The prison was every bit as homey as it had seemed the last time Dean had visited it. He didn’t go often, but there were a few cons he’d made a habit of checking on from time to time. When they got out, he tried to make sure they stayed on the straight and narrow, which occasionally meant providing a job reference or a couch to sleep on, as ill-advised as that was by his coworkers.

Luckily, Dean had a few connections on staff, too. One of the guards had promised he would conveniently misplace the visitor logs as long as Dean kept his time with Trent Krieg to a minimum.

“Fifteen minutes,” the guard warned as he led Dean into the visiting area.

“Got it,” Dean said, taking a seat in front of the glass wall that separated the inmates from their visitors. An Alpha in a tan jumpsuit came out, his hands cuffed in front of him. He looked more like an office worker than the Alphas who usually ended up in federal, but there was a cold look in his eyes as he lifted the phone that made Dean second guess his initial assessment.

He took a deep breath and reminded himself he was there to get information on Gavin’s birth parents, not to get revenge. The kid needed a responsible guardian, not an avenging angel, even if Dean was more inclined to be one than the other.

“Who the hell are you?” Trent asked, slumping in his chair.

“I’m the guy who’s looking after the kid you dumped on social services when you decided money laundering was more important than being a parent.”

Trent’s eyes narrowed, looking Dean up and down. “You’re a cop. I already told you assholes everything you wanted to know.”

“Yeah, and you got a generous plea bargain out of it, if I do say so myself,” Dean said, leaning forward with his elbows on the counter. “I’m not here on official business, but if you wanna make it that, I’m sure I can dig up something your high-priced attorney would rather have buried. Something like the illegal adoption you and your wife paid Tom Brennan to push through.”

That took the wind out of Trent’s sails. “What do you want to know?”

“Names. I want the names of Gavin’s birth parents, and anything else you can tell me that’d help me get to them.”

Trent frowned. “They’re trash, that’s all you need to know. Kid doesn’t fall far from the tree,” he muttered bitterly. “Should’ve known better than to think nurture could overcome nature.”

Dean lurched forward and Trent flinched despite the fact that there were two inches of bulletproof glass between them. “Under normal circumstances, I’d be inclined to use my rather extensive reach behind these walls to make sure your time in here resembles an award-winning movie more than the spa day you’ve been enjoying so far, but you happen to have some information I find valuable. I suggest you start using it to your advantage.”

Trent gulped. “Th-the omega was named Max, alright?”

Two for two. “Last name, Trent. Clock’s a-tickin’.”

“Redding,” he choked out. “Max Redding. He lived in Dawers, New York when he had Gavin, but that’s all I can tell you.”

“What about the Alpha?”

Trent shook his head.

“You’re making the other side of this wall seem more and more appealing by the second, Trent.”

“He’ll kill me if I drop his name,” Trent said, looking like he’d shrunk to half his size with his defeated posture.

Dean narrowed his eyes. “Maybe I didn’t make myself clear. Give me a name, or I’ll —“

“Whatever you’re gonna do to me, that bastard could do worse and in half the time,” he seethed.

“He’s a cop?” Dean asked warily.

“He’s a fed,” Trent corrected. “He went to great lengths to cover the adoption off. Me and Lisa, we were just part of it.”

“You mean Gavin’s father is the one who paid Tom to forge the papers?” Dean asked, struggling to make sense of the tangle of lies surrounding Gavin’s birth. “I thought it was Max’s father.”

“Max’s parents are some rich fucks in Arlington,” said Trent. “If they know anything more than the fact that their kid got knocked up and ran away, Gavin’s real dad probably paid them off, too.”

“Why would he do that? If he’s powerful enough that you’re scared shitless, he was in a position to raise a kid. Why go to all this trouble just to hide Gavin’s existence?”

“Because Max was seventeen and the Alpha was pushing forty on Gavin’s first birthday. You do the math.”

Fresh anger stirred in the pit of Dean’s stomach. He was starting to get the picture. The door opened behind him and the guard appeared, watching him warily. “Time to go, man.”

“Yeah, alright,” Dean muttered, slamming the phone down. “You’ve been a ton of help, Trent.”

Dean left the prison before he could end up on the other side of the bars. He lived for his job, but some days it sucked. Finding out that the bullshit connected to Gavin’s adoption was even more screwed up than he’d ever imagined, and that another member of law enforcement was at the epicenter of the corruption that had ruined the kid’s life? Well, it made early retirement seem more appealing by the second.