Page 61 of The Kingpin's Omega Lover
“We both know who’s most likely to have that information.”
“Marta.”
“Sometimes there’s truth to that old saying that the enemy of my enemy is my friend. She might be willing to trade.”
“Maybe.” King put the lunchmeat back in the fridge. “Yovenko did admit to quite a few things while I was encouraging him.”
“Such as?”
“His life motto is if he can’t have it, he crushes it. Businesses, success, money. People most of all. He was married ten years ago. Married to a beautiful woman who was—in his words—not soiled by divorce or children.”
Bishop sneered. “Sounds like a delightful husband.”
“It gets worse. She got pregnant and had a child. And he got so jealous over her attention to their baby that he smothered thebaby, and then made her believe she’d accidentally rolled over in her sleep and killed him. She was so distraught he drove her to suicide three weeks later.”
“Fuck, that’s….” Bishop pressed his palms flat to the countertop, his shoulders tense and thrumming with anger. “That’s so fucking evil.”
“He couldn’t have the perfect little family, so he destroyed it.”
“Then why did he try again with Malori?”
King eyed the upper cabinet where he kept his liquor, unsure if he could get through this story without a few snorts. “I really should be telling Malori first.”
“Tell me what first?” Malori walked toward him with a sippy cup in his hand, his expression caught between glad to see King and worried about the answer to his question.
“Why Yovenko targeted you and lied the way he did,” King replied.
“Because he’s a psychopath who thinks toying with peoples’ lives is fun?”
“Well, yes, but you specifically, Mal.”
“Okay.” Malori slid onto one of the stools and sat straight-backed, hands in his lap. Pale but determined. “Tell me.”
“He’d gotten in with a group of wealthy businessmen, people he intended to fleece for all the money they had. During a golf outing, one of these men told a”—he made air quotes—“humorous story. About this place called the Farm, and how the workers were so desperate for love that they’d believe anything. That the previous year, he’d tricked a woman into believing he loved her, got her pregnant with permission from the people who ran the Farm, and made this poor woman believe that he would buy her freedom, once the child was born.”
Malori grunted. “Sounds familiar. Did this fuck-twat take her baby and run, too?”
“Worse. Apparently, the Farm had a system of selling unwanted newborns to wealthy, barren couples around the country. He didn’t give Yovenko any specific information, but the fuck-twat sold his own baby.”
“Fuck!” Malori slammed his palm on the counter hard enough to rattle the sippy cup he’d put down. “Do you think that’s what they did with my daughter?”
“It’s possible. But that story is what gave Yovenko the idea to do the same thing to you. To impregnate you, to make you fall in love with him, to lead you on and then completely break you by leaving.”
“But why me?”
“The challenge. He’d already done the same thing to a woman ten years earlier. Seducing an omega man was a challenge he couldn’t refuse.” King still felt the weight of the box grater in his hand, the way the fine mesh on one side dug into his palm while he used the larger side on Yovenko’s upper thigh. “He was extremely unapologetic about that choice.”
Malori snorted hard. “Men like him never apologize, because they never have regrets. You need empathy first, to actually regret your actions.”
“True.”
“So, what’s been these last two weeks? If he was off living his best life with our son, why did he come here and bait me? Why come after you, of all people?”
“He was a bit incoherent at this point in the story, but from what I gather, he heard about the Farm raid, and that some of the sex workers—his words, not mine—got away and were talking to authorities. He was told you’d died, but when he learned my people were the ones who found the place, he wanted to discover for sure if you were alive. And looking for your son. So, he moved here temporarily. But since you never leave the residence, he decided to play games. He planted the story of theAlexie murder and used how quickly my people found it as proof you were alive. And that I was actively hunting for him.”
“Well, he wasn’t wrong,” Bishop said, speaking for the first time in this painful conversation. “His biggest mistake was crossing you, King. He severely underestimated his enemy.”
“Yes, he did.”
