Page 64 of Assisting the Alpha
“What’s wrong?” Ethan demands.
“The task force have arrested Xana. They’re saying they have evidence. I’m sorry, Ethan. We’ve lost the contract.”
Chapter Seventeen
ETHAN
“Right, what details do we have?” I’ve been pacing back and forth, now dressed in clothes Skye brought down from my flat, but I force myself to stop and sit at the conference room table with the rest of my team.
Thank fuck Ayo calmed me down before this happened. I’m still blown away that I have a fated mate who loves me, who I intend to bond with as soon as he’s ready. For now though, we’re one hundred percent focused on the investigation.
Raj eyes hold the same disappointment that’s on every face in the room. “Wren said the task force found hard evidence that proved Xana was the murderer, so they arrested her. They’ve charged her and taken her to Wargate.”
“Already?” Ayo gasps, looking put together in a fresh shirt. “They never move suspects to the supe prison so fast.”
“So this is unusual?” I ask.
Ayo’s scent fills with concern. “It’s never happened before. Let me make a call.”
“Who—and he’s gone,” I say.
Cal’s scent briefly flares with affection, although his neutral expression doesn’t change as he watches Ayo dart out of the room. We can’t hear anything, so he’s probably put a privacy ward around himself so he doesn’t disturb us.
“All right, let’s keep going. Do we have any way to find out what the evidence is?” I say.
“Does it matter?” Kit sounds sullen. “It’s over.”
I give them a sharp look. “It matters because I’m not convinced Xana is guilty. Forget the contract for a minute. Do we want an innocent person to go to prison and be locked away for multiple homicides? Do we want the real murderer to get away with it? To potentially go on to kill others, if not here then in another city or town to escape detection?”
“And if she is guilty, we need to know what we missed so we can improve for future investigations, even if they’re for private clients instead of under BSG contract,” Raj adds.
“Sorry, I lost my fabulous glow for a minute there.” Kit shakes themselves out, then starts tapping away at their laptop. “Fear not, boys, I’m back.”
“Can you find this evidence by legal means?” I ask.
Kit stops tapping. “Nooo… We’re still on the legal train?”
I understand the reason for their question. It would be a lot faster to just let Kit hack into either the task force’s systems or the mayor’s, but I’m not willing to give up on getting that contract.
“Yes. It seems like we’ve lost, but I don’t want to completely rule out our chances just yet.”
Skye perks up. “You think we’ve still got a chance?”
“If it turns out the task force have made a false arrest? I’d say that puts us squarely back in the running.”
“I really hope she’s innocent,” Jet mutters, picking at his fingernail.
He’s been oddly quiet since he got here.
“Hey.” I wait for him to look up. “Even without the contract, we have Ayo working with us now. We’ve got a much better chance of getting supe contracts. You won’t be stuck working with humans forever.”
“It’s not that.” Jet fiddles with his mug but doesn’t drink from it. “All supes hate being confined, I know that, but us jaguars are particularly sensitive to it. I have a second cousin who went to prison for two months. Came out a completely different person; legit lost his mind. I read up on the statistics and more than eighty percent of jaguars who go to prison for over thirty days have a psychotic break.”
“Shiiiiiit,” Kit breathes.
“That many?” Skye asks, scent clouded with concern.
Jet nods miserably. “So while I want the murderer locked up and the key thrown down a deep, dark well…”
