Chapter 10

CHAPTER TEN

Victor

T he text from Uncle Vincent turned what had started out as a fantastic morning into a nightmare.

"I guess kidnapping Kipling omegas runs in the family. Have fun playing with your boy, and thank you for giving me exactly what I needed."

The text came with a random article about the Kipling family with a picture that identified Simon.

I couldn't breathe for a second. About a dozen things slammed into my brain, all at the same time.

Simon Kipling. The image of him watching me from the other side of the pool at Mason Canton's pool party was suddenly vivid in my mind. I hadn't just seen Simon there, I'd nearly walked into him. I could remember everything about that now. I even remembered Simon's apricot and orange blossom scent.

Fuck. Why hadn't I connected the dots when we'd been emailing, or when I'd seen him for the first time in the Dark Fantasies Club office?

Because context played a huge role in how we remembered people, that's why. I wouldn't have expected to see Simon again in a million years, let alone play with him.

Hayden Kipling's brother. Christ.

That was the other thing that hit me hard, right on top of realizing I'd met Simon before. Uncle Vincent had never admitted he had a hand in Hayden Kipling's kidnapping, but I'd discovered his involvement in other ways. He'd denied it at the time, and I'd told Mason he hadn't sanctioned it. I'd learned otherwise after the face, but this text was the first time Uncle Vincent had even skated close to admitting he'd played a part. But why?

Hard on the heels of those thoughts came the worst realization of all. Uncle Vincent knew I had Simon Kipling with me, and he knew we were playing. That was way more than I wanted anyone to know, least of all my uncle. And even though it wasn't explicit in his text, there was a sinister feel to it, like Simon might be in danger.

All those thoughts happened in a flash. Simon's gentle plea of "Master?" shook me out of the stupor they'd caused.

"You're Simon Kipling?" he asked. "You're Hayden Kipling's brother."

The questioning look in Simon's eyes turned to heavy guilt. It was entirely different from the play guilt he'd confessed to me last night.

"Yes," he answered on a hard exhale, glancing down.

My insides tightened as he failed to add "Master".

I didn't know what to do. Questions assailed me, cutting my dominant confidence to shreds.

That feeling only got worse when another thought crashed through the others making a mess of my brain.

"Did you know who I was when you signed up for this fantasy?" I asked, my voice harder than I wanted it to be.

Simon raised his glassy eyes to me again, and he swallowed. The movement brought my attention to a small sore on his neck where his collar must have rubbed him in the night.

My overriding instinct was to take care of that, take care of him, and protect him at all costs.

"Yes," he answered in a whisper. "But I didn't know you were part of the Dark Fantasies Club when I made an account. I didn't create my fantasy request to entrap you," he rushed on, his voice dry. "Hayden has been urging me to sign up for years, but it took me a good year to gather the courage to do it. And once I posted that fantasy, I had over two dozen alphas who applied to play with me. I didn't seek you out specifically, I swear."

He dropped his head again, which pulled hard at my heartstrings.

"When I saw that you had applied to play with me, I knew it had to be you," he went on, head hanging like he thought I was angry with him or that I believed he'd stalked me and coerced me into our fantasy. "I recognized you at once from your pics. I…I don't know what it was. Maybe because I saw you at Mason and Hayden's party. I just…knew."

I drew in a deep breath. The split-second's worth of alarm I'd felt, knowing Simon had been one step ahead of me and known more about me than I knew about him from the start of our play, before that even, mellowed out into a deep, pulsing sense that I needed to take care of him. I felt it even more, now that I knew just how intertwined we are.

"I clicked on your fantasy request of my own free will," I said, half to myself and half to reassure Simon. "I was drawn to it. I saw your picture along with the fantasy request and…it made a lightbulb go off in my head. It's my fault that I didn't figure things out right away. You didn't do anything wrong."

Simon snapped his head up, eyes wide. "M-master?"

That single word, spoken so hesitantly, with Simon's bottom lip wiggling, pierced straight to my heart. We had a lot to talk about, a lot of air to clear, but that look told me everything I needed to know.

It didn't matter who Simon was or who his brother was. This wasn't a fantasy anymore. I think we'd both known from the start that we'd crossed that line the moment we'd first seen each other. The way we were drawn together was no mistake. We were meant to be.

And now my omega was in danger.

I took a deep breath to clear away as much of the panic I felt as I could. How we got here didn't matter. What mattered was whatever Uncle Vincent was up to.

As I let out the breath, I reached for Simon, cradling his face and wiping my thumb through the crusty mess that had dried on his cheek.

"Let's get you cleaned up, boy," I said, grabbing the ring in his collar and pulling him to stand. "I'm not sure what's going on, but I think my uncle is just about to force my hand."

Simon's eyes went glassy with gratitude as I reverted to treating him like my slave.

"Thank you, Master," he whispered as I led him back toward the bedroom. "Maybe I can help."

His offer came as a bit of a surprise. As I stepped through the doorway into my bedroom, I glanced over my shoulder at him as we continued to the bathroom. "Help?" I asked.

Simon swallowed warily, then said, "I work for my parents' law office. Only as a paralegal, but we handle a lot of business law cases. I'm very familiar with corporate law in Barrington, and in the state and country. I gather your uncle is trying to oust you from Victory Holdings?"

A chill shot down my back at those words. Everything about Simon screamed omega slave, from his posture to his nakedness to the crust of dried slick and cum on his inner thighs. But at the same time, he just about bowled me over with his calm intelligence and the sliver of steel I could feel in his resolve.

The best kind of slave was a sweet, biddable, masochistic one, but finding an omega who was beautiful and brilliant on top of that was like hitting every jackpot in existence.

Simon was my jackpot, but now I wasn't sure I was worthy of him.

"I don't know what's going on yet," I told him as I walked him into the shower, then stood back as I turned on the water, since I was already fully dressed. "I need to head down to the office to go through everything on the computer to see what I can find. Then I need to call Uncle Vincent. And Vivien, too," I added as an afterthought.

I had a sudden, sick feeling that Vivien might side with her father on this one and dump me from Victory Holdings. She'd been curt and annoyed yesterday. My only consolation was that she'd seemed just as annoyed with Uncle Vincent as she was with me.

I blinked out of that thought, suddenly noticing the terrified and bereft look in Simon's eyes.

"You're coming with me, of course," I reassured him, knowing what he wanted. "Scrub yourself clean, then get out here so I can dry you."

He let out a huge breath of relief, then followed my order.

I hated seeing and feeling the conflict in Simon. There was no denying the beginning threads of a bond between us. Through them, I could sense Simon's struggle to figure out who he was, in this moment and at large, and what he should be doing. It was a bit of a stretch to assume I knew what Simon wanted and needed and that I was the only one who could give it to him, but I felt all of that without a lick of question.

"You're going to be okay," I told Simon once he was clean and had stepped out of the shower and into the thick towel I held for him. "Until we know what's going on and what it all means, you're still my slave, and I expect you to obey."

That command hidden within words of reassurance had Simon relaxing as I rubbed the towel over him.

I grasped onto that and ran with it.

"I know what you want, Simon," I said. "I know you want more than a fantasy. That's what I want too, and I'm not going to deny it. I have no idea what today will bring, or the rest of the week, but until we know what's going on and what we have to do about it, you're still my slave. That also means it's my responsibility to keep you safe. But if I'm going to do that, it means you have to obey me immediately and without question."

"Yes, Master," Simon said, completely committed as I finished drying him and threw the towel towards the hamper in the corner.

"Good." I stepped closer to him, cupped his jaw, tipping his head up to me, then kissed his lips. "Now, let me take care of that sore on your neck before we head downstairs."

"Thank you, Master."

Simon had tears in his eyes, which I liked. His emotion filled me, making me feel as good and powerful as he was. It made me want to get the whole master thing right instead of using it as an excuse to be cruel and get off.

I treated the sore on Simon's neck and added a bit more antiseptic cream to the welt across his ass. Until Simon's collar and restraints dried from his shower, they would be a bit swollen and uncomfortable, but I didn't dare remove those symbols of his subservience yet. Not until or unless they absolutely had to come off.

I wanted to keep Simon naked as we headed down to the office, but I wasn't sure what might happen, so I reached for the robe he'd been wearing earlier. I abandoned that idea, though, as another one came to me. Instead of the robe, I fetched him one of my suit jackets from the closet and dressed him in that.

"I think I might be developing a suit fetish, too," I told him with a cheeky grin as I did up the front button.

Simon smiled through his anxiety and peeked down at himself. My jacket hung like a robe on him, concealing everything interesting. I'd fix that once we got to the office.

I grabbed a pair of sweatpants, a T-shirt, socks and shoes from Simon's overnight bag and took those with us as we headed downstairs to the office. I made sure to fasten the leash onto Simon's collar so that I could lead him as we went, too.

"The office is part of my play space," I explained as I led him through the empty cubes to the corner office, leaving his clothes in the last cube before the door, "but it's fully functioning, too. I live most of the time in Barrington, but I've been spending a lot of time here in Norwalk in the last few months, mostly so I can stay out of my uncle's sight while still monitoring his activity. Up on the desk."

Simon blinked, a little surprised by the command, but did as I asked. The cleaning crew had been in overnight, and the glass desktop had been wiped clean. Simon moved straight into the same display position in the corner where he'd been when Artemis had visited, even resuming his kneeling pose with his knees wide.

As a way to keep the scene going and to calm both of us, I fastened his wrist and ankle restraints together behind him, then unbuttoned my jacket and pushed it down his arms, restraining him even more.

When I walked around the desk and sat at my computer, turning it on and waiting impatiently to get started, I sent Simon a look. He knelt proudly, his back gently curved, his knees wide, his balls hanging and his semi-hard cock in my full view. His nipples were red and bruised from our play and he seemed to be forcing himself to breathe calmly, but the overall picture was one of a slave who was trying hard to please his master and make him proud.

"You really are an amazing slave, Simon," I told him, breaking character in that I truly meant it.

"Thank you, Victor," he answered me breathlessly, proving he'd gotten the message loud and clear.

It was almost a distraction to have Simon's lithe, slightly battered body on full view as a desk ornament when I needed to be serious about work. I wanted whatever help Simon could give, though, and the best position for him to see my computer screen was from right there on the desk.

It didn't take me long to figure out that whatever plan my uncle had concocted to get me out of Victory Holdings, and maybe worse, had started.

" Incorrect username or password ."

The message flashed up every time I tried to access any of Victory Holdings' main systems. I was locked out of my email, locked out of the accounting programs, and locked out of the discretionary account.

"Shit," I muttered, clicking across a few other things. "He's locked me out so he can screw me over."

The one thing I wasn't locked out of, probably because Uncle Vincent didn't know it existed, was my backdoor account. Fortunately, that was all I really needed to see everything that was going on.

"He's called a board meeting without your knowledge?" Simon asked, proving that he was following everything I came across as I discovered it.

"Looks like it," I sighed, tapping away with deepening concern as I sifted through emails.

"Do the bylaws of Victory Holdings allow for the board of directors to remove one of the major shareholders from management or ownership of the company?" Simon asked on, like someone who had seen things like this happen before.

I glanced at him. The stark contrast between his businesslike questions and the way he knelt in a slave pose on the corner of my desk, his cock harder than it had been minutes before, almost jolted me out of working mode entirely. It was like everything with my uncle and Victory Holdings was the fantasy and my pretty, horny, obedient slave was all that mattered in my life.

"Yes, unfortunately," I said, rubbing a hand over my face to force myself to concentrate and not think about how tight my trousers had gotten. "Victory Holding is owned by me, Uncle Vincent, and my cousin Vivien. We can't be removed as owners, but the board can vote to remove any or all of us from any functional role in the company. But if that happens for any reason other than death, it triggers a cascade of reorganizations that would more or less break the company into smaller parts by division."

Simon frowned slightly, the paralegal showing through the slave. "Could that be a good thing?" he asked. "Would being ousted by your uncle mean you could branch off on your own and maybe take divisions of the company with you?"

"Not really," I sighed, going through more of the emails sent to the board as I spoke. "The non-compete clauses if that happens are vast and iron-clad. And since Victory Holdings has its fingers in a lot of pots, it would more or less prevent me from doing almost any kind of business that had even the slightest chance of competing with any of the companies we own.

"It would be great for Vivien," I went on, deciding there was nothing else I could gain from reading emails, other than the fact that the board was just as shocked as I was by my uncle's actions. "All she wants to do is sit around and live a life of luxury anyhow. But I want more than that. I want to do something with my life, make up for?—"

I cut my words off and peeked at Simon. I really wasn't ready for him to know what an alphahole I'd been for most of my life.

"Besides," I went on, heat rushing to my face, "I've been working hard for the past six months to undo a lot of the damage my uncle has been doing, funded by Victory Holdings. I let far too much shit pass me by without doing anything to stop it. I don't want to be like that anymore."

"You've gone into business with Canton Enterprises, haven't you?" Simon asked.

"Yeah," I said, breathing out and slumping back in my chair. Thinking about the amends I was trying to make with Mason Canton and his omega, Simon's brother, which still threw me for a loop, only made me squirm. Especially with Simon serving as my desk art just then. "And I've been helping the Barrington Special Investigation Unit with their efforts to squash the mob that's been responsible for a lot of problems all up and down the East Coast. I have a bad feeling my uncle is part of that."

"He's using Victory Holding to finance the mafia, and you've been working to stop it," Simon said, as if he understood it all. "If he ousts you, there's no one standing in the way of a huge funding source for Barrington's underworld."

"Exactly," I said, rubbing both hands over my face.

"That's why you can't just let your uncle do all this and get away with it." Simon nodded, his expression suddenly far away, like he was piecing together a plan to stop Uncle Vincent in his tracks.

A powerful wave of adoration for Simon hit me as I studied him in all his vulnerable beauty. Whatever happened, whether this was a blip in my business or the beginning of a cascade that would change my life forever, I couldn't ever let Simon go. It wasn't just my inner alpha that roared and snatched and chanted, " Mine, mine, mine ." I wanted Simon like he was a part of me I'd lost and finally recovered. I wanted him just the way he was, raw, stripped, and servile.

Those thoughts felt like a furnace gathering heat and energy inside me. I knew I could use them, and use Simon's brilliance, to help figure out a way to beat Uncle Vincent at his game. I also wanted to turn Simon over my desk and fuck him senseless, like I had the day before.

But before I could do any of that, my cell phone rang, nearly jolting me out of my skin.

Artemis's name flashed on the screen.

I grabbed my phone and answered it at once with, "Hello?"

"Victor," Artemis said, his voice grave. "You need to get back to Barrington immediately. Everything's just gone to hell over here."