He leans forward.
"But that's not the only reason."
"Tell me," Lukas says.
"Ragon was already planning to bond Marie. The papers were filed and heat was the perfect opportunity." Chase's face tightens. "If Ragon claimed Marie with Jasper out of the picture, the next step was bonding Vee in permanently. If Ragon marked her you know there would be no touching her from there."
Lukas is quiet.
"Jasper prevented Ragon from marking Marie, even when Ragon's instincts were driving him to." Chase says. "He did what I needed him to do."
"Drake left for water and food once. It was early on. When he came back, he said he saw Vee and she was fine. It was the next day I tried—I had my hand on the door." The words come out even. I've said them in my head so many times they've lost some of their texture. "Ragon told me if I walked through it, I was out of the pack permanently. The other alphas tried too. Ragon barked at them to stay."
I pull out my phone and find the text exchange then hold it across the desk to Lukas.
Jasper: He won't let me leave. Says I'm out if I leave. What do I do?
Chase: Stay in the room. If you're out, there's no one left to help her later. I hate it too, but you have to play the long game.
Lukas reads it then hands the phone back without speaking.
"Vee went into heat," I say. "We didn't know she was in heat. None of us knew. We were contained in that room and the pheromones weresothick. Ragon had us all contained and by the time anyone surfaced enough to think clearly for more than minute she was already gone."
"Alex's pack had her," Chase says.
"I know." I look at my hands. The knuckles. The old scar on my right thumb from where I cut it two years ago. "I know she was taken care of. I know she's okay."
I know all of that.
I've known it for a while and it still doesn't reach the part of me that replays it. The part that keeps finding the moment I turned around at that door. The moment I chose the long game over the girl standing somewhere on the other side of it.
Vee never knew I was making that choice.
That somehow makes it worse.
Lukas studies me.
"You were in an impossible position," he says finally.
"Yes," I say. "It still wasn't good enough."
He doesn't argue with that. He's been in this business long enough to know the difference between impossible and good enough to understand that they're not the same thing.
"Alphas are supposed to protect omegas," he says. Not an accusation, but a truth that he needs to say out loud. "Not leave them in pain."
I nod. There’s nothing else to say to that.
I feel Arden's eyes on me for the first time since I walked in.
I still don't look at him.
"The recordings," Chase says. "Two of them. Jasper took them with his phone in secret."
The screen flickers to life on the wall.
"This is the first," Chase says.
The bakery. I know it from the ambient noise before anyone speaks. I was at the counter when it started. Marie's voice comes first—the provocation, deliberate and precise. Vee's response before the crash, then Ragon's voice dropping cold and final.
