Page 66 of The Sterling Acquisition (Manufactured Mates #1)

Chapter forty-eight

Unlikely Allies

Dante

The world was pain and the taste of copper.

Dante tried to focus through the gray haze clouding his vision, chest burning with every shallow breath.

Blood pooled beneath him, warm and sticky, seeping through his shirt where the sniper’s bullet punched through his lung.

Each breath produced a wet, sucking sound—the telltale indicator of a pneumothorax.

Without intervention, he had perhaps twenty minutes before respiratory failure.

Get up, his mind commanded. Move. Fight.

His body ignored him.

“No!” Orion’s shouted, his voice raw with fury and desperation. “Get your fucking hands off me!”

Dante forced his eyes open just in time to see two Gensyn regulators wrestling Orion away from his body.

His fierce little hurricane was fighting like a wildcat—elbows, knees, teeth, anything he could use as a weapon—but they had zip-ties and numbers and the clinical efficiency that came with corporate training.

“Target secured,” one of them reported into his radio, ducking a wild swing from Orion’s bound hands. “Asset is... uncooperative.”

Asset. The word hit Dante like another bullet. They were talking about Orion like he was equipment to be retrieved. Corporate property to be processed and filed away in some Gensyn laboratory.

One of the regulators holding Orion—a severe woman with dead eyes that Dante recognized as Senior Operative Stone—drew a tranquilizer gun and aimed it at Orion’s neck.

“Subject will comply or face immediate sedation,” she announced in that flat corporate tone that reduced human dignity to a policy violation. “Corporate requires the asset undamaged for comprehensive testing.”

Orion went still, but his eyes—Christ, his eyes were pure molten rage. “Touch me and I’ll tear your throat out with my teeth.”

Stone’s mouth twitched in what might have been amusement.

Two medics appeared beside Dante, efficient hands checking his pulse, shining lights in his eyes. One of them started an IV while the other applied pressure to his chest wound.

“BP dropping fast,” the first medic muttered. “Hypovolemic shock, imminent respiratory failure. We need to move now if we want him alive for questioning.”

The IV line burned as cold flooded his system—a cocktail of stimulants and coagulants designed to keep corporate assets functional under extreme duress that Dante had only had the displeasure of needing once before in his career.

C-17, the field medics called it—a proprietary Gensyn compound that forced oxygen absorption while stimulating adrenaline production.

Battlefield medicine at its most brutal and effective .

Dante felt his vision sharpen, the gray haze receding as artificial adrenaline hit his bloodstream.

The pain was still there—a constant fire in his chest—but suddenly it seemed manageable.

Distant. Like it was happening to someone else.

His blood pressure stabilized as nanoclotting agents sealed the worst of the internal bleeding, buying him perhaps thirty minutes of functional time before complete system failure.

Corporate enhancement protocols, he realized through the chemical clarity. They’re turning me into a functional asset one last time.

Dante tried again to move as the medics rushed off to check for vitals on their fallen comrades and got his other arm under him this time.

The IV cocktail was hitting his system harder now, artificial strength flooding his muscles even as his chest burned with each breath.

He managed to rise to one knee, the world tilting as blood loss competed with chemical enhancement.

Stone noticed the movement and stepped toward him, tranquilizer gun shifting to track his position. “Ashford is becoming mobile. Recommend immediate—”

Dante’s hand found the tactical knife on the nearest fallen SVI operative. Corporate training took over—weight, balance, distance. All calculated in the space between heartbeats.

The blade took Stone in the thigh, severing the femoral artery with surgical precision.

She went down hard, blood pumping between her fingers as she tried to apply pressure. The other regulators spun toward him, but Dante was already moving, rolling behind cover as their weapons tracked him.

The gunfire started—controlled bursts meant to disable rather than kill. They still needed him alive for questioning. Still needed to understand how their perfect operative had gone so rogue.

Dante pressed himself against the twisted metal of a burned-out car, breathing hard.

The stimulants were keeping him functional, but he could feel his strength bleeding away with every heartbeat.

The C-17 was metabolizing too quickly, his damaged system burning through it at triple the normal rate.

Maybe three minutes of useful consciousness before total collapse. Not enough time to—

Dante’s blood went cold as a whooping shout cut through the valley like something primal and enraged.

Three figures came over the sniper ridge like demons from hell, moving with the terrifying coordination of pack hunters.

The lead figure wore a crude metal mask over half his face, the exposed skin revealing a smattering of freckles.

Behind him, two others flanked wide, all of them armed with vicious clawed gloves that could tear a man’s throat out.

Berserkers.

Fuck.

The Gensyn regulators reacted as trained—immediate threat assessment, tactical repositioning, controlled fire. But Berserkers didn’t follow corporate rules of engagement. They moved like violent lightning, all fury and momentum and absolute disregard for personal safety.

The first regulator went down screaming as clawed gloves opened his throat. The second managed to get off three shots before the masked leader tackled him.

Dante forced himself to his feet, every movement sending white-hot agony through his chest. His body temperature was dropping rapidly, another sign of accelerating shock despite the chemical intervention.

But Orion was still zip-tied and helpless, and now there were three Berserkers to contend with.

Not happening. Not fucking happening .

He stumbled forward, tactical knife gripped tight, ready to fight three Berserkers with a punctured lung and failing enhancement drugs. It was suicide, but—

“Calm down there, corporate boy.”

The leader straightened up from the dead regulator, blood dripping from his gloves as he looked between Dante and Orion with a smirk. His voice was deep and gruff, but there was intelligence behind the brutal mask.

“We’re not here to fuck your pretty Omega,” he continued, gesturing dismissively at Orion. “No offense, sweetheart. You smelled amazing back in the Neutral Zone, but not so much anymore.”

“Rude,” Orion huffed weakly as he pushed himself up from the ground.

Dante swayed on his feet, knife still raised. “Then why—”

“Lilac sent us,” the leader said simply.

Dante stared at him, the knife wavering in his grip. The stimulants were wearing off fast, leaving him hollow and shaking. His extremities were going numb—classic sign of shock progression. “What?”

Before the Berserker could answer, the sound of an engine cut through the valley—rough and powerful, like something cobbled together from spare parts and pure stubbornness.

Headlights swept across the carnage as a modified Jeep bounced over the uneven ground, its roll cage gleaming with welded reinforcements.

The vehicle pulled to a stop twenty feet away, and Dante’s heart nearly stopped when he saw the driver.

Lilac stepped out with casual confidence, her scarred hands already reaching for the rifle strapped to the Jeep’s frame. Behind her, a familiar figure in a wheelchair was being lowered by some kind of mechanical lift system built into the vehicle’s bed.

“Granny Lu?” Orion’s voice was thick with disbelief .

Tallulah LaFontaine settled into her chair, her sharp eyes taking in the scene—the dead regulators, Dante swaying on his feet, the Berserkers standing among the corpses like blood-soaked sentinels.

“Evening, boys,” she said calmly, as if finding them in the middle of a corporate battlefield was an everyday occurance. “Looks like we arrived just in time.”

Lilac approached the Berserker with the easy familiarity of old comrades. “Riot, you beautiful bastard. How’d it go?”

The Berserker—Riot—pulled off his metal mask.

When he grinned, it was terrifying and genuine despite the weird farm boy charm of his freckled face, his eyes glittering with strange gold flecks that seemed to glow.

“Like taking candy from corporate babies. Your intel was perfect—they never saw us coming.”

“What the hell is going on?” Dante managed, though standing upright was becoming difficult. Black spots danced at the edges of his vision, and he could feel blood soaking through the pressure bandage the medics applied.

Lilac glanced at him, and for the first time since he’d known her, there was something almost apologetic in her expression. “The Berserkers and I go way back. Same program, different outcomes.” She gestured toward Riot and his companions. “We were all guinea pigs together.”

Riot’s face darkened. “When Lilac explained what those corporate fucks were planning to do to your Omega, we decided it was time for some payback.”

“Plus,” one of the other Berserkers added with a savage grin, “she made us very wealthy for our trouble. Turns out Gensyn has some interesting corporate accounts that weren’t as secure as they thought.”

Dante’s legs gave out, and he collapsed to one knee, the knife clattering to the ground.

The adrenaline crash was hitting him like a freight train, leaving him gray and shaking.

The C-17 was metabolized, its artificial support evaporating like morning dew, leaving his damaged systems to fend for themselves.

He could feel his lung collapsing, the wet rattle in his chest becoming more pronounced with each labored breath.

“Shit,” Lilac muttered, moving toward him. “You look like hell, Ashford.”

“Collapsed lung,” Granny Lu assessed. “The boy’s going into shock. We’ve got maybe ten minutes before respiratory arrest if we don’t get a chest tube in him.” She glanced at Riot. “Get the field kit from the car. We need to stabilize him enough for transport.”

Orion was beside him before anyone else could move, still zip-tied but somehow managing to kneel next to Dante with awkward determination. His eyes were bright with unshed tears, and when he spoke, his voice was softer than Dante had ever heard it.

“You absolute idiot,” Orion said, leaning close enough that Dante could feel his breath against his ear. “I love you, you’re not allowed to die. I’m pretty sure that’s against corporate policy anyway.”

Dante stared at him, something warm and bright blooming in his chest despite the pain. “Did you just... did you just tell me you love me and reference corporate policy in the same sentence?”

“Seemed appropriate given the circumstances,” Orion replied, and there was the ghost of his usual defiant smile. “Besides, you’re too stubborn to die from something as mundane as a bullet. Where’s your professional pride?”

Despite everything—the blood loss, the pain, the surreal nature of being rescued by Berserkers—Dante found himself laughing. It hurt like hell, but Christ, he was laughing. “I’ll file a complaint with HR about the inadequate assassination attempt. ”

He reached up with shaking fingers to touch Orion’s face, thumb brushing over the sharp line of his cheekbone. “And for the record,” he wheezed, “I love you too. Even if you did just make the worst corporate policy joke in the history of corporate policy jokes.”

Orion’s smile was radiant, transforming his entire face. “I’ll work on my material.”

“Please don’t,” Dante said softly. “You are perfect.”

A sharp crackle of static interrupted the moment. Stone’s radio, still clipped to her tactical vest, was buzzing with an incoming transmission.

“Regulator Team Charlie, report status. What’s your situation out there?”

The voice was crisp, professional, and unaware that Regulator Team Charlie was currently decorating the landscape in various pieces.

Dante looked at the radio, then at Lilac, who raised an eyebrow. With considerable effort, he reached over and grabbed the device, keying the mic.

“Still engaging subjects,” he said, falling back into his old corporate cadence without missing a beat. “Will contact when subjects are subdued.”

There was a pause, then the voice came back—amused, almost fond. “Copy that. Pulling back reinforcements for the all clear. Good luck, Dante.”

The radio went silent.

Everyone stared at him for a long moment. Granny Lu was the first to speak, her weathered face creasing into something that might have been approval.

“Well,” she said dryly, “that was either very clever or very stupid.”

“Little of both,” Dante admitted, letting the radio fall from his nerveless fingers .

“Got it,” Riot said, returning with a large med kit. “We’ll be long gone by then.”

Granny Lu was already pulling out medical supplies, her movements efficient despite her age. “First, we need to get a chest tube in him and start a real transfusion, or he won’t survive the trip back to the collective.”

“Trip back?” Orion asked, his face pale with worry as he watched Dante’s deteriorating condition.

“We’re far from home,” Lilac said, helping Riot lay out the medical equipment. “And we’ve got a makeshift trauma room prepped and waiting. But first we need to keep him breathing long enough to get there.”

Dante felt his consciousness wavering as Granny Lu approached with what looked disturbingly like a large-gauge needle and surgical tubing. The last thing he heard before darkness claimed him was Orion’s voice, fierce and determined.

“Don’t you dare die on me, Dante Ashford. We haven’t even started arguing about who gets which side of the bed.”