“Iknowhe did,” I snapped. Then forced my voice lower. “I just can’t prove it yet.”
“See if Ransom ever mentioned anything to the kid. Maybe there’s a grave nearby? We could exhume the remains.”
I dragged a hand through my hair. “Yeah.”
“Listen,” Patel said, regaining his professional tone. “This makes the situation more urgent. If Malachi’s capable of killing his partner, then raising the child as a religious… whatever-the-hell-he’s calling him—and now physically torturing him—this escalation isn’t random.”
“I know,” I said quietly. “It’s stress behavior. Loss of control. He’s spiraling.”
“And spirals end one of two ways,” Patel said darkly. “Burnout or bloodshed.”
My jaw clenched. Hard enough to send a spike of pain down my neck. “I’m not going to let him hurt Elior again.”
“You can’t intervene too directly unless he’s in immediate danger.”
“Heisin immediate danger,” I growled.
“Agent,” Patel said, “we need you to stay calm. You’re too close to the finish line for this.”
I pressed my thumb against the tense spot between my eyebrows, trying—and failing—to summon the detachment I’d relied on for years.
“I know,” I answered quietly.
“We’re working on fast-tracking the takedown timeline,” he said. “But we need at least one more piece of evidence. Something that proves systemic abuse of the Vessel role. Something we can show the AUSA and get warrants in motion. If you believe his life is immediately at risk, you blow the cover. We’ll back you. Just—please don’t rush it. Not unless you have to.”
I nodded, even though he couldn’t see me.
“Be careful, Jace. And keep him safe however you can. He’ll be a great resource for us.”
I ended the call the second the word ‘resource’left his mouth.
It was hypocritical of me, maybe, because I’d thought of him as such until I suddenly hadn’t anymore.
Elior wasn’t some case file they’d plug into a database, or something to squeeze for intel—something to use.
My jaw flexed until it popped. I wanted to throw something, but I didn’t. Couldn’t. I needed control. I needed to stay steady.
For him.
I set the phone down on the desk a little harder than I should have and braced both palms on the wood, bowing my head. My breath came fast through my nose.
Elior wasn’t a resource.
He was a bleeding heart. He was a confused, hurting boy, trying so hard to do what was expected that he didn’t even know what care looked like until I gave it to him.
And yet I had to let him suffer for just a bit longer.
My fingers curled into fists on the counter.
A humorless laugh slipped out of me as I considered a different problem, one that I needed the FBI for.
Elior would never leave this place on his own, not unless his father were dead or in custody. He’d never agree to come with me if I tried to sneak him out before shit went down.
So the only way this would end—the only way I could keep him—was if Malachi Ransom was gone. And for that to happen, I needed to keep my cover, get the agency what they needed, and hold him tight as his world collapsed around him.
Then I’d take Elior far away from this place—from his father, from his pain, from all of it—and he’d finally, truly, be only mine.
* * *
