"Jasper." Chase's cut me off carefully. "You have to go into that room."
I stared at him.
"Marie is in heat. Ragon is going to use it." He looked at me steadily. "He's been building toward claiming her. You know that. He has the paperwork filed. If he claims Marie during this heat, he'll mark Vee as soon it's over. The case will become infinitely harder if Vee is claimed too. It's almost impossible to get an established omega out even unclaimed, but claimed... she'll be lost to us."
"Three alphas can handle a heat—"
"Not the point." Chase stepped closer. "Ragon doesn't trust you yet, not completely. He's been watching you. Waiting to see if you fall in line. If you don’t go back into that room right nowand stick with them, you lose whatever ground you've built with him. He’ll kick you out. And if he kicks you out, I lose my inside source, my biggest witness, and the only person actively monitoring what's happening to Vee."
I was quiet.
"More than that," Chase continued, "your presence in that room could be the only thing that keeps Ragon from claiming Marie tonight. He wants to. But he's just figured out that Marie deliberately lied about Vee to hurt her and he doesn't know why. He's going to have doubts about claiming her right now and I need you to take advantage of that." He paused. "You slow him down. Talk him out of marking her. Buy me time to get Vee out."
"And Vee?" The words came out harder than I meant. "While I'm in there slowing Ragon down, while I'm buying you time… what about Vee?"
Chase didn't flinch. "She'll be okay. She'll have to be."
"You have to take her with you. Let her stay somewhere else for now."
“Jas, you know if it were that easy, we wouldn’t be going to all these lengths just to get her out. The registry won’t allow me to take her right now. Ragon has custody and Vee won’t ask for help. She’s turned me down twice. This is the best I can do right now. I already asked when I showed them the footage. I told them I’d give her a safe space to stay for the rest of the investigation at least. They won’t listen.”
“She can’t stay here while Marie is in heat, Chase. The pheromones are going to mess with her head. She’s already been neglected enough. Even with her instincts flattened… what if she starts craving alphas again and everyone is tied up in that room?”
He breathed deep, eyes raking over the gravel below us.
"Alex's pack is next door,” he continued. “I'll contact them and tell them to watch for her, to be ready to help if she needs it. Give her a place to go if she wants. They'll be there."
"That's not enough—"
"I know." The professional certainty drops for just a second. "I know it's not enough, Jasper. None of this is enough, but it's what we have right now. You think this isn’t killing me? One damn alpha shouldn’t have this much power over another person’s life. But if we blow the case trying to do more than we can do, Vee ends up back with Ragon anyway and we've lost everything. She’ll lose her only chance."
I stood there.
The house was behind me. Vee was in there somewhere, probably thinking about how we all just found out Marie lied and we still left her alone.
"If Ragon claims Marie and she ends up bonded in," Chase said, "the next thing he'll do is bond Vee in. You know that, Jas. He'll have his scent match secured and he'll turn to Vee to make the pack official. He'll want to bond you too. And if you refuse, you're out, Vee's still alone, and the case falls apart. I know it's a lot, I know how much you care about omegas. I know how much you like Vee.I like her too. That's why we have to do this."
He stopped.
He didn't need to keep going. He'd made his point.
If Ragon marked Vee, she was lost, fully and permanently. Likely out of even the registry's reach.
"Go back inside," Chase said. "Keep him from claiming Marie. Buy us time. We'll get her out as soon as possible."
I looked at the house for a long moment.
Every instinct I had was pulling in the wrong direction. Or the right one, I didn't know anymore.
I went back inside.
I come back to Chase's office. To Lukas watching me from across the desk and Arden very carefullynotlooking at me.
“Because I told him to stay,” Chase says, tone hard.
Lukas turns to Chase.
"Jasper staying in that room was the only thing keeping the case alive," Chase says. His voice carries no defensiveness. Just the arithmetic of it. "If Ragon threw him out, we lost our inside source. We lost the only person who was still actively monitoring Vee's condition and reporting back."
