Page 8 of Omega’s Fever (Prime Match #2)

Milo

The next morning, my stomach rolls as I highlight another line in the witness statement. I’ve been in the office since five am with nothing but black coffee to keep me going.

According to the documentation, The Pit was the hottest underground venue in the city: illegal fighting rings in the basement under the guise of boxing tournaments. Women trafficked for sex work upstairs. Money laundering through the bar. Very organized and very profitable.

According to Kellen’s witness statement, he was just a fighter. Showed up, fought, collected his winnings, left.

The evidence tying him to the club was a lot more interesting.

The money appeared to have ended up being channeled through a company in the Channel Islands called Mercer Enterprises.

Two days before he was arrested, Kellen received a payout of $20,000 into his bank account from a payer called Mercer ME.

Any other money was long lost. Mercer Enterprises was reportedly bankrupt. The millions of dollars that had been funneled through it was missing.

Millions. 17.3 million to be precise. That was a lot of money for a dingy nightclub on the wrong side of town.

A note on one of the financial statements said only: “Drug running?”

That appeared to be the only tangible evidence.

That is, other than the witness statements.

The police had rounded up thirteen different witnesses willing to state that Kellen was the man running the show.

Two witnesses had disappeared and not turned up to the first trial.

One was dead, shot in the street six weeks ago.

All of them were workers at the club in one form or another.

As far as the public prosecutor was concerned, the case was cut and dried. They had financial evidence tying him to the club. They had witnesses.

But the whole investigation was shoddy. That was too much money for a single club. Clearly, whoever had written the note about drug running had thought there was something more, but there was no evidence that anyone had investigated further.

There were financial statements for anything connected to Mercer and everything connected to Hayes, but no one else. They didn’t even have the books for the club.

The file included six months of statements. The police’s view was that the Mercer money was channeled into another account of Kellen’s and the payment had gone into this account as a mistake, but it didn’t feel right to me.

Kellen’s incomings and outgoings were small.

There were small cash deposits — his fighting winnings — and then payments for occasional other work.

Sometimes he worked security at other nightclubs, at others he claimed he did manual labour for a construction company downtown and his pay slips appeared to support this.

None of his previous attorneys thought it was odd that a crime boss spent his spare time doing shift work for minimum wage.

Kellen paid for clothes at a well known chain of thrift stores and his main grocery receipts were for a Chinese supermarket around the corner of his main address. He wasn’t living like a man who was raking in millions while supervising a complicated trafficking ring.

Why hadn’t his previous attorneys done anything with this? Any half way decent lawyer could pull it apart in minutes.

“You look like shit,” Kao observes from across our shared office. He’s been watching me for the last hour, pretending to work. “Seriously, Milo. You’re green.”

“I’m fine.”

I focus on the paper in front of me, on the witness statement from someone who claimed to see Kellen physically abusing one of the women in the club.

Except looking back at the basic information on the witness statement, the witness wasn’t employed by The Pit until six months after the so-called incident occurred.

But I’m can’t challenge the statement in court. This is the witness who was killed in an ‘unrelated’ shooting. The whole thing stinks.

The words blur slightly before snapping back into focus.

I’m aware of Kao watching me. “I’m fine,” I say again.

“Sure you are.” He rolls his chair closer, the wheels squeaking against the floor.

“It’s a complicated case.”

“Right.” Kao picks up one of the witness statements from my desk. “So this has nothing to do with what happened at the courthouse? With your... what did you call it? Scent reaction?”

Scent reaction doesn’t cover the feeling of Kellen’s lips on mine, of his cock inside me. I swallow hard against another wave of nausea. The suppressants make me feel like hell warmed over, but I don’t have a choice.

“There’s more to it.” The admission comes out barely above a whisper.

Kao’s eyes widen. “More how? Like ‘lingering looks across the courtroom’ more? Or...”

“Or.” I can’t look at him. Can’t say the words out loud. But Kao’s always been too perceptive for his own good.

“Holy shit.” His voice drops to a whisper. “You actually... in the courthouse?”

Heat floods my face.

“Ohhhhh,” Kao’s voice drops to a whisper. “You actually fucked him. That’s why you went home to shower.”

“I didn’t...” But I can’t finish the lie.

Not when my body still aches deliciously in places that remind me exactly what happened in that interview room.

Thank god for the suppressants. My only choices right now are overwhelming horniness or horrendous nausea.

At least the nausea won’t come with a side order of career suicide.

“In the courthouse?” Kao leans closer, voice pitched low even though our office door is closed. “Milo, that’s...”

“Completely fucking stupid?” I slam the file closed. “Yeah, I’m aware.”

“I was going to say hot, but that works too.” He scoots up closer to me, then wrinkles his noise. “What are you on?” Kao abandons pretense entirely, rolling his chair close enough that I can smell the lingering traces of his instant coffee. “You smell like a chemical factory.”

“Military grade suppressants.” I open the file again even if the words are blurring together into meaningless black marks on white. “Started yesterday.”

“Shit, Milo.” His face shifts into that particular expression he gets when he’s genuinely worried. “Those things are serious.”

“It’s temporary.” I don’t meet his eyes. “Anne told me to go on them. Just until the trial is over. “

“And how long is that going to be?” Kao shakes his head, and there’s something almost pitying in his expression that makes me want to throw something again. “This isn’t like college where you can slug energy drinks to make it through the finals.”

“I can control it.” The words come out sharper than intended.

“Right. Because you controlled it so well at the courthouse.” He softens the words with a gentle smile. He’s on my side even when he thinks I’m being an idiot. “Look, I get it. This isn’t exactly conducive to our five-year plan.”

Our five-year plan. The one we made in law school, drunk on ambition and cheap wine.

Make partner by thirty. Buy into the equity structure by thirty-five.

Build the kind of corporate law practice that makes millions, the kind that has CEOs calling at three AM because they trust no one else with their billion-dollar deals.

Criminal law was never part of the equation.

That’s for do-gooders and people who can’t hack it.

At least that’s what my uncle always says.

He’s not a lawyer. He’s in finance, but the principle is the same. He’s an asshole but he’s partly right.

“Schmitt and Petersen doesn’t care about my pheromone reactions,” I say. “They care about billable hours.”

“True.” Kao glances at his own mountain of paperwork. “Though I bet they’d care if you collapsed in the middle of a client meeting from suppressant overdose.”

“I’m not going to collapse.” Another wave of nausea rolls through me, slow and inevitable like tide coming in, making a liar of my words even as I speak them. “It’s just temporary. A few weeks of discomfort.”

My phone buzzes. The notification I’ve been dreading pops up on the screen.

Omega Match Bureau: Prime Match notification .

In my heart, I’d known it was coming, but my stomach both sinks and my heart soars at the same time. Kellen is mine. I knew he was. And I am his.

What other possible reason could I have for doing what I did in that interview room?

Kao sees my face. “What is it?”

I turn the phone toward him. His mouth falls open.

“Prime match? Holy shit, Milo. That’s like...”

“One in a million. Yeah.” I set the phone face-down on my desk. My stomach churns, and not just from the suppressants. “Genetically speaking, Kellen Hayes is my perfect match.”

“Fuck.” Kao runs a hand through his hair. “What are you going to do?”

Before I can answer, Anne appears in our doorway. She doesn’t knock. Senior partners never do.

“Milo. A word.”

Normally, I’m grateful for time with her.

My mentor is a font of wisdom, but today I just feel irritation.

I’m not in the mood to be summoned. I follow her down the hallway.

My legs feel unsteady, like I’m walking through water.

I’ve never been on suppressants like this before.

I’ve heard of them, of course, but this is something else.

I feel like I’ve just run a marathon. With the flu. After being run over by a truck.

“Sit.” She settles behind her desk, fingers steepled. “You’re on the suppressants.”

It’s not exactly a question but I answer anyway. “Yes.” I hesitate then add. “I just got a prime match notification.”

Anne grimaces and then says something I never expected to come out of her mouth. “Yuck.”

I tuck the word away. Yuck. That’s my mentor’s reaction to my mate. I don’t know what to think about that. Or about the fact that I am already thinking about Kellen Hayes as my mate.

I shift into work mode. I don’t want to talk about Kellen. I can talk about his case.

“The police did a shoddy job on the case. I’m pretty sure I can get him off with just a little more investigation.”