"And you for me," he realized. "Sorry I'm leaving you with Chance."
Zara chuckled at that. "Don't worry, I know his type - and it's not what I go for."
"That's my girl," he breathed, pushing himself to his feet. "Knew I loved you for some reason."
"For all the reasons," Zara said, stepping into him. "And you're allowed to break too, Jason. I will always be here to hold you together. This time, I get to be the strong one, ok?"
His answer was just to kiss her. It was the only way he knew to explain how this woman made him feel.
Chapter 5
Chance sat at his desk with Bradley in the chair across from him, slowly flipping through a folder of death threats. That was what had kept the FBI on this case so long. The attack on Dez years ago was enough to make sure that, so long as Deviant kept pushing, the authorities wouldn't assume they were harmless. Unfortunately, that was about all it had been good for.
"Some of these are just kids mouthing off. You know that, right?" Bradley asked.
Chance nodded. "Yeah, but we're getting desperate. The whole team has been stuck doing nothing but moderating the forums and game chat for weeks now. Rhaven is still trying to get her team in place, and no one has worked on the next game since she joined the company. We're losing productivity, Bradley."
"What happens if you ignore it?" Bradley asked. "Go back to the regular forum moderation, and make your customers aware of blocking and banning options instead?"
"Then Soul Reaper adds another suicide to the list of kills he's taking responsibility for." Chance dragged a hand over his face. "The day before that press conference, Rhaven came in here and asked me to think about the kids who are - right at this second - sucking on the end of a gun, swallowing pills, or slicing their wrists open. Ones we will never hear about. Subscriptions that will lapse or be cancelled and we won't know why. The ones who don't say anything are the reason we can't just ignore it, because they do exist, and we can save them."
"Is it that bad?" Bradley asked. "I mean, I know Dez and a handful of others have been targeted, but is the threat really that intense for everyone?"
Chance pulled out a printed copy of Soul_Reaper's recent post and tapped the list of women who'd been killed. "I only know Nina from that list. She was a game journalist. Never met her personally, but Claudia knew her. I looked up the others. Livie was nineteen years old. Jumped off a bridge. Jasmine overdosed. She was thirty. Olivia? She cut her wrists, and her obituary said she'd been bullied at college. Just twenty-one. Those are the ones I could find, so you tell me if that's bad."
"I didn't mean it like that," Bradley insisted. "What this group is doing is wrong. I'm just not sure it's directly tied to your games. Chance, I'm saying it's not your fault. It's theirs. This all falls on the shoulders of the Kings of Gaming."
"Who are using our platform to amplify their voices!" Chance snarled. "We should be the safe space for these kids. Our unspoken promise to our customers is that they can escape here. Log into a game and put the real world on hold, right? But the real world is breaking in, and I'm not ok with that. If one post makes someone take their own life, then that's on us, damn it, because we gave them the microphone!"
Bradley moved the folder to the chair beside him. "I'll send those to the Section Chief, but I don't know what else I can do with it. You should also know that Rhaven's little stunt? Yeah, we've got some back up now. Jason has a team of analysts to parse the data for him. That'll help. It also won't be enough."
Chance nodded. "It's something, though. What else - "
A knock at the door cut him off. A moment later, it opened and Dez peeked her head in. "Hey. Um, I'm going to be out back with Jason for a bit."
Chance's eyes narrowed. "Ok?"
"He wants to talk about when they took me."
Chance immediately pushed to his feet. "Dez..." He only stopped because she lifted a hand, making it clear she wasn't ready to be touched right now. "Dez," he tried again, "you don't have to do this."
"I do," she assured him. "He understands, Chance. That's why it will be ok, but I'm not going to be much use tonight. I need you to run the warehouse."
He ducked his head to scratch at the back of his neck. "You don't have to do this alone, Sugar. The devs can handle the warehouse. Let me help?"
Her little tongue darted out to moisten her lips. "Not this time. I'd rather you don't hear this."
Then she turned and just walked away. Chance moved to follow, but Bradley caught his shoulder. "This isn't for you," he said gently.
"That's my partner!" Chance shot back. "There's no reason she should relive that horror alone, damn it!"
But a light tap at the frame made him aware that the door was still open. Turning back, it was the last person Chance expected to see. Zara leaned against the frame casually, as if she was as comfortable in his business as the regular employees. Out of habit, his eyes ran over her, aware that she was stunning. Jason's fiancée was the kind of woman who made men stop in their tracks and beg for a little attention. The only thing Chance didn't understand was why she'd ended up with Agent Raige.
"Can I have a minute with Chance, Bradley?" she asked.
From the way the man shifted, it was clear he hadn't expected that. "Zara?" he asked.
"Favor for a friend," she explained. "It also has nothing to do with your case. Promise I'm only meddling for civilian reasons." And then her lips curled in a completely harmless smile.
Bradley just sighed. "Fine. Chance, just remember that you invited her here."
"Dez did," Chance corrected. "I'm also not dumb enough to tell her no." So he stepped back, letting Bradley leave and Zara step into his office. As gallantly as he could, he gestured for her to take a chair, then sank down into his own. "What the fuck is going on?" he demanded.
Zara didn't even flinch from the change in his tone. "Dez was raped." Zara dropped that out there without even trying to soften it. "For days, she was put through the kind of hell that no man can ever imagine. It sucked, Chance, but Soul Reaper was there. It's the one time Jason is sure the man was directly involved in any of this. He needs her to relive it, and her? She doesn't want you to know the details."
"I don't fucking care about the details," he insisted.
"She does." Lifting a brow, Zara leaned back, her eyes trapping him. "And you would. Just think about it for a second. If you knew that they bent her over, would you stop walking up behind her? If you heard about how someone had grabbed her breast or shoved his hand into her body, could you honestly touch her that way in love? Or would it sit there in the back of your mind, ruining it, because that thing has become a secret you both share?"
His breath fell out. "Why are you telling me this?"
"Because the hardest thing you can do for someone you love is not ask questions," she told him. "Chance, it doesn't matter what they did to her. It only matters that they did it. You don't need to know the how. You only need to know that it broke her, and she's trusting you to leave those demons alone. That makes you her safe space. The one man who doesn't care how her body was abused without her consent."