Pete knew he had some time to figure out what to do about the baby. After all, he still had eight months and change before it showed up. Still, the fact that a deadline existed, no matter how distant, made him panicky.

The amount of planning required of someone in witness protection only made it worse. He couldn’t simply go to a doctor. He had to submit a doctor’s name to Cooper, who would then thoroughly investigate said doctor before giving Pete the all-clear to go to an appointment.

If Cooper found any hint of a connection to organized crime, the process would begin again. It created a pressure normal people simply didn’t face, and that gave Pete anxiety that fluttered deep inside his chest.

He couldn’t help it. He could chalk it up to hormones, at least.

He knew he needed to let Cooper know sooner rather than later, though, because Cooper needed to plan around the pregnancy, and the baby, in case Pete needed to escape. And Pete needed to warn Cooper he’d told Keegan about the program.

Needless to say, Cooper was not impressed. “You told Keegan Cunningham, the guy who bought a Rockette show for his brother’s coming out without telling said brother, that you’re in witness protection.”

He folded his hands together in front of his mouth and closed his eyes, like a man lost in prayer. “Not only did you let him get you pregnant, you told him you’re in witness protection, when the key to witness protection is staying under the goddamn radar.”

Pete hadn’t ever seen Cooper angry before. He remembered all of the times he’d seen Dmitry angry, and just how painful it had been. He tried to shift his chair back subtly, so Cooper would have to pause just a second before he could hit him. It hadn’t always worked with Dmitry, but sometimes it had. It was worth a shot.

“I didn’t tell him everything,” Pete swore, casting his gaze around Cooper’s nondescript downtown office. He would look anywhere but at Cooper.

“I’m not going to tell him everything. I’m not. I get that it’s dangerous, and I don’t want to put him or anyone else in more danger than I have to. But he does need to understand why the kid and I might just disappear one day.”

“You could leave the kid with him and disappear.” Cooper leaned forward. “That’s an option. A kid slows you down and limits the options available. If you need to run…..”

He let that line of thought trail off because he didn’t need to finish. Pete understood him just fine.

Pete clutched at his chest. He knew Cooper didn’t mean to be a dick about this. His job was to keep Pete safe, not to promote family unity or whatever.

Still, the thought of leaving Keegan made him want to throw up. It was a little much for the amount of time they’d been together. But fine, he felt the way he felt, and he could probably be forgiven for wanting to stick it out with the guy who made him feel special and important.

The thought of separating from his child, who was at this point still a collection of cells too small to be seen with the naked eye or even an ultrasound, made his chest physically hurt.

“No. No way. Besides, Dmitry would just hurt the baby to get at me.” He sighed and rubbed at his wrist.

There wasn’t anything wrong with it, not physically. It still throbbed when he thought about his ex-husband. It had become a nervous habit, and Pete would just have to get used to it.

He looked out the narrow, dirty window. “I probably should have gotten myself sterilized when I left Dmitry. It would have been the sensible thing to do, but I was too afraid to be vulnerable for so long during the recovery period. I’m looking forward to the baby, I am, but I’m scared.”

“You should be,” Cooper told him sourly. Then he softened, leaning back in his chair. “Look. I’m sorry. This is a happy situation, and I’m being a dick.

“The baby complicates things, but I am happy for you. A baby is always a happy occasion. But you’ve got to figure out what you want to do with this Cunningham guy. Especially now that you’ve spilled the beans to someone who’s completely unvetted.” He stared at Pete long enough to get his point across.

Pete did need to figure out what he wanted to do with Cunningham. He spent the next month tossing and turning about what he wanted to do about the baby, and what he wanted to do about Keegan.

He knew Keegan was distracted by the same thing, because his wretched wardrobe was so tame that he even wore gray clothes in public.

At the end of that month, they’d both had enough fretting about the problem. Keegan brought Pete over for the weekend. He brought Pete breakfast in bed, with fruit and French toast and decaffeinated tea.

He even added a rose in a bud vase, although it was a fake rose, because Keegan could be practical when he chose to be. A real rose ran the risk of spilling water onto the bed.

“Look,” he said, with a little smile. “I know there’s stuff you’re not telling me.” He brushed a lock of Pete’s long hair out of his face.

Pete toyed with the blanket. “There’s an awful lot of stuff I’m not telling you.” He took a deep breath.

There was so much he couldn’t say, for Keegan’s safety. There was more he couldn’t say because he was ashamed. He was ashamed to have married an asshole like Dmitry. He didn’t want to admit to having stayed by Dmitry’s side from fear. Or that he had believed Dmitry when he’d told Pete he deserved his misery.

He didn’t want to give voice to his fears about having to run with no notice, leaving Keegan behind. He’d already mentioned it to Keegan, but talking about it made it more real. It made it feel more likely. He couldn’t face the idea of being ripped away, so he couldn’t think about it. It just wasn’t possible.

“It’s cool.” Keegan met his eyes squarely, without flinching. He fed Pete a strawberry from his plate.

“Keegan, I can’t. I just can’t —” Pete stopped himself. “Wait, what?”

Keegan chuckled and took Pete’s hand. “I said it’s cool. There may come a time when you’re ready to tell me those things. And there may not.

“It’s witness protection. Like you told me last month, your options are limited. I’m okay with it. I don’t need you to confide every detail of your life in me just because we had a little incident with the condom, okay? I’m not that guy.

“Obviously, whatever it is has impacted your decision. But I trust you, Pete. If you’re not telling me about a piece of your past, it’s for a reason. You’re trying to stay safe, and I can’t accidentally let information slip if I don’t know it.

“It’s about more than you now, too. That’s a baby inside of you, our baby.” He brushed his hand over Pete’s belly.

Keegan smiled a little sadly and continued. “It hurts, to know you might have to take our baby and run to the ends of the earth to escape. But yeah, I want that kid safe. And I want you safe.

“I’m going to move every mountain I can to make that happen, but I’m not going to get in the way of the people who are already doing that work, you know? My priority is making sure you’re both alive, at the end of the day. So I’m more than cool with you not telling me some stuff.”

He leaned forward and planted a chaste kiss on Pete’s forehead. “Now eat your pancakes before they get cold. Cold pancakes suck.”

All of the tense muscles in Pete’s back, muscles he hadn’t even known he was clenching, released. “You’re not human. You’re a hallucination. It’s the only explanation for your awful wardrobe.” Keegan being a mirage would also go a long way toward explaining why Pete had fallen so hard for him so fast.

Keegan looked down for a moment, a weird kind of grin on his face. Then he looked back up. His eyes gleamed like polished steel.

“I’ll tell you a secret. Those clothes?” He wasn’t wearing anything but an apron now, a fact that made Pete blush.

“Yeah?” Pete took a sip from his tea.

Keegan fed him a piece of pancake. “So, my parents are kind of stuffy. And they have these ideas about what a ‘real alpha’ is, and a ‘real omega’ too.

“I’m pretty sure those ideas came from some kind of awful Victorian potboilers they found in the attic, but whatever. They wanted me to be some kind of soulless clone of my dad — a slumlord, with nothing better to do with my time than flit around paying attention to money and myself.

“Think the worst male characters from Jane Austen novels, bring them to the twenty-first century, and you’ve got my dad’s ideal man.” He rolled his eyes and curled his lip. “I don’t think they can even spell morals. Anyway.

“They’re awful snobs, too. We’re talking terrible. They had an omega picked out for me by the time I was twelve, I swear to God. The poor kid was all of ten, but his parents and my parents had made that choice.

“Fortunately for him, he ran away and wound up living with an aunt in Seattle. That didn’t stop them. They immediately turned their attention to one of the kid’s cousins.

“It wasn’t like the omega himself mattered, just his womb and his pedigree. Hell, it didn’t even matter if I was into guys. I had to have a tool to protect myself. So I started doing this.”

He gestured with an open hand toward his closet. It was closed, but his point stood. Pete knew exactly what he meant.

“I picked out the most obnoxious clothes I could find. Wild, out there — I showed up to some idiotic thing at my dad’s country club with an actual peacock tail on.” He grinned widely, showing all of his teeth.

“I’ve still got that tail, by the way. It’s in storage, but I’ve got it. A lot of people wonder why I do the clothes; well, that’s why. It’s why I started, anyway.

“It’s a habit now, and I kind of like it. It reminds me that I’m not one of them. Honestly, I’m a little terrified that whatever genes made them who they are will somehow creep into your perfect baby, and I’ll accidentally give you a demon.” He tugged at the string of his apron and looked down, gray eyes clear and open and vulnerable.

Pete stroked Keegan’s stubbled face. There was probably a lot more to Keegan’s story than just parents with weird expectations, but then again, Pete didn’t come from money. He knew plenty of people who did, and a lot of them had similar tales.

Pete wouldn’t judge what he couldn’t understand. He did know Keegan had trusted him with a bigger piece of himself than he’d probably trusted anyone else with in his life, and one confidence deserved another.

He took a deep breath and started. A little knot of shame formed in his gut, and he pushed the pancakes around on his plate. “I can’t tell you everything, but there are good reasons for that. And they’re not because I don’t trust you.”

He kissed Keegan’s pale lips. “You already know I’m in witness protection, so you already know why I can’t talk about some of them. I’ve been married before. It didn’t go well.”

He rubbed at his wrist. He imagined he could feel a little bump there, like a scar. Psychosomatic. It could only exist in his imagination.

Keegan was a smart man. “The person you testified against was your husband.”

“He was. One of the people I testified against, anyway. My divorce is legal and everything, so you don’t have to worry about that. My ex, though, he’s not the kind of guy who cares. And he’s obviously kind of pissed about the whole thing where I testified against him and his whole organization.

“He was convicted and everything, so that part’s all set, but he escaped federal custody before his sentencing. I can’t … I can’t do anything to attract attention to myself, Keegan. I can’t let him find me, I can’t let him come for you, and I definitely can’t let him find out about the baby.”

He looked down at his flat stomach. “I don’t know the baby yet, but I love him. I can’t let anything hurt him.”

Pete expected Keegan to be mad about Dmitry. Normal alphas would be. Normal alphas didn’t want someone who’d been married before, especially not to a guy who was still out there milling around.

Keegan, though, Keegan wasn’t mad at all. He smiled a brilliant and genuine smile and brushed his hand across Pete’s abdomen again. “Pete, honey, you’re singing my song. I’m not going to let anything happen to you. I’m not letting anything happen to that baby.”

He smirked. “Believe it or not, I love the little zygote too, even if it doesn’t have a face yet. I’m willing to do whatever it takes to keep you and the baby safe.”

Pete bit his lip. “Even if it means I have to take the baby and run without a word?” He shuddered at the image of himself and the baby, getting onto a plane in the middle of the night, without Keegan by his side.

“Even if.” Keegan took Pete’s hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. “Obviously I’ll try to find a different solution, because what I want most is to have both of you here with me. But babe, if it makes you safe? I will make any sacrifice.”

He tilted his head to the side. “If we could arrange to use my dads as human shields first, clearly that would be ideal. But we can’t have everything.”

Pete wiped at his eyes. “I don’t deserve you.” He chuckled weakly at the crack about Keegan’s dads.

It had to be hormones making him tear up like this. That was the only possible explanation. Normal people didn’t just go around bursting into tears because the most amazing man in the world said nice things and offered to sacrifice their parents to keep him safe. That just wasn’t done.

Keegan huffed out a laugh and tried to feed him more pancakes. “You deserve a hell of a lot better than me, Pete. But hey — I’m here, and you’ll never have to go into hiding from me. My peacock suit, on the other hand…”

Pete laughed, and Keegan stole the last strawberry from his fruit bowl. He did keep feeding Pete, though. Feeding led to more kissing, and soon enough Keegan moved the tray table away from the bed and slid between the sheets beside him.

Pete and Keegan had made love more than once since they’d found out about the baby, but this was the first time Pete felt truly at peace since then. It was the first time he’d made love without guilt since entering witness protection.

Keegan knew. He knew what was at stake. He knew the risks. He knew, and he was still here.

When Pete climbed on top of Keegan, and sank himself slowly onto Keegan’s bare cock, he did so without reservations, and it felt amazing. Keegan held onto Pete’s hips, but only to help him balance. He let Pete set the pace, and Pete loved every second of it.

Keegan felt so right inside of him. Pete had been with other men, even since Dmitry, but none of them had filled Pete so perfectly. None of them had looked up at Pete with the same degree of love or trust or admiration that Keegan did.

And for the first time, Pete felt confident that the same feelings would be there in a year, or ten years. He had Keegan’s heart, as strange as it felt.

He rocked his hips, increasing the pace as he moved. He wanted to build to a crescendo, like in Ravel’s Bolero, his favorite dance in that long-ago time before Dmitry, when he’d earned his living on the stage.

Keegan gripped him tight, and as their orgasms washed over them, Pete gave thanks to whatever spirits watched over men like him. Whatever might lie in the future, right here and right now, they were as together as two men could be.

And it was enough.

Keegan sighed with relief when he found out that Pete had a nasty ex-husband. Not that it wasn’t a serious issue. The thought that his omega and the father of his child had to live in fear like that made him absolutely furious.

Still, an evil ex wasn’t the worst possibility of all of the things that could have gone wrong for them. Keegan could, eventually, figure out some way around an evil former spouse, even if the spouse in question had a big network to call on for help.

Keegan knew what he wanted now. It wasn’t realistic, for a lot of reasons, but he didn’t care about what was realistic anymore. He wanted to be with Pete, and he didn’t care how he made it happen.

In an ideal world, he could go out and rent St. Patrick’s Cathedral. He wasn’t Catholic, or religious at all. St. Patrick’s was just a huge landmark church, and Keegan was flamboyant as hell, so it was a good match.

Plus, Pete was the kind of guy who deserved to be celebrated. This ex, whatever his issues might be, hadn’t celebrated Pete. It didn’t sound like he’d even loved Pete.

Keegan’s mission in life was to give Pete everything he should have had from the beginning, threefold. Celebrating him loudly and joyfully was one way of doing exactly that. He wanted to make sure that the world knew just how amazing Pete was, and how much Keegan loved this incredible creature who had come into his life.

Keegan’s primary responsibility, however, was to keep his omega safe. He didn’t buy into much of the old-school alpha and omega BS that Beau and Ed tried to slather onto him. Sure, alphas had some instincts that ran a little stronger than others. Not all instincts needed to be acknowledged or acted upon.

People had the instinct to relieve themselves in the street, too. Once upon a time, that had been more sanitary than the other options available, but now it was just plain gross. The same went for alpha instincts toward dominating and owning omegas.

The need to keep his love and his family safe, though? That was always going to run strong and hot in Keegan, and he had no intention of fighting it. It gave him responsibility, instead of making him think he had rights over someone else, and he couldn’t see that as anything but good.

His responsibility was to his omega, and to his child, and he would die before he shirked it.

Keeping Pete safe didn’t mean he was going to beat his chest and start following the omega around, like some kind of over-caffeinated baboon. That would be stupid, and while Keegan could more than hold his own in a fight, he wasn’t exactly eager to bruise his knuckles that way. (He did make a mental note to invest in a gorilla suit, just on the off chance he might find a use for one.)

He might want to hunt the ex down, and maybe rearrange the guy’s face in a few places, make him look like a Picasso, but that wouldn’t be a productive use of his time or talents. He’d trained as a boxer, and even won a championship or two in college, but his brains were more valuable than his fists.

And how exactly was he supposed to support his family if he got his sorry ass sued for taking the first swing, anyway? Half the people Ty got stuck dealing with at work ended up shelling out big bucks on lawyers because they weren’t capable of thinking ahead. Keegan was more than capable of doing his own planning, thank you. He didn’t need to purchase an external brain pack.

No, he could think for himself. He would have to do some out-of-the-box thinking on this one, and that would still require him to rely on a lawyer. Only, instead of involving a lawyer over a stupid thing he’d already done, he’d talk to one to make sure his bases were covered before he took action.

He had one lawyer he could trust, who was smart enough to help him help Pete. There was just one problem. Ty was already overworked, and he was justifiably cranky about some of the cases Keegan had sent his way.

Keegan didn’t want to play that card if he didn’t have to, so he wanted to keep Ty in reserve for as long as he could. Plus, he couldn’t tell his brother anything about Pete’s situation without Pete’s specific permission. It was witness protection for a reason, and witnesses stayed safe because they didn’t go blabbing about it all over New York City.

Then there was the whole “Pete” thing. Pete had already told Keegan that Pete DeAngelis wasn’t the name his parents had given him. Pete hadn’t given Keegan his birth name yet, and he might never do so. He might not be allowed to give it, and he might never feel safe enough to offer it, and either one was fine with Keegan.

He’d meant it when he said that Pete he was driving the bus on this. The problem was, Keegan couldn’t exactly have Ty look into his case if he didn’t, technically, know who Pete was.

It did occur to Keegan that he probably ought to be dismayed at the thought of having a baby with someone he didn’t know that well. He dismissed that qualm with the extreme prejudice it deserved.

He knew enough. He knew Pete’s personality. He knew his work ethic. He knew his morals.

He’d trust Pete over Ed and Beau any day. Give him a good man with morals and ethics over snobs with “good pedigree” every time.

The notion of trust and ethics brought up another issue around bringing Ty into the situation with Pete. Keegan trusted Ty; he did. Ty was, however, under an awful lot of pressure to settle down – to give Ed and Beau the grandchildren they so desperately craved to uphold their self-created image of superiority and family continuity.

Ty might be tempted to let information slip in an effort to relieve the pressure. Not that he’d want to, of course, but Keegan understood how desperate he must be getting. Pete couldn’t afford that, their baby couldn’t afford that, and so Keegan couldn’t risk that either.

Even though the thought of not trusting Ty with the single most important secret of Keegan’s life made his blood run absolutely cold, Keegan had to hide this secret from his little brother.

Ty could still help, though. He just didn’t need to know he was doing it. Keegan dropped in on Ty on a Sunday afternoon when he knew Ty would be sleeping off his week of workaholism and playing with his cats.

He let himself in, of course. There was no need to wake the poor kid up to answer the door. That would just be mean.

Isis, the youngest of the cats, bit Keegan’s ankle when he arrived, but Keegan didn’t take it personally. He was wearing a gold lamé disco suit; he’d probably bite himself if he hadn’t chosen it deliberately for shock value. When Keegan realized the apartment was silent, he crept into Ty’s bedroom.

Ra, Ty’s middle cat, hissed and woke his human up. Ty opened one bleary eye, looked over at him, and shuddered. He pulled a pillow over his head.

“I’m having my locks changed,” he vowed, voice muffled through down alternative and high-thread-count cotton. “Why are you in my bedroom? I’m twenty-six.

“My older brother should never be in my bedroom. That’s just gross. What if I had a guy in here?”

“I’d go pop some popcorn. Or maybe some champagne. Score cards either way. I think I hid them behind your fridge last time.” Keegan flopped down on Ty’s window seat. “How long’s it been for you?”

Ty flipped him off. “A year, and go to hell, Keegan.” He squirmed under his bedclothes and flipped over onto his back. “I’m too tired for anything anyway. It doesn’t matter.”

Keegan wrinkled his nose. A year? How did Ty not just explode? Did the firm of Slave Driver and Scrooge not offer vacation time?

“Maybe there’s an ounce of merit in all that nonsense Beau keeps spouting about how you should quit your job. You can’t let them abuse you like this, bro. You deserve better. There’s other law firms out there that will let you do wild and crazy things like eat, sleep, and get laid.”

“I worked damn hard to get to this point, bro.” Ty sat up, glaring. “I don’t care about eating, sleeping, or getting laid. I care about being the youngest goddamn partner in the firm’s history and then rubbing Beau’s nose in it when I get there.

“Besides, alphas snore and smell bad. Anyone who wants one around on a regular basis needs his head examined. Why are you here on a Sunday?”

Keegan handed him the coffee he’d brought over. “I wanted to run an issue by you. I need your big old brain.”

“My big old brain has the day off.” He closed his eyes and sipped from his coffee. “What is it?” He sat up and leaned against the headboard, pale abs on display for all to see. If, of course, ‘all’ consisted of Keegan and the cats.

Keegan grinned. An offering of coffee got him everywhere with Ty. “I’ve got a tenant with a problem over at the Gardens.”

“We.” Ty sniffed, and took another gulp of his coffee. “I’m a partner in the firm that owns the complex. That means we have a tenant with a problem over at the Gardens.”

Keegan rolled his eyes. Trust Ty to get touchy this early in the morning. “Aren’t you supposed to be the ‘silent’ partner?

“Fine, fine. We. But anyway. It turns out our client put a fake name on the lease.”

“That’s definitely a problem. Not ours, but it’s a problem.” Ty tilted his head up to look at the ceiling. Then he grimaced and looked back at Keegan.

“Wait. It is our problem, isn’t it? Because you already know why she put a fake name on the lease. She’s hiding from an abusive ex, and we need to figure out a way to make it all legal, and help her keep tabs on the ex without giving her up to said ex. And no one knows where this jackass of an ex is.”

“You’re a genius, little bro.” Keegan stretched his legs out and watched Ra pounce his shoelaces. He’d known Ty would figure the situation out; he just hadn’t bet on how fast he’d do it. Every time anyone from the family thought they had Ty figured out, he put them all to shame. How long had that taken, half a second? On two sips of coffee and a healthy dose of (admittedly deserved) irritation?

He hoped his baby with Pete inherited at least half of Ty’s brains.

“I am, actually.” False modesty hadn’t ever been part of Ty’s repertoire. Neither had arrogance. “I also worked a case just like this that ended last week, but from the other side. So it’s fresh on my mind right now.”

He wrinkled his nose and curled his lip. “I don’t think anyone has ever been so grateful to lose a case as we were. It wasn’t a surprise — we didn’t throw the case, we just knew we were going to lose when we took it. We were always going to lose the case, because the absolute stain of a husband couldn’t prove the ex had been the one to try to surveil him.

“That was what he was trying to sue for, by the way. Some Russian gangster was convinced his runaway spouse, whom he beat to within an inch of his life on a regular basis, was ‘trying to surveil him, illegally.’” Ty shook his head and blew a raspberry. “I’ve had some scumbag clients, but I hadn’t secretly rooted against one until Dmitry.”

Keegan didn’t react, not physically. Goosebumps crawled up and down his skin, but Ty was too far away to see them. “Wait; if the guy was a Russian gangster, why the hell would he think it was a good idea to file a lawsuit in federal court?”

“There’s a legal term for clients like this. ‘Arrogant whack job.’ It comes from the Latin, Majorus assholus, subclassification arrogantis jerkus.

“This guy honestly doesn’t think there will be any consequences for any of the things he’s done. Not for beating up his spouse, not for any of the people he’s killed, not for human trafficking or insurance fraud or money laundering or escaping from federal custody between his trial and sentencing.

“We didn’t know about the escape part until after the trial, by the way. I suppose in Russia, there wouldn’t be consequences. He just doesn’t think there are here, either.

“The biggest difference between our boy here and our tenant’s ex is cash. Dmitry’s got a lot of it. Oh, and the ex he was going after was an omega, not a woman.

“But anyway, we told him up front he didn’t have a case, but he insisted. We took his money anyway, and the judge threw it out after the US Marshal Service sent in a statement.” He shrugged. “I’m surprised it went that far, but we’ve got some very convincing attorneys on staff.”

Keegan had a feeling he knew exactly who had done the convincing. He’d be proud of his brother, if he’d done the work in service to a better client. The revelation about the nature of the case made him itch, right around the base of Keegan’s spine. “I don’t suppose you’d tell me where or who?”

“You know I can’t say anything, dude. I’ve already said too much.” Ty met Keegan’s eyes calmly. He knew exactly what he’d just done, and didn’t seem to regret a thing. “If I could tell you anything, it would probably be that this guy’s very bad news, and I hope he doesn’t call us for his criminal defense. He thinks he traced the ex to New York, so he’s on his way here.”

He scratched Sekhmet, his ancient and most homicidal cat, under her chin. She purred, even while sending a glare toward Keegan that promised blood and vengeance for his having invaded her sanctuary. “I alerted the US Marshal Service, for what it’s worth. I guess the spouse in question testified against him in his initial trial, and is now in witness protection. With any luck, the Marshals will be able to keep him safe and track this jerk down.”

Keegan’s mouth went dry. “You’re sure they tracked the ex-husband to New York?”

“That’s what the guy said. He said there had been ‘sightings’ of the ex in Manhattan. I guess he married a ballet dancer.

“A guy like that tends to stand out, so it’s not exactly hard to imagine that someone looking for a dancer would see him. And it’s not like New York hasn’t become a hotbed of Russian mob activity lately, right?” He grabbed a cat toy from next to the bed and distracted Isis, so she would leave Keegan alone.

Keegan had never realized just how much gold lamé could feel like plastic wrap until he started to sweat.