The Sterling Acquisition : A Steamy MM Alpha/Omega Corporate Dystopia Romance (Manufactured Mates Book 1), page 33
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.”
Chapter forty
Conference Call Complications
Dante
The van’s engine had developed a wheeze somewhere around mile thirty, meaning their transportation was about as reliable as the rest of this insane plan. Dante kept his eyes on the cracked asphalt ahead, watching for the telltale corporate checkpoints that would mean they’d wandered too close to claimed territory.
To their right, the landscape was slowly transforming from the wild overgrowth of the Static Zones to something more structured—trees giving way to the precise geometric patterns of corporate agriculture, abandoned buildings replaced by functional infrastructure with fresh paint and clean lines. The border between chaos and control was becoming visible on the horizon, marked by the distant silhouettes of monitoring towers.
They’d made it forty-five miles from the collective an Dante hoped, that when the encrypted phone inevitably pinged a cell tower, it wouldn’t paint a target on the only sanctuary they’d found.
“You know,” Dante said conversationally, not taking his eyes off the road, “when I calculated our three percent survival rate, I was being generous. That assumed we wouldn’t do anything monumentally stupid until we get to the house Lilac marked on the map.”
In the passenger seat, Orion continued staring at the encrypted phone in his hands like it was a live grenade. Which, in corporate terms, it essentially was. The moment that thing connected to a tower, every intelligence agency in the ISNA would have their approximate location within minutes.
“It’s been on for half an hour,” Orion pointed out, his voice carrying that particular edge it got when he was about to do something purely to prove he could. “I think we’re ahead of schedule.”
Dante allowed himself a moment to appreciate the view—Orion in the morning light, hair still mussed from their hasty departure, wearing clothes that fit him for the first time since Dante had met him. Lilac’s community had been generous with supplies, and seeing Orion in proper boots and a jacket that wasn’t designed to emphasize his captivity did something complicated to Dante’s chest.
A shrill electronic tone cut through the van’s interior, sharp and insistent and fucking terrifying in its implications. Dante’s hands tightened on the steering wheel as he stared at the caller ID displaying on the screen.
Amalie - Gensyn Operations
Dante’s first instinct was to let it ring through to voicemail, but that would only delay the inevitable while potentially making him look like he was actively avoiding contact. Better to answer and control the narrative than let Amalie’s imagination fill in the gaps.
He gestured for Orion to hand him the phone, accepting it with the same enthusiasm he might show for handling a rattlesnake.
“Ashford,” he said, putting just enough breathlessness in his voice to suggest he’d been hurrying to answer.
“Dante!” Amalie’s voice was bright with that particular strain of corporate cheer that meant someone was furious but maintaining professional standards. “How lovely to finally hear from you! I was beginning to worry when you went offline for so long.”
“The trip to the Static Zone has been... educational,” Dante said. “I had some mechanical difficulties and had to find supplies to patch a hole in the van’s tire. You know how it is out here—old tech along I-295 interferes with signal transmission, and we’ve had Berserkers tracking us for the better part of yesterday.”
It was a plausible enough lie. The Static Zones nationwide were notorious for communication dead spots, and Berserker packs were a constant threat to anyone traveling through unclaimed territory. The fact that both things had sort of happened to them made the deception easier to sell.
“Oh my,” Amalie said, and the concern in her voice was probably even genuine. “That does sound harrowing. I do hope you’re safe and that the research samples and test subject remain secure.”
“All packages are intact and accounted for,” Dante replied, using their established code for sensitive materials. “I should be reaching friendly territory within the next few hours, assuming the transportation holds together.”
“Wonderful! The sooner you can get the data and our test subject to friendly territory, the better. The longer you’re out there, the more danger you’re in of losing the research —either to SVI pursuit teams who are definitely tracking you, or to Berserkers ruining the integrity of our test subject.”
Test subject. There it was again, that casual dehumanization that had once rolled off him without a second thought. Now, with Orion sitting next to him, the phrase felt like a punch to the gut. Dante glanced sideways to see Orion’s jaw tighten almost imperceptibly, his fingers curling into fists in his lap.
“Speaking of which,” Amalie continued, her voice taking on a different quality—more hesitant, as if she were approaching a topic she’d been dreading, “I need to ask about your readings, sweetie. What happened to your monitoring system?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, before they went offline, your readings were...” She paused, and he could practically hear her shuffling through reports. “Frankly, Dante, they were so far out of normal parameters that our entire technical team thought there’d been a system malfunction. Heart rate spikes that should have indicated cardiac distress, hormonal fluctuations that were off the charts, stress indicators that were literally breaking our measurement scales.”
Fuck. Dante had known the bio-monitors would be problematic, but he hadn’t realized just how thoroughly his body’s response to the Primal Triad had compromised their readings.
“The Static Zones are notoriously difficult on monitoring equipment,” he said, falling back on technical deflection. “Electromagnetic interference from pre-Adjustment infrastructure can cause all sorts of anomalies.”
“That’s what we thought initially,” Amalie said, and now her voice carried a note of something that might have been embarrassment. “But Dante, your readings were so erratic that they triggered a system-wide recall. The entire line of implants that you are equipped with has been pulled from the market. Gensyn is paying out of pocket to replace several thousand units under warranty because we can’t risk even a ten percent deviation similar to yours in the general population.”
Dante nearly drove the van off the road.
He felt a ripple of surprised amusement from Orion—a strange mix of pride and disbelief that their connection had caused such corporate chaos.
“I...” Dante started, then stopped, at a loss for words. “That’s... concerning.”
“Oh, it’s been quite the crisis,” Amalie said with forced lightness. “The Board is beside themselves. Director Hayes has been asking very pointed questions about the reliability of our operative monitoring systems, and the technical department is scrambling to figure out what went wrong.”
Her voice took on a desperate edge that Dante had never heard before. “The company’s stock took a three-point hit when the recall was announced, Dante. Three points! That’s over six billion in market capitalization gone in a single day because your implants went haywire!”
In the passenger seat, Orion was staring at him with something that might have been horrified fascination. His mouth shaped the word billion silently, eyebrows raised.
“I’m sure it’s just an equipment failure,” Dante managed. “Once I’m back in controlled conditions, everything should normalize.”
“Of course it will!” Amalie’s cheer sounded strained. “That’s why it’s so important that you get to friendly territory as quickly as possible. I’m stationed in New St. Louis, so I will personally see to it that you get a priority welcome. We need to run a full diagnostic on your systems and make sure you haven’t suffered any lasting effects from whatever caused the malfunction. “
Whatever caused the malfunction. If only she knew that the malfunction was sitting next to him, looking like he was trying not to laugh at the sheer scope of corporate chaos Dante had inadvertently triggered.
“I’ll make reaching friendly territory my top priority,” Dante said, forcing his voice to remain steady and professional despite the absurdity of the situation.
“Excellent! And Dante?” There was a pause, during which he could hear her taking a deep breath, as if steadying herself. “Do try to stay in communication from now on. We worry when our best operatives go dark, especially in hostile territory. Regulators are set to head out and help you along if contact isn’t made in the next 48 hours.”
The line went dead.
“Several thousand implants,” Orion said. “Dante, what the hell did I do to you?”
“You,” Dante said, handing the phone back to Orion, “apparently broke me in ways that are costing Gensyn a fortune.”
“Is that bad?” Orion’s voice carried genuine concern, but there was a mischievous glint in his eyes.
Dante considered this as the van wheezed its way down the empty highway, carrying them toward uncertain territory and an impossible situation. Gensyn had their special ops regulators ready to find him if he went dark again, and SVI was pursuing them with unknown resources.
“Honestly?” Dante said. “I’m starting to think it might be the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”
Chapter forty-one
Safe House
Dante
Sixty-five miles from the Prairie Null Collective, Dante pulled the wheezing van to a stop in front of their destination. According to Lilac’s map, the crude markings—a house, a pound sign, and what was either a smudged drawing of a prophylactic or a chicken leg—indicated they’d found what they were looking for.
“This is it,” Dante said, comparing the overgrown structure to the symbols on the map.
The house in front of them looked like nature had declared war on human habitation and was winning decisively. Ivy crawled up through cracked brick walls, threading through broken windows where the ghosts of curtains hung in tatters. Unlike the beautiful, purposeful integration of plant and architecture they’d seen at the collective, this house looked like it was being slowly devoured by the wilderness.
“Are we abandoning the van here?” Orion asked, already shouldering his pack and checking the weapons Lilac had provided. The speed with which he’d adapted to carrying firearms was either impressive or concerning—Dante hadn’t decided which.
“That’s the plan,” Dante said, pulling their remaining supplies from the van. “We’ll be walking back to the rendezvous point with Lilac from here once we’re done. It’ll be a bitch to walk, but it’s easier to hide two people than a whole van.”
He glanced at his watch, calculating. Forty-seven hours to execute a plan with so many critical failure points that it bordered on suicidal. Stopping for any extended period of time would reduce their timeline to dangerous levels, but after their hasty departure and the stress of Amalie’s call, they needed a pause to prepare.
The front door hung askew on rusted hinges, and the exterior walls looked like they might collapse if someone sneezed too aggressively.
The interior was a single room that bore no resemblance to the structural disaster outside. Everything was clean, well-maintained, and surprisingly comfortable. A small kitchenette occupied one corner, complete with a hot plate and French press that looked like they’d been recently used. A terrifying green couch dominated the center of the room, sagging dramatically in the middle as if a very large person—or possibly a small bear—had made it their permanent residence and crushed the support beams.
“Running water,” Orion called from the bathroom door, testing the faucet. “And it’s clean.”
Dante located the source of electricity—a generator connected to solar panels on the back of the house, humming with enough power to keep the lights on. Whoever had set this place up knew what they were doing. The security system was equally impressive—motion sensors disguised as wildlife cameras and what appeared to be a primitive but effective perimeter alarm.
“Dante,” Orion’s asked, a note of wonder in his voice that made him look up from his inspection of the electrical setup. “What is this?”
Orion was standing in front of an ancient television set, something so old that Dante had never seen one function. It was small, boxy, and had a little slot in the front designed for some kind of disc-based media that predated modern streaming systems by decades.
“It’s a DVD player,” Dante said, moving closer to examine the antique. “Old tech from before everything went digital and corporate-controlled. People used to buy physical copies of entertainment content.”
Orion was pressing buttons with the fascination of someone discovering fire. “How does it work?”
Dante spotted a cardboard box on the floor next to the entertainment center, overflowing with plastic cases containing what looked like dozens of old movies. Some were part of box sets, others were random titles scattered about like someone had been collecting them for years.
