The Sterling Acquisition by Gale Ian Tate
He came to steal a patent. He stole a person instead.
In the Incorporated States of New America, everything has a price—including Dante Ashford’s twenty-year career as Gensyn Corporation’s most reliable operative. His latest assignment promises standard corporate espionage: infiltrate Sterling-Vance Industries, steal their forced bonding technology, extract before anyone notices the missing patents or bodies.
Enter Leo James, SVI’s answer to the question “what if we gave someone a PhD in missing the point?” His idea of Omega management involves public street wrestling and the kind of psychological incompetence that makes his neighbors place bets on his daily humiliation.
His contracted Omega, Orion, has responded by weaponizing domestic compliance into an art form that’s part rebellion, part seduction, and entirely wasted on someone who thinks dominance means hitting harder. He’s brilliant, gorgeous, completely feral, and about to become the first human guinea pig for technology that will reprogram his mind while making him send thank-you cards afterward.
Dante’s mission parameters definitely didn’t include developing an obsession with saving someone who fights like a wildcat and kisses like he’s trying to start wars. But watching Leo fail at breaking someone who was clearly made to be claimed properly is like witnessing corporate negligence on a personal level.
Now Dante’s racing against experimental timelines, fighting his own conditioning, and learning that some bonds can’t be manufactured in a lab—they have to be earned one stolen moment, heated argument, and desperate encounter at a time.
Some people are worth committing corporate treason for. Even if they bite.
Especially if they bite.
