45. Resa

Chapter 45

Resa

I t's been two days since I held an alpha's hand instead of wanting to stab it.

Or him.

We didn't have our self-defense lesson. Blaine was weak, pale, and a little unsteady as he climbed out of the Hummer, even if he said he was fine. I told him I was okay to wait until he was better.

Vaughn has been giving me long looks and secret smiles since we brought Blaine back from the clinic. When I ask him about it, he's frustratingly vague.

Garrison has been absent. He's out of the house or he's shutting himself in the meeting room for hours and hours. There's been no hunching over a puzzle in the middle of the night—I know because I checked—so I can only imagine whatever he's working on is wiping him out each day.

It's the early afternoon, and I'm on my way to the computer room to work on my list. I have fifteen names in my notebook. Some are only first names, others are surnames I caught in passing. All belong to alphas who need to spend the rest of their lives rotting in a cell.

Lex sticks his head out of the kitchen. "Ah, Vaughn wants to see you."

"About?"

He shrugs. "Just said it was important. He's down that way. Last door on the left." He points in the other direction to the computer room.

I consider telling him this list is important, but if Vaughn says it's important, not knowing will eat me alive.

"Okay." I follow Lex's finger in the direction he pointed, locate the door he told me was the right one, open it, and walk into a shooting range.

Literally .

It's a white room with four people shaped targets stuck to the wall, guns filling a lockable cupboard which is currently open, and a wood table Vaughn is standing beside, holding a black handgun.

My eyes are like saucers. "You have a shooting room."

Vaughn, dressed in all black, his blond hair tied back from his face, waits until I've finished absorbing this unexpected sight. "Yup. We usually lock this door, so don't think you can walk in anytime you like."

"Unless I broke in?"

His smile is mischievous. "Unless you did that."

"So this is a part of Lucas Security headquarters I should stay out of?" I ask.

"Maybe."

So that's a yes then. Better not let Garrison find me here.

He nods at my notebook. "Homework again?"

"Kind of." I'm not sure I'm ready to tell anyone about my list yet. Right now, it's a mishmash of things I remember or only half-remember. I want to know—need to be sure—that the finger I point is at the right people. "Lex said you wanted to see me."

"I did." He twists the familiar black handgun in his hand. Bessy his Beretta if I'm right. And he offers it to me, handle side first. "Thought you might like to learn another way to protect yourself."

Every time I turn around, I swear someone wants to teach me a new way of taking someone out. And because I will never turn down an opportunity like that, I place my notebook on a small black table beside the door, hoping I remember it when this lesson is over as I eagerly reach for the gun.

At the last second, Vaughn yanks it out of reach.

I glare at him. " Hey !"

"Uh, not so fast. Garrison might not appreciate me handing you a weapon without teaching you how to use it first." He tucks it in the waistband of his jeans instead of placing it on the table.

"But you handed me a knife before." My first night here when I was too afraid to grab it from him. Now here I am, eagerly trying to snatch a gun out of his hands without knowing the first thing about shooting. Who am I?

"Yeah, but that was different."

"How?"

"Just was." He gives me a long, searching look. "I thought I could tell you a bit about why Blaine is the way he is."

"Why would you do that?" I ask.

"It might help you learn more about us."

"And why would I want to know more about you?" I recall the pink flamingo that my curiosity drove me to ask Lex about. He shook his head and told me it wasn't his story to tell.

Not his story to tell. If only he knew how close I came to shaking the answer out of him.

"Just thought you might be interested."

"But why?" I press.

"It might help you decide if you want to stay," he says.

As I study him, I realize I need to be careful.

I want to go home. My life with Henry is gone now, but as exciting as it is to learn all these new skills and work on cases, this isn't my life.

I have one waiting for me to return to.

"We had a case," Vaughn says when I don't respond. He retrieves the gun from his waistband and turns it onto its side.

I should turn around and walk out of here before I learn more about Pack Lucas to interest me, but now Vaughn has started, I know I won't.

"It was a straightforward corporate espionage case that involved watching an alpha's home to find out if he was handing over company secrets. At least, that's what the alpha CEO of the company hired us to do. The sort of boring surveillance work that paid well, and we thought was perfect for Violet's first on the field job after she'd spent the last three months nagging us."

Something about his bent head, and the careful way he's checking his gun makes me think it wasn't simple at all. "Vaughn, you don't have to?—"

"I do." He lifts his head, and for the first time, I read his frustration. "We don't talk about it, but we all think it. Over and over. I'd like to talk about it."

I study his expression, and I nod. "Okay."

"It wasn't a simple surveillance case. The alpha CEO, Len Magnussen, who hired us to watch his CFO, was the one up to no good. He'd been stealing money from the company and the board of the directors were getting suspicious. We didn't know about this until after, of course. We all thought this case was boring enough for Violet to dip her toe into field work. It wasn't. See, the CFO saw a car parked near his home, was afraid Lens Magnussen had hired someone to get rid of him, panicked and rammed Blaine's car off the road, down a steep hill and into a ravine where it set on fire."

I stare at him, stunned.

"We got there too late to save Violet, but we got Blaine out and to the hospital."

Where, presumably, Sadie's dad saved his life and in return, Garrison set him up with his own private practice.

"Then what happened?"

Vaughn lifts his head from his gun. "What happened to Lens Magnussen and the CFO who killed my sister?"

I eye him warily. "Yeah?"

"Garrison handed over all the evidence to the cops, but prosecuting alphas ain't easy when cash is king and they have friends in places so high it's like they're birds floating in the wind. The CFO got off with a slap on the wrist for ramming Blaine's car off the road and killing my sister. Blaine spent months in the ICU undergoing countless operations and skin grafts. He nearly died so many times we lost count. The business nearly folded. And me?"

I wish I hadn't asked now.

I really fucking wish I'd kept my mouth shut.

He snaps the chamber shut and I jump as he lines up his shot. Like it's the easiest thing in the world, he puts two bullets right in the center of the target. "I went to work."

Vaughn flashes me a grin, and for the first time, I see behind his easygoing nature to the pain beneath. He's hurting too. He's just better at hiding it than me and Blaine. "You ready for me to show you how this works, bloodthirsty omega?"

Learn to put down more alphas who don't deserve to breathe?

I thrust my hands out to take the gun. "Gimme."

After target practice with Vaughn and a pasta salad lunch in the kitchen that Lex ordered from an Italian restaurant, I've finally found my way to the computer room to work on my list when a soft throat clearing pulls my gaze from the computer.

Garrison.

I rub my bleary eyes. Between the bright screen, learning how to shoot, and the three hours I've spent adding more names to my list, I need a break. But I'm a step closer to dragging more rats onto a sinking ship.

"Do you have time?" he asks.

"For?"

"Closing up a case. You played a big part of it, and it's important you see it through."

"But I didn't…" My voice trails off when I realize what case he must be talking about. I'm out of my chair in a second. "Jerome Walker. You found him?"

He retreats from the room, holding the door open for me. "You did that."

" Me ?" I hesitate, debating whether I should take my notepad with me. A list of names isn't going to mean anything to anyone in this house but me, yet I'm not sure I want to leave it just lying around.

Garrison's gaze flicks to the notebook I'm hesitating over. "You can bring it. Or leave it. This won't take long."

"I'm working on a list of names," I tell him, watching his reaction. "It's of alphas in Asylum."

"No one will…" He pauses. "Maybe Vaughn might flick through it, but I can't see it holding his attention him for long. When you're ready to do something with that list, I'd like to look at it."

"Why?" I follow him out of the room, down the hallway and, if I'm right, toward the meeting room with the whiteboard.

"You told me the world needs to change. I'd like to help with that."

I haven't been in the room since I came face to face with a million photographs and maps of the courthouse. On the way back from the clinic, he told me that if I still wanted to speak at the trial, then he'd make it happen, but he's said nothing else since.

I'm not sure if he's waiting for me to give the go ahead, or not.

After someone shot Blaine, I'm not sure what to do. I just don't want anyone else hurt.

He pushes the meeting room door open. He—or someone else—has stripped the room of the maps and photographs. Now, it's just an ordinary meeting room with two young men who stop talking as soon as the door opens.

One of those men is familiar.

"Jerome Walker," I breathe.

His smile is sheepish. "Garrison asked me to come to the house. I've spent most of yesterday apologizing to a lot of people, and I figure you deserve an apology too."

"Me?" I frown, taking a seat at the table.

As I sit and Garrison takes the seat beside mine, I realize the other guy at the table is familiar too. The dorm roommate.

"Tobias?"

His expression is sheepish. "I, uh, did a lot wrong and I am very lucky Jerome's parents are as forgiving as they are."

"I don't understand," I say, and then I do. "You knew where Jerome was all along. Didn't you?"

"In my family's cabin. We, uh." He glances at Jerome. "We wanted to be together, but his parents were talking about him meeting alphas and…"

"You thought they wouldn't accept you being together because you were a beta?" I guess.

He nods.

"My parents can be very stubborn about some things." Jerome takes over the story. "And I made a mistake thinking they would push me into a relationship with an alpha. They always said they hoped I'd find happiness with an alpha the way they had."

"Why didn't you just tell them you weren't interested?" I ask.

"Would you believe me if I said it was easier to lie than tell them they would never have the thing they told me they wanted since I perfumed?" Jerome winces as he speaks.

"I would." It had been so hard to tell my parents what I wanted wasn't what they wanted. I'd thought they wouldn't understand, but knowing how much they loved me made it easier to push through my fear of their reaction.

"So would I," Garrison says, surprising me.

I glance at him.

He meets my eye. "It's not easy disappointing those you love. You want to make them happy, and they want to make you the same way. Sometimes you have to say things you know will hurt them, or say nothing and make yourself unhappy."

Is he talking from personal experience? Because it sounds like he might be.

"It got more out of hand than we'd intended," Tobias says, drawing my gaze. "We were just going to have Jerome hide out in my cabin for a couple of days while we thought of how to tell his parents we wanted to be together. Then there was more stuff about Asylum in the news and a white lie spiraled into real lies and then it got harder and harder to come clean."

"What did your parents say when you came clean?" I ask.

The smile Jerome aims at Garrison is full of relief and gratitude. "Garrison found me and we all went to my parents. After they stopped crying, they apologized for making me feel like I couldn't be honest with them about something that mattered so much to me. That all they wanted was for me to be happy."

His eyes turn glassy and Tobias wraps his arm around his shoulder, resting his head against Jerome's. "We hadn't thought they would be okay with us, so it was a pretty shit feeling knowing we'd put them through all that for no reason."

"So what happens now?" I smile, relieved things worked out.

Jerome and Tobias grin at each other and their love is so tangible, I know what they're going to say before they speak.

"We get to spend the rest of our lives together," Jerome says, still smiling. "No more hiding or pretending we're just roommates."

"And we never do such a stupid thing ever again." Tobias kisses Jerome and the back of my eyelids burn because I think I'm witnessing their happy ever after and it's the best feeling ever.

Later, Garrison and I stand at the front door, watching Jerome and his dorm roommate—and lover—leave. Both grin at us before they climb into their car.

As they drive away, I turn to Garrison.

"You're really good at this stuff, aren't you?" I don't mean to sound so surprised. It probably comes across as insulting, but it triggers a flare of amusement.

"I would hope I've improved over the years."

We turn to enter the house together. Bump shoulders. Stop. I blush.

"After you," he says at the same time as me.

Neither of us moves.

Since we can't spend the rest of our lives staring at each other in the doorway, and Garrison is showing no sign of moving, I walk inside. "Well, I'll see you around."

I feel his gaze tracking me up the stairs.

"Resa?"

Halfway up, I twist to face him. "Yeah?"

"Thank you. Without your observation, I wouldn't have solved this case as fast as I did. You should be proud. I wasn't looking for a new hire, but if you were interested…"

I am proud. I achieved change, something I never accomplished in my old job. Or ever.

Real. Actual. Change.

I didn't do as much as Garrison seems to think I did, but I the thought of helping someone else excites me more than it should when I know I'm not sticking around.

Which makes me wonder…

My first night here, Garrison said he didn't care about scent matches. All he wanted was to help return me to my life and my fiancé. I think he very much does care.

"I'm fighting off a three-pronged attack, aren't I?"

He cracks a smile as he closes the front door and sticks his hands in his pockets. "An attack ? I'm not sure I'd call it that at all. I'll see you tonight, Resa."

"What's happening tonight?"

"My puzzle. I might see myself finishing it this century with your help." He walks away, back toward the meeting room.

"And without my help?" I call after him.

He pauses, looks me right in the eye with an intensity I wasn't expecting. "I'm not sure I'm as motivated to finish it without you."

He leaves and I stare after him, chewing my lip.

I was wrong. It's not an attack. It's an ambush. One determined to win me over.

An offer of an exciting job.

Two hot alphas.

One cheeky beta who knows how to make me laugh and how to use his tongue.

And a nest they spent an entire day building just for me.

"Definitely an ambush," I mutter. "Stay alert, Resa, because it's working."

I continue up the stairs, reach the top before I remember I was supposed to return to work on my list in the computer room.

Yeah. It's definitely working.