Page 29 of The Kingpin’s Omega Lover (River City Omegas #2)

Except Kensley’s fertility had been triggered by sex with his charus, and he’d gotten pregnant completely by accident. But that wasn’t the same. Malori wasn’t King’s charus…was he?

King logged onto his computer and found the security protocol folder. Sure enough, complete, detailed floorplans were in there. He had them onscreen when Bishop strode into the office, still in damp swim shorts and flip-flops, and ripping the plastic bag off his wrist.

“Malori’s missing?” Bishop asked. “How the hell is that possible?”

“It shouldn’t be. I’ve searched the entire damned penthouse, and I can’t find him. He isn’t answering his phone.” King scanned the second-tier floorplan. “There has to be something. A hidden compartment.”

“But why would he hide?”

“I don’t fucking know!” King bit back on his temper. “He was fine earlier. I just don’t know, Bishop.”

“Okay. I’ll call Ziggy, have him immediately start tracking Malori’s phone, in case he somehow got out of here.”

King couldn’t fathom a single reason why Malori would sneak out, but even if he did, Malori was too smart to take a traceable cell phone.

Bishop knew it, too, but this was something they could be doing .

“Do that. And then double-check the security footage from our lobby. I believe Hartford never left his post, but I need to know.”

“On it.” Bishop snagged the tablet off King’s desk, then moved to the far side of the room to make his call.

“Where did you go?” King asked the computer screen, willing the answer to pop out at him. Willing Malori to tell him where he was hiding.

Malori shivered despite the heat of the day, aware of the dangerous position he’d put himself in by betraying King’s trust and sneaking out of the penthouse. He stood on the corner with the high-rise behind him, desperate to hail one of the dozen taxis scurrying past him.

He needed a ride, damn it, and soon. Before anyone realized he wasn’t home.

Leaving the way he had was dangerous, and he had an aching shin to prove it.

Taking the elevator had never been an option, because it was always guarded.

Sneaking away from the pool directly wouldn’t have worked, because Malori needed to change back into real clothes.

And he’d needed to procure the item he’d ordered earlier in the week.

He’d received an email from the concierge that the package was waiting for him downstairs, but Malori hadn’t been able to collect it yet.

He wasn’t allowed to leave the penthouse alone, which he understood for safety reasons.

But the restrictions had begun to chafe since that first DVD arrival, like a collar tightening around his neck.

He adored King for trying to keep him safe, but Malori had a fucking mind of his own.

He had to find his kids, period, and Aleks was his only lead to their locations.

Yesterday, he’d studied the penthouse’s floorplans, and he’d found his escape route, via the air duct returns on the roof.

Ducts he was barely skinny enough to fit through, and that led him to a utility room three floors below the penthouse.

A floor with access to the fire stairs and a direct line to the ground floor.

He’d collected his package from the concierge and then fled.

Choosing to leave this way had torn him up inside, but it was now or never. If his sleuthing was correct, tonight was his best shot at confronting Aleks on neutral ground.

A taxi finally pulled over, and Malori got in the back. “Where to?” the driver asked.

“I need a men’s clothing store,” Malori replied. “One that sells high-end suits for formal events.”

“How about Hyman’s over on 11 th Street?”

“That’s fine.”

Malori fingered the roll of fifty-dollar bills in his pocket on the drive to the store, a little ashamed at having robbed King, but the cash stash hadn’t been that well-hidden in his desk.

He watched the strange city go by, so much drearier and crammed with people down on street-level than it had seemed from the penthouse.

In some twisted way, it made him miss the peace of the Farm’s rolling hills and quiet, star-filled nights.

He didn’t like the city. Never had.

His gut rolled with dread and anxiety over the selfish choice he’d made to do this on his own. The detail about Aleks’s jacket that had plagued Malori for days had finally crystalized in his memory yesterday afternoon, while stewing over the second DVD in King’s office.

The pin.

Aleks’s sports jacket always had a pin on it.

A gold pin shaped like a circle with a triangle and lowercase T layered on each other.

He always wore it to the Farm—or at least, to Malori’s room.

That was something he’d completely forgotten about until that very moment, sitting behind King’s desk.

Such a tiny detail had felt like a huge fucking clue.

Could that pin have been hiding the camera Aleks had used?

The bedroom closet had been across the room from his bed.

Aleks used to hang his coat on the doorknob in whatever downstairs entertainment room they were in, because there was nowhere else.

No wall hooks that could be dangerous, no loose chairs in those rooms that could be used as weapons.

The angles of those scenes made sense.

He’d sketched it over and over, altering details, adding nuances and angles, until he finally had a perfect replica.

And he’d searched online, searched until he found the pin.

It was a fraternity pin for Theta Delta Iota.

He hadn’t been able to connect the name Aleks Yovenko (or Yovani Alexie) to the frat, but that didn’t surprise him.

What had surprised him was that the fraternity had a chapter meeting tonight, eight blocks from the penthouse, at eight p.m..

Malori had made himself sick debating if he should tell King. Aleks was obviously goading Malori, teasing him with those DVDs, daring Malori to figure it out and attend the meeting. If Aleks expected Malori to show, he might have a plan—a plan that could get King killed.

The last thing Malori wanted to do was risk King’s life over his revenge.

He’d do this himself, no matter how reckless his choice was.

It would be over before King figured out where Malori could have gone.

Malori had carefully deleted his entire search history, deleted everything off his account that could link him to this fraternity meeting.

He had to do this for himself and for his kids. He’d find Aleks, put eyes on him, and then call King for reinforcements. Prove that Malori wasn’t helpless, wasn’t powerless, that he could positively affect his own future.

He wasn’t a pawn in someone else’s game of chess. And if Aleks somehow made him and overpowered him? Well…Malori clutched his small mail package tighter to his chest.

The taxi rolled to a stop in front of a tall brownstone with a fancy “Hyman’s Clothier” sign on it.

Malori paid the driver a whole fifty and got out without asking for change.

Didn’t matter. He went inside, his package tucked carefully under his arm, and felt several pairs of disapproving eyes zero in on him from different parts of the store.

It smelled like leather and cologne and money, and he felt like a fraud in his jeans and t-shirt.

A silver-haired man with a measuring tape around his neck approached, but his sneer turned to delight when Malori flashed his cash.

“I’m attending a fundraiser this evening,” Malori said in his best don’t-fuck-with-me voice. “It was a last-minute invitation, so the suit doesn’t need to be perfectly tailored. Just presentable to a room full of college alumni.” Close enough to the truth that he didn’t stumble over the lies.

The man immediately led Malori over to a rack of jackets in various shades of blue and gray.

King was losing his damned mind.

After giving up on the floorplans, he’d logged into Malori’s account, feeling shitty about it the whole time, but he was desperate.

Other than a few game shortcuts, his browser history was clean.

He had no saved documents. One folder of photos looked like general snapshots of himself and Kensley in a few poses, and a couple of the sunset from the terrace.

Saved images of his infant son. Not a single clue.

Bishop reviewed the in-home security footage.

Hartford had exited the elevator with Malori at two-oh-seven, and he’d never left the lobby.

Bishop was currently going through the other hallway cameras, tracking Malori’s movements, while King glared at the useless computer monitor.

Ziggy had promised to hack into the building’s internal security system and see what he could find.

“He went up to the roof at two-eleven,” Bishop said. “The camera in the stairwell caught him. Look.” He handed over the tablet, which was paused on an image of Malori pushing the door open with his left hand.

King studied his profile, which showed no emotion, and it took him a few seconds to understand. Malori had changed into jeans and a t-shirt. “Why would he put on regular clothes?”

“He’s going somewhere.” Bishop’s finger traced along the bottom of the tablet, moving the clock forward, passing King going up and down those stairs. “Look at the time stamp. Up to ten minutes ago, and he never comes back down.”

“But I searched the roof.”

“I know, but let’s look again.”

King had no idea what to expect, so he pulled a small pistol from the back of his bottom desk drawer, checked the safety, and then followed Bishop out of the office.

Down the hall to the stairs. Past the second floor to the rooftop access.

Humid afternoon air smacked him in the face for the second time in fifteen minutes.

Other than the utility shed housing the elevator equipment, which was locked and not accessible to them, there wasn’t another place to hide up there.

“There’s no fire escape this high up,” King snarled.

“He wouldn’t…” He stared at the edge and the high, plexi-glass protective shield along the perimeter.

No way had Malori been so despondent he’d tried to jump.

And if he had, they’d have heard sirens by now. “Did he fucking sprout wings and fly?”

“I don’t know.” Bishop strode past the cluster of tropical plants and lounge chairs to a raised spot on the roof. It was part of the heating system of the building, and not something King had ever paid much attention to. Bishop pointed at the stone patio. “Do you see that?”

King walked to him and looked at the green-painted, stone ground.

White scrape marks extended from each of the four feet of one patio chair, like it had been dragged aside and not returned to its original spot.

The chair’s back had been to one side of the heat system unit, as well as the automatic openable vent for fire safety.

King remembered the placement of that furniture.

The chair was now at least a foot farther forward than it used to be.

Bishop pushed the chair out of the way and knelt. Felt along the metal side of the unit until he found something. He yanked, and a metal panel about two feet wide and three feet tall came off, exposing a wide vent shaft.

“You have got to be fucking kidding me,” King said. He poked his head inside. “Malori!” His own voice echoed back at him.

King’s cell rang. Ziggy. He put it on speaker. “Yeah, what have you got, Zig?”

“I’ve got Malori on three cameras. One in the fire exit stairs going down between floors eight and seven. He’s in the lobby about a minute later. And then two minutes after that, he’s leaving through the front entrance with something in his hands.”

“Fuck!”

His worst nightmare had come true: Malori in the city alone. No phone. No protection.

Gone.