Page 62 of The Sterling Acquisition (Manufactured Mates #1)

Chapter forty-five

Delusions of Efficiency

Dante

The creek bed had seemed like a tactical masterpiece for four hours before it became a trap.

Dante crouched in the muddy water, watching another drone pass overhead with the methodical precision of something designed to hunt rather than merely observe.

The third one in twenty minutes, each flying a slightly different search pattern, each forcing them deeper into terrain that offered excellent concealment and no escape routes.

“We’re being herded,” he said, studying the drone configurations through the gaps in the canopy while trying not to get too distracted by the way Orion’s heat-flushed skin looked in the dappled sunlight.

“I recognize the pattern—it’s straight from the Gensyn Regulator playbook.

They’re not trying to spot us—they’re driving us toward something. ”

Orion was pressed against the creek bank beside him, breathing hard from their latest sprint between cover points. The lingering heat that still rolled off him in waves wasn’t helping either of their tactical focus—Dante found himself distracted by the scent even through the mud and creek water.

“Toward what?” Orion asked, though his tone suggested he already knew the answer wouldn’t be encouraging.

Dante consulted the map, comparing their current position to the search patterns he’d observed, though he kept getting distracted by Orion’s scent cutting through the smell of creek water and wet earth.

Each time he inhaled, his Alpha instincts urged him to find shelter, to barricade them somewhere defensible, to protect rather than advance—a biological imperative contradicting tactical necessity.

The drones were systematically eliminating every route that led toward the collective, leaving only one viable path—a narrow valley that offered excellent sight lines for anyone positioned on the surrounding ridges.

The topography was textbook: steep limestone walls rising forty feet on either side, a bottleneck entry point that narrowed to just twelve feet at its tightest, and no cover across the half-mile stretch of exposed ground.

“A killbox,” he said, and felt something cold settle in his stomach as the tactical reality became clear. “They’re forcing us into a kill box. That valley is a perfect extraction point—SVI Rangers on the ridgelines for containment, Gensyn Regulators waiting at the choke point for capture.”

“How do you know?” Orion asked, wiping mud from his face with a hand that trembled from exhaustion .

“Because it’s what I would do,” Dante replied. “This is a coordinated operation between Regulator extraction teams and SVI Rangers. The pattern is unmistakable—Regulators design the trap, Rangers provide the local knowledge and containment.”

The smart play would be to double back, try to break through the search perimeter while it was still forming.

Accept the probability of detection in exchange for maintaining mobility.

Cut their losses and find another route to safety, even if it meant adding days to their journey.

Standard Gensyn evasion protocol would be to separate, with each target moving in different directions to divide pursuit resources.

The problem was that Dante had stopped making smart plays the moment he’d decided that keeping Orion safe was more important than following corporate protocols.

Everything since then had been driven by something that had no place in tactical decision-making—something that made him want to find cover and keep Orion close rather than think strategically about acceptable losses.

Love, he was discovering, was spectacularly inefficient.

“How long do we have?” Orion asked.

“Maybe an hour before the search pattern forces us into the valley. Less if they start using ground teams to flush us out of concealment.” Dante folded the map, the paper already damp from creek water and nervous sweat.

“We could try to break through the perimeter now. Fight our way past the drones and circle back toward the collective.”

“Or?”

“Or we accept that we’re walking into a trap and try to make the best of it when corporate teams reveal themselves.”

Orion gave him a bewildered look, which was fair given that accepting obvious traps wasn’t typically considered a sound strategy. Then again, Orion’s heat left his lips slightly swollen, and Dante really wanted to kiss him .

“You’re thinking like someone who wants to survive this,” Orion said, settling back against the creek bank. “What would you do if you were thinking like a corporate operative?”

A corporate operative would recognize that Orion’s chances of survival were better if Dante led the pursuit away from him rather than toward whatever trap was waiting in the valley.

A corporate operative would abandon the asset to save himself.

“A corporate operative,” Dante said, “would make the smart play.”

“And you’re not going to do that?”

“No. I’m going to walk into an obvious trap because the alternative involves leaving you behind, and I’ve developed some kind of psychological dysfunction that makes that option unacceptable.”

Orion’s smile was sharp. “Psychological dysfunction?”

“Professional term for making decisions based on emotional attachment rather than logical assessment,” Dante said, watching the way afternoon light caught the flush across Orion’s cheekbones. “It’s considered a career-limiting condition in corporate environments. Terrible for productivity metrics.”

“Good thing you’re not in a corporate environment anymore.”

“Good thing,” Dante agreed, though he wasn’t sure that abandoning everything he’d been trained to value was an improvement in their current circumstances.

On the other hand, corporate training had never prepared him for situations involving beautiful, heat-affected Omegas who made his brain forget basic tactical protocols.

Another drone passed overhead, this one flying lower and slower than the others.

Reconnaissance rather than herding, which meant their window of mobility was closing faster than he calculated.

And if they were using scent-tracking technology in addition to visual surveillance, Orion’s persistent heat would make them impossible to hide .

“Time to move,” he said, shouldering his pack. “Whatever’s waiting for us in that valley, we’re about to find out.”

The valley opened up ahead of them like a mouth, all sight lines and perfect positioning for anyone with the high ground and sufficient motivation to use it.

The rocky walls rose sharply on both sides, creating a natural funnel that narrowed to a choke point fifty yards in.

Beyond that, the valley opened to a wider clearing—ideal for a containment team to spring their trap.

Everything about their approach screamed amateur hour and tactical suicide.

Dante had never been so irrationally hopeful about such terrible odds.

“You know,” Orion said as they prepared to enter the killbox, his voice hoarse from exhaustion but still carrying that edge of defiance, “for someone who spent years working for a corporation that specializes in efficiency, you’ve gotten remarkably bad at making smart decisions.”

“I’m out of practice,” Dante replied. “Besides, I’m optimizing for different objectives now.”

“Such as?”

“Keeping you alive. Everything else is secondary.”

Orion’s expression shifted into something softer, more complicated than his usual sharp defiance. “That’s either very romantic or very stupid.”

“Both,” Dante said.

His professional assessment of their chances remained unchanged. However, his willingness to care about professional assessments had undergone complete systemic failure.

Love, he reflected as they walked toward certain ambush, really was the most inefficient emotion he’d ever experienced.

It was also, he was discovering, completely worth it.