Page 128 of The Sterling Acquisition

Leo’s face twisted with betrayal and fury. His finger squeezed the trigger—

Click.

Orion smiled. It wasn’t a nice expression.

“Did you seriously think,” he said, advancing the last few steps, “that you could shoot me with your fucking safety still on?”

Leo threw the pistol at him and lunged.

Despite his desperate appearance, Leo was still an Alpha—bigger, heavier, with a year’s worth of rage fueling his assault. His shoulder caught Orion in the midsection, driving them both to the ground in a tangle of limbs and fury.

“You ungrateful little bitch!” Leo’s hands found Orion’s throat, squeezing. “I saved you! I protected you! And you threw it away for some Gensyn pretty boy who doesn’t give a shit about you!”

Stars exploded across Orion’s vision as Leo’s thumbs pressed into his windpipe. But a year of abuse taught him things that SVI’s Alphas always seemed to forget—an Omega could fight as dirty as they did.

He drove his knee up between Leo’s legs with vicious precision.

Leo’s grip loosened with a strangled howl, and Orion twisted free, gasping. But Leo recovered faster than expected, backhanding him across the face hard enough to snap his head to the side.

“You think that Gensyn bastard loves you?” Leo snarled, grabbing a fistful of Orion’s hair and yanking his head back. “You think he sees anything but another corporate asset to exploit?”

Blood filled Orion’s mouth. He spat it into Leo’s eyes.

“I think,” he rasped, “that he never tried to starve me into submission.”

Leo wiped blood from his face, expression shifting from murderous to something far worse. Hunger. Raw, desperate lust mixed with a year’s worth of frustrated possession.

“I was teaching you discipline! Structure!” His voice cracked with every word. “Everything you needed to be happy! To be safe!”

Orion’s fingers found a piece of shattered rock, but Leo saw the movement and slammed his forearm across Orion’s throat, cutting off his air. The rock tumbled from nerveless fingers as black spots danced across his vision.

“You want to know what your precious Dante really thinks of you?” Leo’s free hand yanked at Orion’s shirt, tearing fabric. “He called you a ‘test subject’ in his reports. A ‘high-value asset.’ Just another piece of corporate property to be collected and catalogued.”

Orion tried to buck him off, but Leo’s weight and the chokehold made him weak, desperate. His lungs burned for air that wouldn’t come. Somewhere in the distance, he could hear gunfire—Dante engaging the remaining corporate forces. A surge of panic rose in him—not just for himself, but for Dante fighting alone while Orion struggled beneath Leo’s weight.

“It doesn’t matter that he took your virginity,” Leo snarled, his hand moving to Orion’s belt, fumbling with the buckle. “It doesn’t count when it’s manipulation. When it’s corporate conditioning designed to make you compliant.”

Terror flooded through Orion as Leo’s intentions became crystal clear. He clawed at the forearm crushing his windpipe, leaving bloody scratches, but Leo was beyond pain now, beyond reason.

“I’m going to take you home,” Leo continued, his voice taking on an almost sing-song quality as he struggled with Orion’s pants. “AndI’m going to cut off your fucking legs if I have to. Chain you to the bed. Keep you there until you understand what I was offering you. Until you appreciate—”

Orion’s vision was graying out, his struggles growing weaker. But through the haze of oxygen deprivation, his fingers found the rock again—jagged, heavy, slick with his blood.

“You did this to me!” Leo’s voice broke, tears streaming down his face. “You made me do this! I never wanted to hurt you, but you wouldn’t listen! You wouldn’t—”

Orion brought the rock up with everything he had left.

The impact made a wet, meaty sound. Leo’s forearm jerked away from his throat as he screamed, blood pouring from his shattered nose.

Air rushed back into Orion’s lungs in painful gasps, but he didn’t stop to recover. He rolled Leo off him with desperate strength, scrambling on top of the bleeding Alpha’s chest, the bloody rock still clutched in his fist.

“You never wanted to hurt me?” Orion’s voice was a ruined rasp, but the words carried clearly in the sudden quiet. “You bought me like a fucking pet!”

He brought the rock down again. Leo’s hands came up to protect his face, but Orion smashed through them, crushing fingers, splitting knuckles.

“You chained me up!”Crack.The rock connected with Leo’s temple. “You starved me!”Crack.His cheekbone caved in. “You beat me for sport!”

Leo was blubbering, begging, but Orion couldn’t hear him over the roar of his own blood. A year of helpless rage poured out through his arm, through the rock, turning Leo’s face into hamburger meat.