis started springing up, a lot of assholes online started targeting the bill. They seem to think heat is a big issue with Omegas in the workplace. Some office in New York dissolved into a…well…”

  “An orgy,” Harper supplied.

  “More or less, yeah. A couple of Omega VPs at a brokerage firm ordered the same samples online that I ended up with. People—”


  “Bastards,” Harper corrected.

  “—are saying that it’s an awful shame, but it just goes to show how susceptible Omegas are to their own heats. Saying it distracts Alphas from getting work done.”

  “It’s always the Omegas’ faults.” Derek rolled his eyes. “Sounds about right.”

  Nick sighed. “There’s a particular voter block that’s very much of the opinion that an omega’s place is in the home in the first place. They hate HR 2303 with a rabid kind of passion.”

  “Which means Nick spends about half his days now arguing with them on Twitter,” Harper added. “A noble cause and all, but they’re not exactly the kind of people who see reason.”

  “No platform for fuckheads,” Nick said confidently. “They want to spew propaganda about the big bad congresswoman forcing innocent Alphas to work alongside those naughty, unhinged Omegas, I figure it’s my job to drown ‘em out.”

  I chuckled. Always knew I liked Nick for a reason. “Thought you said you only knew a little.”

  “He’s modest,” Harper said, a glow of pride in his voice. “This HR two-thousand thing…you think the botched birth control pills are trying to turn voter tides against it?”

  “Could be. We’re in desperate need of a motive, anyway—and this could be it,” I said.

  “How do you figure?” Harper might not have been into politics, but I knew framing it like the mystery it was would catch his attention.

  “Motives fall broadly into four main categories. There’s desperation. Crimes of passion, or lawbreaking driven by circumstance. Like robbing a bank to pay for cancer treatments.”

  “Jean Valjean stealing a loaf of bread to feed his family,” Harper piped up.

  That made Derek snort. “You guys watching a lot of Les Miserables?”

  Nick laughed. “I think Harper’s sweet on Hugh Jackman, but he won’t admit it.”

  “I just think he’s—never mind. Next motive category, Kaleb?”

  “Well, then there’s profit. Crimes of greed where someone’s planning to make enough money off their misdeeds to make the risk worth it.”

  “But Bicroft has money,” Derek reminded us. “All of these people do. I’ve been terrified to even think about popping a pill to help control my cycle lately. And we all know where that’s gotten me.”

  “Do we?” Harper asked.

  There was a long pause. Derek and I glanced at each other, his cheeks slowly beginning to glow red. Whoops.

  I shook my head, though. If we wanted to tell Harper and Nick about our own little bundle of joy on the way, there were better ways to do it than over the phone.

  “Um. What I mean is, if Bicroft was looking to make more money, this wouldn’t be the way to get there. This birth control thing would wreck their business, not bring in more cash.”

  “Exactly,” I agreed. “So I think we can rule that one out. After that, there’s compulsion, which are people like serial killers and serial rapists.”

  “But we know that whoever killed Josh wasn’t just out stabbing journalists for the hell of it.” There was a tightness in Harper’s voice that I could feel echoed in my own chest. “They weren’t compelled to murder Josh. They were trying to shut him up over something he knew.”

  “Which leaves political gain,” I concluded. “You don’t see the last one very often—at least, not if the people pulling the strings are doing their job right.”

  The kettle whistled, and Derek rose to grab it from the stove.

  “Luckily, we’ve done our jobs right,” Nick said proudly. “That tracks, doesn’t it? AFF is in this mix, along with some governors and likely some congresspeople as well.”

  “Those assholes with AFF have campaigned for at least a dozen congressmembers over the last ten years.” Derek poured us both a cup of tea, the hot water bleeding the tea bags a soft green as they bloomed in each of our mugs. “Their entire operation is political. Politics are all that motivates them.”

  “Politics like, say…using a batch of bad birth control pills to spin thousands of Omegas into a wild, rampant heat, therefore proving Omegas to be too unstable for the workplace, giving them grounds to roll back Omega rights?” As I laid it out, it sounded more grim than ever. “Bicroft’s top people would be willing to sacrifice faith in their Omega birth control line if their politics say we ought to roll society back to a point where no self-respecting Omega would be on the pill to begin with.”

  Harper groaned. “See, that’s what I don’t like about all this. Dabbling in politics on this level…there’s always a goddamn body count. We’ve lost Josh already. Half the sources that Nick and I tracked down when we first started digging into this are dead too.”

  “But politicians aren’t untouchable,” I reminded him. “We just have to have a solid case. Derek has the name of a guy that might open up this whole twisted chain of command for us. Ernesto is tracking him down now.”

  There was a long silence, then Harper cleared his throat. “You know after our little tiff at Josh’s funeral, I’m the last one who’d want to suggest this, but…”

  I blinked, then nodded. Of course. If Harper was worried about a body count, then it only made sense to let the people we cared about know so they could protect themselves. “You wanna call Rusty, or should I?”

  That made me wince. Rusty hadn’t been happy about Harper getting his hands dirty in the investigation for Josh’s murder in the first place. I hadn’t even broken it to him yet that I was involved too. Under any other circumstance, I’d suggest drawing straws—but just then, my phone lit up with another call.

  “Scratch that—Ernesto’s calling me, Harper. Hate to break it to you, but you might have to be the one to reach out.”

  Another groan from Harper’s end. Unfortunately, this conversation hadn’t done much to improve his mood. “Okay. But he’s not going to be happy about it—and you owe me one.”

  As I hung up the phone, Derek gave me a look of confusion. “I thought you King boys were all pretty close.”

  “Rusty and Harper had a…tiff at Josh’s funeral.” I shook my head, already dreading explaining to Rusty that I was meddling now too. “They’ll get over it, though. They’ll have to. In the meantime, wanna hear what Ernesto has to say?”

  Derek reached over to me, rubbing my back with the warmth of his palm. “Might as well. Fingers crossed that it’s good news.”

  I let myself relax against Derek’s hand for a moment, then pressed the button to take Ernesto’s call. “Hey. You’re on speaker.”

  “Good—because you’re going to need a paper and pen. I’ve got a phone number and address for you.” I could tell from Ernesto’s voice that he was smiling and smug. He’d come through for us once again.

  Derek wrote down the number and street address as Ernesto read it out—Reno, big surprise. It made sense, especially if this Randy guy was still working with Bicroft.

  “The number works?” I asked.

  “Si. Called ahead to make sure. No answer, but no reports of an untimely death either. Your boy hasn’t been reported missing. Which means he’s most likely still alive.”

  Derek breathed a sigh of relief. It sent another spurt of jealousy rushing through me, though I knew I didn’t have any right. He’d already said he hadn’t fucked the guy—but with a name like Randy, even if Derek trusted him, I sure as hell didn’t. It was a good thing that he wasn’t dead, too—especially for our investigation—but the fact that Derek was so happy about it didn’t exactly do me any favors either.

  “Don’t suppose he’s skipped town? No answer could mean no one there to pick up the phone,” I said, trying to fight back a scowl.

  “My colleague in Reno has reported someone coming in and out of the home as of yesterday. If he’s looking to run, he hasn’t fled yet,” Ernesto confirmed.

  “But that could change,” I said. “We’ll need to work fast.”

  “Agreed. He looked antsy, apparently,” Ernesto said. “And if he’s tied up in that Bicroft business, he pro
bably has reason to.” There was a pause, and then, “If you two are headed to Reno, Kaleb, I’ll remind you that you have a baby on the way. I don’t want you letting Derek out of your sight.”

  “That won’t be a problem,” I assured him. “I’m going. Derek’s not.”

  Derek, to his credit, waited until I hung up to air his grievances on that fact.

  “I’m not staying behind,” he said, placing his mug down on the table a little too hard. Tea splashed up over the edge of it, leaving a puddle beneath the cup.

  I rose to get a paper towel. “I don’t want to leave you any more than you want to stay here, sunshine. But we have to find out how your boyfriend in Reno—”

  “Not my boyfriend.”

  “—is involved in this. And Ernesto’s right. You’re in danger there. Here, you’re safe. Brock will be over in a little while. He can watch over you.”

  “You’re supposed to be the one watching over me, dammit! Or have you already forgotten your promise?”

  As I leaned over the table to wipe up the spill, I could feel the heat radiating off of Derek. The anger. They said hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, but whoever they were, they’d obviously never dealt with a stubborn, pregnant Omega before.

  Admittedly, he was kind of hot when he was angry. The fire in his eyes made me think of the way that same fire flickered in the seafoam of his irises when he came, for one thing. Had half a mind to take him to the bedroom and measure out the rest of this argument in a more…constructive way.

  But the other half of my mind was focused on this case—and Derek’s safety. The two didn’t always go hand in hand.

  “I promised I’d keep you safe,” I told him softly, mopping up the spill. “Right now, unfortunately, that means I go do the big dumb hero shit and you stay put. If we’re on the move, then you’re out in the open. Not exactly where I want to put the man carrying my baby.”

  “I’m not just a man carrying your baby, though. Randy knows me, Kaleb.”

  “Maybe a little too well for my liking,” I grumbled.

  “Oh, can it. Just because I know other Alphas doesn’t mean I go around letting them knock me up.” He smiled, smug, his eyes glinting handsomely. “Believe it or not, you’re special on that front.”