Page 55 of The Sterling Acquisition (Manufactured Mates #1)

Chapter thirty-nine

Focus Group

Dante

Dante had always been an early riser. Getting up before anyone else was awake was calming for him, simply because it meant he always knew what to expect by being the most alert.

He expected to hear the birds waking up and chirping while he went over a notepad filled with insane ideas for his future.

What he hadn’t expected was to find himself making coffee at five in the morning while watching Lilac attempt to sneak back into her own house.

Attempt being the operative word. For someone with apparent military training, she was making about as much noise as a drunk elephant. Dante took a sip of his coffee and observed with growing amusement as she tried to ease the front door closed without making it creak.

“Rough night?” he asked when she turned around and spotted him in the kitchen doorway .

Lilac jumped, then had the grace to look embarrassed. “ Ay, Dios mío . I thought you’d still be sleeping.”

“Corporate conditioning,” Dante said dryly. “Early to rise, early to optimize, early to generate shareholder value. You know how it is.”

She moved into the kitchen, attempting to smooth down hair that looked like it had been thoroughly mussed by enthusiastic fingers. Her eyeliner was smudged, and she had that particular dreamy, well-satisfied expression that Dante recognized from a mile away.

“I was just, uh...” Lilac gestured vaguely toward the door. “There were a lot of pheromones flying around here yesterday, ? sabes ? Figured I’d be a considerate host and give you two some privacy.”

“Considerate,” Dante repeated, taking in her rumpled clothes and the faint flush still coloring her cheeks.

“That’s one way to describe it. Though I have to say, you look remarkably well-rested for someone who spent the night being considerate.

Must have been some fantastic romp in those disability-accessible sheets. ”

Lilac’s eyes widened. “Who told you that?”

“No one told me anything,” Dante said, his smile widening. “But you just did.”

“ Mierda .“ She ran a hand through her disheveled hair, then seemed to give up on maintaining any pretense. “Fine. Sí , I was with Granny Lu. Happy now?”

“Impressed, actually.” Dante poured her a cup of coffee, noting the way she moved with the loose-limbed satisfaction of someone who’d been thoroughly and repeatedly pleased.

“I guess Granny Lu still has it, whatever ‘it’ is. I don’t know what I was expecting from a woman in a wheelchair, but she has it in spades. ”

Lilac accepted the coffee with a grateful nod. “That woman could charm the habit off a nun and make her thank her for it. Plus, those hands...” She trailed off with a look that was pure reminiscence .

“Good for her,” Dante said. “Though I have to say, had I known you weren’t planning to return all night, I would have spent more time messing up your sheets and less time pacing anxiously with a hard-on.”

“ Ay , corporate boy’s got a potty mouth,“ Lilac observed with a grin.

“You have no idea.” Dante’s expression grew more serious. “Speaking of which, we’re heading out this morning. I have a very stupid plan to attempt getting out from under my Gensyn obligations, and very little time to try and make it work.”

As he spoke, he felt a strange ripple of awareness—a sense that Orion was beginning to stir in his sleep, though the bedroom door remained closed.

The connection had strengthened overnight, becoming more precise, more tangible.

He could sense Orion’s location with unnerving accuracy, could feel the slow transition from deep sleep to drowsy awareness happening in the other room.

Even more unsettling was how natural it felt, as if this sixth sense had always been there, just waiting to be activated.

Lilac’s amusement faded, replaced by sharp attention. “How stupid we talking?”

“Scale of one to ten? Probably somewhere around fifteen.”

“That stupid, huh?” She was quiet for a moment, then: “You’re going to need to cut out your implants.”

Dante nodded grimly.

“Forearm, shoulder blade, and base of the neck, correct?” he asked, mentally cataloging the surgical points. “Any advice on the extraction process?”

“Clean blade, steady hands, and a lot of alcohol. Both for sterilization and pain management.” Lilac’s expression was matter-of-fact.

“Also, that encrypted phone of yours? The community scramblers have been keeping it from ringing off the hook while you’ve been here, but it would be wise to keep the thing off until you’re further away.

Soon as you turn it on, it’ll ping GPS coordinates straight back to your handlers. ”

“How do you know so much about Gensyn operational procedures?”

Lilac touched the scars along her jawline with unconscious habit. “I didn’t do this for fun, mijo .”

Something cold settled in Dante’s stomach. Those weren’t random scars from general violence—they were too precise, too deliberately placed. “What happened?”

“Alpha Protocol Endeavor,” she said simply, though her face was tight as she touched one of the longer scars that ran down her neck.

He’d heard whispers of the Endeavor program in the deepest classified briefings, a research project that Gensyn was supposedly considering but had never implemented.

The idea was to harness the Berserker traits that made rogue Alphas so dangerous—the speed, strength, fearlessness, and lethality—but build a kill switch into the conditioning so operatives could be remotely pulled from their Berserker state.

“I thought that was theoretical,” Dante said quietly. “Something they wanted to do but couldn’t figure out how.”

“Oh, they figured it out.” Lilac’s smile was bitter.

“They just didn’t account for the minor side effect of it destroying everyone they tested it on.

Fourteen Chimeras and Alphas used as test subjects, some of whom killed themselves afterward.

Four of us survived.” She gestured to herself.

“I was the lucky one. I just lost my designation and gained some interesting facial scarring. The other three...”

She didn’t finish, but Dante could imagine. Corporate research had a way of leaving survivors who weren’t really survivors at all.

“I’m sorry,” he said .

“Don’t be sorry. Be smart.” Her voice was firm.

“They’ll do worse to you if they get their hands on you and your Omega, so I won’t try to talk you out of your stupid plan,” Lilac continued.

“On the off chance it works, I’ll help you set up your own place here if you come back.

Community could use more people willing to flip off corporate control. ”

“Thank you,” Dante said, surprised by how much the offer meant to him. “That... thank you.”

“ De nada .“ She moved toward the hallway, then paused. “You should wake him soon if you’re planning to leave. Dawn’s the best time to move—most corporate patrols assume fugitives travel at night.”

Dante nodded, finishing his coffee as she disappeared toward what he assumed was her bedroom. He practically poured the coffee down his throat before he made his way back to the room where Orion was still sleeping.

The moment he opened the door, he could feel Orion’s presence like a physical weight, a gravitational pull that centered his awareness. It wasn’t just scent or sight or sound—it was something more fundamental, as if some primitive part of his brain had been rewired to recognize Orion as essential .

Orion was sprawled across the bed like he owned it, one arm thrown over his head, dark hair mussed from sleep.

His scent was still thick and powerful in the enclosed space, but the sharp, desperate edges had been smoothed away, leaving something warm and inviting that made Dante’s mouth water.

His heat was having a small crest—not the overwhelming biological emergency it had been before, but enough to make his shirt cling to the lean lines of his torso and bring a flush to his skin .

His face in sleep was angelic, peaceful in a way Dante had never seen when he was awake. The constant tension, the ever-present wariness, the defensive anger that held his features tight—all of it was gone, leaving behind something that looked almost innocent.

As Dante approached, he could feel a strange awareness of Orion’s heartbeat, his breathing, the exact state of his consciousness hovering between sleep and wakefulness. It was simultaneously the most unnerving and most natural thing he’d ever experienced.

The bond was real. Whatever Tallulah had called it, whatever explanation she offered, the physical reality was undeniable. They were connected in ways that corporate science had either never understood or deliberately concealed.

No amount of performance bonuses or promotion promises could compare to this.

The thought hit him with startling clarity. Twenty years of corporate conditioning, twenty years of believing that advancement and optimization were the highest goals a person could achieve, and all of it paled in comparison to the sight of Orion sleeping safely in a bed.

That certainty was what had driven him to formulate his current plan—a desperate, likely doomed attempt to fake their deaths and escape corporate pursuit permanently.

The odds were catastrophically bad: successful execution probability approximately 3.

2%, with multiple critical failure points and limited contingency options.

It would require precise timing, improvised surgery, coordinated arson, and an unhealthy dose of luck.

But the alternative—returning Orion to Gensyn for experimentation or continuing to run until they were inevitably captured—was unacceptable. Statistical probability be damned.

“Orion,” he said, sitting on the edge of the mattress. “Time to wake up. ”

Orion stirred, making a soft sound of protest that went straight to Dante’s groin. When his eyes opened, they were soft, taking a moment to register Dante’s presence.

“Morning,” Orion murmured.

“Morning. We need to go.”

That brought Orion fully awake, the peaceful expression replaced by sharp alertness. “How long do we have?”

“Long enough to get out of here before anyone comes looking, if we move now.”

Orion nodded, already pushing himself upright. “What’s the plan?”

“Working on it,” Dante said, which wasn’t entirely accurate.

As Orion moved around the room gathering their few possessions, Dante stepped back into the kitchen where Lilac was rummaging through cabinets.

“Lilac,” he said, pulling out his wallet. “I need a favor.”

“Name it.”

He handed her his corporate expense card and his personal account card—black plastic with the kind of credit limits that came with senior operative status.

“Can you get to the Neutral Zone and start maxing out withdrawals on every ATM you can find? The funds will be shut off as soon as Gensyn realizes I’ve gone rogue, but until then. ..”

Lilac took the cards without hesitation, her eyes lighting up with understanding. “How much we talking?”

“Corporate expense account has no limits. Personal account has about thirty-five million iscs.” Dante met her eyes. “You can keep half of whatever you withdraw if we come back. One hundred percent if we don’t.”

“Hell yeah,” she said without missing a beat. “Consider it done. I know some mercs who will gladly help me pull this off. ”

“You’re not even going to ask what the plan is?”

“ Mijo , I’ve been living off corporate spite for fifteen years. Whatever you’re planning to do to fuck with Gensyn, I’m here for it.”

Dante grinned. “In that case, you’re going to love this.”

He handed her a small notepad where he’d sketched the basic outline of his plan—a combination of staged evidence and controlled destruction that would, if successful, convince Gensyn they had died in a tragic accident while fleeing SVI pursuers.

The approach had multiple critical failure points and required perfect execution, but it also offered their best chance at permanent escape.

Lilac whistled low as she read through the notes. “ Madre de Dios . You weren’t kidding about the stupid part.”

“Too stupid to work?”

“No,” she said, her expression becoming impressed. “Just stupid enough that it might.”