Page 32 of The Kingpin’s Omega Lover (River City Omegas #2)

Malori strolled the perimeter of the ballroom, observing the men in attendance.

Only a few had a woman on their arm, which made him glad he hadn’t brought a date.

He would have stood out, instead of blending in.

He sipped his cola and watched, studying faces, watchful for the one he expected to see.

At eight, a portly, white-haired man in a black suit approached a microphone and asked all attendees to be seated, so the meeting could begin.

Disappointment soured Malori’s gut. He found an empty table farthest from the microphone on its small riser, and sat with his drink.

He pulled his cell out and texted King that he hadn’t seen Aleks yet, waited for King to reply with an acknowledgement, and then deleted both texts.

The speaker began going over some sort of charter of morals and responsibilities, or whatever, and Malori tuned him out.

None of it meant anything to him. The room darkened slightly as someone closed the main ballroom doors.

Malori finished his soda and was debating another when a frosty glass landed in front of him.

He followed the hand that had placed the fresh drink there, up a gray-suited arm to a familiar, grinning face.

His insides turned to jelly, and Malori swallowed a furious gasp.

Aleks Yovenko, or whatever his real name was, smiled down at him, another drink in his right hand. He was as handsome as Malori remembered, but that same coldness lingered in his dark eyes. Aleks bent slightly at the waist and asked, “Is this seat taken?”

The chair was obviously empty, as was the rest of the table.

Aleks pulled it out and sat, angling toward Malori in a casual posture that reeked of arrogance and superiority.

“You look remarkably well for someone I was told died in the Farm raid,” Aleks said softly, casually, not a hint of anger or surprise.

So Aleks hadn’t been certain Malori was alive? Had this entire exercise with the fake ID and DVDs been him fishing? Had Malori walked right into his trap with his eyes wide open? Possibly. “Who told you I died?”

Aleks smirked. “I found myself in the unwilling company of one of Marta’s bodyguards. He insisted you’d been executed before the raid. But you seem very much alive, dear one.”

“Not for lack of trying.” Malori was impressed by his own restraint, sitting here, having a casual conversation with a man he wanted to bash over the head with his old-fashioned glass. “If it makes you feel better, I was shot during the escape.”

“Bet that stung.”

“A little bit.” Malori leaned closer, hating his proximity to this man. “Where’s my son?”

“Our son? He’s safe. He’s with his nanny, obviously. Do you think I’d put him in his crib with an extra bottle, and go about my evening?”

“I don’t know what you’d do.” He hated the way his voice cracked. “I never expected you to lie to me, betray me, and steal my son.”

Aleks chuckled, the sound like razors against Malori’s skin, even though it was barely audible over the droning of the man at the microphone.

“If it helps at all, dear one, I wasn’t sure of my own plan until the end.

I did love you, Malori, for a little while.

I did think we could have a happy ending.

But after the baby came, you were just like my wife.

” Aleks grimaced as if he’d tasted something sour.

Malori waited for more, but got nothing. This was the first he’d heard of Aleks being married. “What wife?”

“Oh, she was many years ago. We tried being a family. We tried having a baby. But after the baby was born, she didn’t have time for me. All she loved was that baby, and I couldn’t have that.”

Malori’s mouth went dry, and he desperately wanted a drink. He also didn’t trust that Aleks hadn’t tampered with the soda in front of him. He took a little bit of comfort knowing King was listening to all this, too. Hearing these dark confessions. “Where they now?”

“In the past.” Aleks gave him a deliberate once-over. “Where’s your bodyguard? You aren’t here alone.”

“No bodyguard. I had to see for myself if you’d show up. If my memories were right and I interpreted your clues correctly.”

“Bravo, dear one, you did it. You solved the puzzle.” His smile went feral. “But I don’t believe for a second that no one knows you’re here, especially not your mob protector. He wouldn’t let you come by yourself.”

Malori lowered his voice an octave and quirked an eyebrow. “You’d be amazed what my ass can convince a man to do.”

Aleks’s eyes flashed with familiar heat. “I remember that ass well. I’ve missed it.”

“How much?”

His eyebrows furrowed. “What?”

Malori nearly had him hooked. He just had to dangle the bait a little longer.

“I want to see my son. I came here to find you, so I can see my son. With my own eyes. To see he’s healthy and taken care of.

” Whoever was speaking stopped and applause covered the rest of his statement.

“I’ll let you fuck me, if you let me see my son. ”

A different man with a softer voice began speaking, something about an upcoming after-school program.

Aleks scooted his chair closer to Malori’s, and then leaned over, sliding his left arm across Malori’s shoulders. Malori bit his tongue so he didn’t shove that offensive arm off. Didn’t push away from Aleks’s mouth as it hovered close to Malori’s ear. “You think a lot of your asshole.”

“I know how expensive a wet, leaking omega asshole is on the black market, and you spent a small fortune for the privilege of not only fucking me, but impregnating me.” Malori turned his head and, swallowing back gorge, rubbed his nose against Aleks’s cheek.

“An hour with my son is pretty cheap for another go at my sweet, slick hole.”

Aleks pulled back a few inches, his expression oddly quizzical. “You’d whore yourself to me willingly, just for an hour with that squalling little goblin?”

Malori’s temper roared, and he pulled back hard on his desire to punch Aleks right in the mouth for that comment. Not the whoring, but the goblin. Who called their own child a squalling little goblin?! “He’s my son, Aleks. I’d do anything for him.”

“You haven’t seen him in a year.”

“That doesn’t matter.” Lies, all lies, it mattered so much that he ached every single day. But that wasn’t what Malori meant by it not mattering. “I carried him. I gave birth to him. He’ll always be part of me, no matter how long we’re apart. Don’t you miss him when you’re…at work?”

“No. He’s entertaining on occasion, but mostly he’s an obligation. I almost gave him away.”

Malori growled. He couldn’t help it, but the sound of the man speaking into the microphone hid the noise. He needed to stay out of attack mode and keep Aleks talking. “Why did you keep him?”

“I changed my mind. I thought raising a child in my own image, molding a life would be amusing. But he’s far too young right now to do much more than eat, shit, sleep, and scream for attention. I’ll wait until he has a few vocabulary words under his belt, I think.”

You truly are a psychopath, wanting to turn an innocent child into someone like you.

“I’m serious about my offer,” Malori said. “Sex for an hour with my son. Our son.”

Aleks put his right hand on Malori’s upper thigh and squeezed. “An hour for an hour.”

Malori glared, pretending to be annoyed by the counter-offer. Took about fifteen seconds to “consider” it. “Fine. When?”

“No time like the present. I even have a room right here, in this hotel. I took a chance you were alive and would figure out the clues. That you were so much smarter than anyone at the Farm gave you credit for. Smarter than that man you live with who calls himself a King. You understand that sometimes you have to give, in order to get.”

“I do.”

“Excellent. I’m going to leave now. Down the hall, there is a public men’s room. Wait two minutes, and then meet me there.”

“The men’s room?”

Aleks didn’t respond or give him a chance to clarify anything.

He stood, left his drink on the table, and followed the back wall of the dim ballroom to the exit.

Malori watched him go, insides bouncing with terror and anticipation.

This was happening. His son was close by, and they’d be together soon.

He was also willingly going to a hotel room with a man he did not trust, not in the least. But he wasn’t going in unprotected. He dropped his chin and spoke directly into the wire. “It’s happening. He’s got a room here. We’re going up soon.”

He imagined King whispering affirmations in his ear, reassurances that they were close, ready to act, that nothing bad was going to happen. A lot of bad could still happen in the next thirty minutes, but so could a lot of good.

One way or another, it would soon be over.

King hated every single, fucking second of this plan.

He despised not being in the room with Malori, able to clock his enemy and be by his lover’s side in an instant.

Despised that Malori was basically unarmed, no gun, not even a Taser, because there was no point.

They expected him to be searched. But King also knew, deep down, that Malori was far from helpless.

He’d been practicing self-defense; he was strong; he was fucking smart.

And Malori would never underestimate his enemy.

Listening to their conversation in the backseat of his town car was a new lesson in restraint, too.

He’d heard Yovenko’s voice on those DVDs, but hearing it live, so close to Malori’s mic, somehow both icy cold and hotly seductive, was infuriating.

Hearing them make the sex trade tore at something deep inside King that had claimed Malori as his own.

A part that knew Malori was the other half of his heart, and that his heart was in danger.

Trusting that heart to keep himself safe was one of the hardest things King had ever done.

Garvey was in the driver’s seat, a muscleman named Patch in the front passenger, and they were all listening and waiting, and watching Malori’s tracker signal on an open laptop.

They were in the hotel’s underground visitor parking, unable to act until they had a location.

Or a call from Malori via the hotel’s land line, telling them their target was subdued.

Two long minutes passed, the only sound in the car the distant din of whoever was speaking in that ballroom. Then the noise stopped. “Heading for the bathroom now,” Malori whispered. “He’ll probably find this mic.”

“I know,” King replied, even though Malori couldn’t hear him.

He dreaded losing audio, but this part of the night had been anticipated.

It’s why King had paid an exorbitant amount of money for a tracking bug Malori could safely swallow.

He could not fathom the idea of Malori losing the mic, and then King sitting and waiting, wondering, until Malori called.

If Malori called.

At least this way, King would know where he was—even if he didn’t know what was being done to him.

He growled at his own thoughts.

A door squealed. Another creaking noise.

“Take your clothes off.” Yovenko, smarmy as ever.

“What? You wanna do it in the men’s room?” Malori asked. “I don’t think we can be in here for an hour without someone noticing.”

“Oh, no, dear one, I’m not fucking you here. This is a precaution. You’ve got a wire on you somewhere, and it’s not going upstairs with us.”

Damn it. Also, expected.

King clenched both upper thighs to try and keep a lid on his boiling temper over the soft sounds of clothing being removed. The mental image of Malori shedding his clothes, baring himself…rage. One of the many parts of this plan he despised.

“Thought so,” Yovenko said. “Say goodnight, King.”

The audio crackled loudly, and then went silent.

“Fuck,” King snarled. His hand was on the door before he thought twice, desperate to get out. To rush into that men’s room and rip Aleks Yovenko away from Malori. Rip him apart limb by limb, until he was begging for mercy.

Not yet, stick to the fucking plan!

King glared at the dot on the laptop. If it didn’t move soon, that meant Yovenko was doing something to Malori while he was vulnerable, and King would?—

“They’re moving,” Garvey said. “Hotel’s got twelve floors, and it looks like they’re going up.”

Be careful, Mal. Please.