Page 4 of The Sterling Acquisition (Manufactured Mates #1)

Chapter three

New Variables

Orion

Orion was tapping out the S.O.S pattern on the wall when he heard the locks disengaging.

Three short, three long, three short—not because he expected anyone to understand it, but because the rhythm kept him sane.

It kept his mind sharp when everything else about his situation was designed to grind him down into compliance.

He’d been at it for two hours, ever since Leo stormed out after their latest “discussion” about proper Omega behavior. That discussion ended with Leo sporting new scratches, and Orion locked back in his room with a missed dinner as punishment.

Same shit, different day.

Except tonight felt different. For the past three days, there’d been someone in the apartment next door.

Someone who didn’t belong to SVI’s usual crowd of bottom-feeders and Leo’s drinking buddies.

Orion could smell him through the walls—clean, controlled, expensive.

Not like the industrial smog and desperation that clung to most SVI employees.

The Gensyn Alpha.

Orion had been thinking about that moment for three days.

The way the Alpha moved—fluid, precise, professional.

Not like Leo’s clumsy grabbing and fumbling.

And the scent...like black tea and cherries with something darker beneath it.

He could usually shove down the thought of a mouthwatering scent, but now that the smell was coming through his wall nonstop, it was becoming grating.

Orion set his back against the far wall and waited. His shoulders tensed, muscles coiling with the familiar readiness that had become second nature after a year in the cage that was his room. Whatever Leo had planned, he’d face it on his feet.

The door opened, but it wasn’t Leo who stepped through.

It was him. The Gensyn Alpha. Alone.

Orion kept his expression neutral, but his mind was racing. This was new. Leo never let anyone else have unsupervised access to his “prize.”

“Orion,” the Alpha said, his voice carrying that same controlled precision from the courtyard. “I’m Dante Ashford. We should talk.”

“Should we?” Orion stayed where he was, studying this new player—expensive suit, perfect posture, hands that hadn’t done manual labor in their life.

But he had broad shoulders that spoke of a regular workout regimen and punchably handsome face and gray eyes that still had a twinkle of joy in them, unlike most SVI citizens.

“Let me guess. Leo admitted he’s in over his head and called in outside consultation? ”

A slight smile played at the corners of Dante’s mouth. “Something like that.”

“And you’re the expert. ”

“I have experience with challenging situations.”

Orion laughed, but there was no humor in it.

“Challenging situations. Is that what we’re calling this?

” He gestured around the room—the bolted-down furniture, the welded window, the scratches on the walls from a year of failed escape attempts.

The room that felt smaller every day, its stale air heavy with the lingering scent of his anger and frustration.

“What would you call it? Asset optimization? Resource management?”

“I call it wasteful,” Dante said simply.

That got Orion’s attention. “Wasteful?”

“Inefficient allocation of valuable resources. Poor strategic planning. Failure to adapt methodology when initial approaches prove unsuccessful.” Dante’s stunning gray eyes met his. “From a professional standpoint, it’s almost impressively incompetent.”

Despite himself, Orion felt his lips twitch into a smirk. “Professional standpoint. You suit types and your fucking euphemisms.”

“Fair point,” Dante acknowledged. “Let me be more direct. Leo’s methods are crude, counterproductive, and ultimately self-defeating. He’s created a conflict spiral that benefits no one.”

“And you think you can do better?”

“I think anyone could do better.”

The honesty caught Orion off guard. In his experience, Alphas—especially company Alphas—didn’t admit incompetence in others without claiming superiority for themselves. This one was different. More careful.

“So what’s your play?” Orion asked. “Good cop to Leo’s bad cop? Prove you’re the reasonable one, so I’ll roll over and show my belly?”

“I don’t have a play,” Dante said, and his tone made Orion believe him. “I asked Leo for time to observe and assess the situation. I just wasn’t entirely honest about my motivations. ”

“No shit. What are your real motivations?”

Dante was quiet for a moment, and Orion could practically see him weighing his words. “Curiosity. You’re... not what I expected.”

“What did you expect?”

“Someone broken. Compliant. Defeated.” Dante’s gaze swept over him, taking inventory. “Someone who would have been ground down by a year of this.”

“Sorry to disappoint.”

“You’re not disappointing. You’re...” Dante paused, as if searching for the right word, “…fascinating.”

Orion felt a chill run down his spine. Fascinating . That was how suit types talked about interesting problems they wanted to solve. About challenges they wanted to overcome.

About things they wanted to own.

“Fascinating,” Orion repeated slowly. “So you’re here to figure out what makes me tick? Study the stubborn Omega who won’t break ?”

“I’m here because I wanted to have a conversation without Leo hovering over us like a nervous supervisor.”

“And what did you want to talk about?”

Dante approached further into the room, and Orion tensed.

But the Alpha didn’t come at him directly.

Instead, he examined the space with the same clinical attention he might give a crime scene, his movements deliberate and controlled.

There was a predatory quality in the way he moved—not Leo’s clumsy aggression, but the fluid grace of someone who knew exactly how dangerous he was.

He was also, Orion noticed, positioning himself to cut off the most direct route to the door.

Orion shifted his weight, angling his body to maintain maximum distance while keeping his options open. He learned the hard way how to control whatever small pieces of territory he could claim. Every inch of space was a tactical advantage he wasn’t willing to concede without purpose.

“How long have you been picking locks?” Dante asked, running his fingers along the scratches around the door’s multiple locks. He shifted closer as he spoke, close enough that his scent began to fill the small space.

The question was so unexpected that Orion answered before he could think better of it.

“Since I was twelve. My father was a locksmith before he got recruited as an SVI researcher,” Orion said, the bitter edge in his voice sharpening.

“He taught me the basics before they killed him for asking too many questions about his work. Left me with nothing but his skills and his debt.”

Something flickered in Dante’s eyes—interest, maybe, or calculation. “Useful skill.”

“It has its moments.”

Dante eyed the scratches around the door frame. “How many escape attempts?”

“You keeping score for Leo?”

“I’m keeping score for myself.”

There was intensity in the way he said it that made Orion’s pulse quicken. Like this mattered to him personally. Orion’s skin prickled with awareness, heat spreading across the back of his neck despite his determination to remain unaffected.

“Seventeen successful escapes from this room,” Orion said. “Never made it out of the territory, though. Security’s tighter than it looks.”

“And you keep trying anyway.”

“What else am I going to do? Sit here and accept this bullshit?” Orion balled his fists at his sides, ready for a fight.

“Some would.”

“Some aren’t me. ”

Dante turned to look at him directly, and Orion felt that same electric jolt from the courtyard.

Orion shifted toward the corner, maintaining distance while ensuring he could still see both Dante and the door. A reflexive defense pattern he developed during months of Leo’s “training sessions”, which was just corporate code for beatings.

Dante was close enough now that Orion could see the thin lines around his eyes, and could smell the complex layers of his scent more clearly—black tea and cherries. The room felt ten degrees warmer, the air thicker and harder to breathe.

“No,” Dante said, his voice lower now that he didn’t need to project across the room. “They’re not.”

The silence stretched between them, charged with tension Orion couldn’t quite name. This wasn’t how these conversations usually went. Alphas who came to assess him wanted to test his compliance, his submission, his willingness to fold. This one seemed more interested in understanding him.

Dante took another step closer, ostensibly to examine the scratch marks Orion left on the wall during one of his more frustrated moments. But the movement brought him within arm’s reach, close enough that Orion could feel the warmth radiating from his body.

“Impressive dedication,” Dante murmured, tracing one of the deeper gouges with his fingertip. “How long did this take?”

“Three hours,” Orion replied, watching the Alpha’s face. “Leo had just explained his five-year plan for ‘behavioral conditioning.’ I needed to work off some energy.”

“Understandable.” Dante’s lips curved. “I’ve sat through enough development seminars to appreciate the urge.”

Was that... was that a joke? From a suit Alpha, who was here to assess him like livestock ?

“So what happens now?” Orion asked. “You report back to Leo that I’m unbreakable and he should cut his losses? Or do you have some revolutionary new approach to asset management?”

“What do you want to happen?” Dante asked, and as he spoke, he shifted again.

Orion held his ground, refusing to be backed further into the corner. The small hairs at the nape of his neck stood up, his body humming with the competing instincts to fight or run. “What kind of consultation is this?”

“The honest kind.” Dante stopped just outside of Orion’s personal space, close enough that Orion had to tilt his head back to maintain eye contact. Close enough that the Alpha’s scent was almost overwhelming and had to fight the urge to lean up and scent him.

Orion studied the Alpha’s face, looking for deception, manipulation, or the particular kind of cruelty he’d learned to expect.

What he found instead was respect. And interest. The kind of focused attention that made him feel like he was being catalogued in ways that had nothing to do with a consultation on asset management.

“I want out,” Orion said. “I want Leo’s hands off me, and I want to walk out of here without looking back.”

“And if that’s not possible?”

“Then I want to make his life as miserable as he’s made mine until one of us dies or gives up.”

Dante nodded slowly, as if that was a perfectly reasonable business plan. “Have you considered a third option?”

“Such as?”

“Transfer of contract.”

The words hit him cold and hard. The thing he’d been dreading since the day SVI slapped his father’s medical debt on him and Leo bought it at auction. Being sold to someone else, someone who might be worse, someone who might break him in ways Leo hadn’t been willing to yet.

“To whom?” he asked, proud that his voice stayed steady despite the memories flooding back.

“Someone who might take a different approach.”

The implication hung in the air between them. Orion felt his heart rate spike, adrenaline flooding his system in the familiar cocktail of fight-or-flight that kept him alive this long.

“You,” he said. It wasn’t a question.

“Potentially.”

“And you think you’d be an improvement over Leo?”

“I think I wouldn’t waste a year trying to break what’s valuable precisely because it won’t break.”

There it was. A hook wrapped in silk. The reasonable voice offering reasonable solutions. The predator who understood that honey caught more flies than vinegar.

Dante’s hand shifted, almost absently, as if to smooth down a piece of Orion’s hair that had fallen across his forehead during their conversation. It was a casual gesture, the kind of unconscious touching that Alphas seemed to think they were entitled to.

Orion’s response was immediate and violent. He snapped his teeth at the approaching fingers, jaw clicking shut inches from Dante’s hand with the sharp sound of bone meeting bone.

“Careful there, suit,” Orion warned. “I don’t have the muzzle on right now. You want to keep those pretty, soft fingers of yours, you’d better be more mindful about where you put them.”

To his credit, Dante didn’t jerk his hand back or step away. Instead, he held still, studying Orion with those calculating gray eyes. There was approval in his expression .

“Point taken,” Dante said calmly, lowering his hand. “My apologies. Occupational hazard.”

“What kind of occupation involves touching people without permission?”

“The kind that involves managing valuable assets.” Dante’s smile was sharp enough to cut glass. “But you’re quite right. Consent is an important part of any successful negotiation.”

The way he said ‘negotiation’ made it sound like another thing entirely. His skin tingled where Dante had almost touched him, the phantom sensation more disturbing than any actual contact.

And the terrifying part was that Orion was considering it.

“What would you want from me?” he asked.

“That would depend on what you’re willing to give.” Dante shifted closer again.

“Nothing. I’m willing to give nothing.”

“Then we’d have to negotiate.” Dante’s voice was lower now, almost intimate. “I find negotiation can be mutually beneficial when both parties understand what they bring to the table.”

Despite the fact that he was essentially discussing the terms of his ownership, Orion felt his lips curve into a smile. This Alpha was dangerous in all the ways Leo wasn’t. Smart, controlled, and unimpressed by displays of aggression.

“You’re definitely not Leo.”

“No,” Dante agreed, and there was a hungry quality in the way his gaze moved over Orion’s face. “I’m not.”

The admission was heavy with possibility and threat in equal measure. Orion had spent a year fighting one kind of Alpha. Now he was face to face with an entirely different type.

One that might be far more dangerous than anything Leo could have thrown at him.

Because this one was smart enough to make him want to say yes.