Page 56 of Final Drive

“Tyler and I go into Quinton’s connections. Who he talks to, what he’s building, how far back it runs.” I hold her eyes. “The others have to know. Let me work out how to tell them without Jackson putting him in a hospital before we understand what we’re looking at.”

“You think you can stop him?”

“No. I think I can make him wait.” I take her hand. Her fingers are cold. “I’ll handle Jackson. You get through the next few days without being alone with Quinton. Can you do that?”

She nods and squeezes back. “Yeah.”

“Good.” I stand, and I don’t let go straight away. “Reese. I’m glad you came to me.”

She looks up at me. “You’re the only one who doesn’t make me feel like a problem to be solved,” she says. “Everybody else wants to fix it, or guard it, or claim it. You listen.”

I have no answer for that.

I’ve spent my entire life three steps back from everything, observing, analyzing, keeping the variables I can’t control from touching my decisions. It has always been the safer position. Standing here with her hand in mine, I’m not certain safe was worth what it cost.

“Go and rest,” I tell her. “I’ll come find you when we have something.”

She heads upstairs, and I’m left with the hum of the heating and everything she just handed me.

I give myself thirty seconds. I’m angry enough at Quinton that I don’t trust myself to make decisions with him in the room, but the fear underneath it is colder. I was so occupied with reporters and Harrison and filing deadlines that I missed the threat standing directly in front of us.

Then I put it away and go find Tyler.

He’s got three monitors running and a cold coffee going forgotten at his elbow. When I knock on the frame, he holds up one finger without looking, finishes his line, and turns around.

“Quinton made a move on Reese,” I say. “Grabbed her arm, tried to kiss her. She got out. He slipped and called her an Omega.”

Tyler’s face doesn’t move, but his shoulders do. “He knows her designation.”

“He knows. I want how, and I want who else.”

“Kinsley.” He’s already turning back. “She had the footage, she has the motive, and she’s been quiet since the articles went up, which isn’t her.”

“Can you find the connection?”

“If it exists.” His hands are moving faster than I can follow. “Socials, follows, tagged photos, public location history. Everybody thinks they’re careful online. Nobody is.”

“How long?”

“Give me a few hours.” He glances over. “Are we telling the others?”

I think about Jackson downstairs and what his face is going to do.

“Not yet.”

Tyler nods and goes back in, and I leave him to it.

Jackson is in the kitchen with a sandwich he isn’t eating. His eyes come up and lock on when I walk in, that unblinking attention that makes most people find somewhere else to look.

“Reese okay?” he asks. “Saw her come in looking rough.”

“She’s tired.”

I hate it as it leaves my mouth. Jackson and I don’t lie to each other. That was in the terms.

He puts the sandwich down. “Eli.”

One word, and I’m not fooling anybody.