Chapter 24 Jasper
TWENTY-FOUR
JASPER
My sister’s murderer is chained to the metal support beam in the center of the concrete floor. He’s shirtless, ribs stark under bruised skin, and his head hangs forward. When Talon flips the light switch on, he flinches, his chain rattling.
He looks up and you can immediately tell what three weeks of pure isolation has done to him. Talon and Dredyn take the front while I stay half a step behind, with Mara at my side.
Talon crouches. “Your hint last time paid off.”
Chase’s cracked lips twist. “You’re all dead. You just don’t know it yet.”
“Not yet. First, you’re going to tell us everything about Evangeline, and exactly what part my father played in it,” Dredyn says.
Chase’s broken laugh turns into a cough. “We all blame our fathers. It’s cute, how the monsters who raised us are the same ones we end up becoming. You’ll wear his face one day, Dredyn. You already are.”
“I kill monsters. That’s what Omega Chi does.”
“No. The Syndicate just hands you names—distracts you with rabid dogs so you never notice the wolf at your back. You think you’re the hunter, but you’re really just the bait.”
“You’re already marked for slaughter, so why don’t you just go ahead and tell us what happened—from the top. Since you have nothing to lose.”
Chase shakes his head in defeat, bringing his chained hand up to wipe the snot off his nose. “I had brought her to a Syndicate event a week before. She wasn’t supposed to go into the room, but she did.”
“What did she find?” Mara asks.
“Women being sold as wives to lower level members.”
Talon scoffs. “Can’t wine and dine a woman anymore?”
“Are you truly that dim? Love doesn’t exist in our world. Not in yours, not in mine,” Chase says.
“Speak for yourself,” Dredyn counters.
“Loving someone is the most dangerous thing you can do in life.” He focuses on me, or tries to—his eyes keep sliding out of focus. “Your sister… Evangeline… she was so beautiful, so fucking smart. I loved her, you know? Really loved her.”
“Don’t.” The word rips out of Talon before I can sign anything. “Don’t you dare talk about love.”
“But I did. That’s what made it so hard.
That’s why I—” He stops, swallowing hard.
“James Steele found me after an event—cornered me in the parking garage. He was furious that I’d brought Evangeline, that I’d exposed her to that world when she wasn’t approved.
I tried to explain that she was half Psi Theta because of your mom, but he wouldn’t have it.
She saw something when we were down there after the party, and she wandered off—heard crying, I think.
She ran toward it like she could fix the whole damn world.
I chased after her, tried to stop her, tried to drag her back before anyone noticed. ”
Mara makes a small sound beside me but I don’t look at her—can’t look at her. If I do, I’ll lose what little control I have left.
“She didn’t react the way she was supposed to.
She was supposed to look away, pretend she didn’t see, stay quiet like everyone else who stumbles on shit they’re not meant to know.
But she didn’t. She started asking questions—demanding answers.
She threatened to go to the police, to expose everything. ”
“So James told you to kill her,” Dredyn says flatly.
“He said she was a liability, that she had to go. He framed it as necessity, not cruelty. Said if I didn’t handle it, someone else would. Someone who wouldn’t be gentle.”
“Gentle. You call murder gentle?”
Chase flinches like I’ve hit him. “I begged for time. Told James I could talk to her, convince her to forget what she saw. He agreed—gave me a week. But he made it clear this was my problem to solve.”
“And you chose to solve it by killing her,” Mara says. Her voice is icy. Nothing like the warm woman I know.
The woman I love.
“I tried to reason with her first.” Chase is crying now, tears streaming down his filthy face.
“I went to her apartment, tried to scare her into silence—told her what the Syndicate would do if she talked, but she wouldn’t listen, wouldn’t be controlled.
She said she’d rather die than let innocent people suffer. ”
My hands shake and I clench them into fists to stop the trembling.
“I realized James and Valen’s father would silence her anyway—brutally, publicly—as a warning to anyone else who might talk. He’d make an example of her. Torture her, probably. Make her suffer before killing her in some horrible way, or even sell her off.”
“So you convinced yourself you were doing her a favor,” Talon says.
“I thought—” Chase chokes on the words. “I thought if I did it, I could make it quick, painless. Save her from something worse.”
“You’re a fucking coward,” Dredyn spits.
“I know.” Chase’s head drops forward. “I lured her to the catacombs. Told her I had evidence, proof of what was happening. She trusted me. Even after everything, she still trusted me.”
The basement feels too small suddenly—too hot.
I can’t breathe.
“I held her under the water in that pond near the faculty entrance,” Chase whispers. “It was supposed to be quick. She was supposed to just… go to sleep. But she fought—God, she fought so hard.”
I’m moving before I realize it, crossing the distance between us. My hands reach for his throat but Talon catches my arm.
“Not yet. Let him finish.”
I shake him off, stepping back. My whole body is vibrating with rage.
“And you were rewarded,” Dredyn says.
“Connections. Protection. A path deeper into the Syndicate.” Chase laughs bitterly. “Everyone thought I did it for power, for advancement. But I didn’t. I did it to keep her from suffering worse.”
“Bullshit. You did it to save yourself,” Mara snaps.
“Maybe.” Chase’s eyes find mine. “But I think about her every day. Every single day. Her face, her voice, the way she looked at me right before—”
“Stop,” I sign.
Talon interprets. “He says stop.”
“There’s one more thing—about PTO. Don’t trust anyone from that house. They’re all tainted, all complicit.”
“You’re wrong. Valen is trying to stop his father,” Mara says.
“It won’t work,” Chase says.
I need to know. Need to ask the question that’s been burning in my chest for three years.
“Did she suffer?” I ask.
Fuck this not talking bullshit. He needs to hear me.
Chase looks at me. And in his eyes, I see the truth before he speaks it.
“She called your name... right before she went under. She was crying, fighting, and she kept saying ‘Jasper. Jasper,’ like you could save her. Like you could hear her.”
Something inside me shatters.
My hands slam around Chase’s throat, fingers digging into the soft flesh, thumbs crushing his windpipe with every ounce of hate I’ve carried for six years.
He gurgles instantly, the sound wet as he chokes. His eyes bulge wide, veins bursting red across the whites. His mouth gapes open, tongue swelling as he tries to drag in air that won’t come.
His body jerks violently against the chains, wrists bleeding as the metal cuts deeper. His legs kick out, heels scraping concrete, searching for leverage that isn’t there. A strangled, animal rasp escapes his crushed throat, bubbling with spit that flecks across my face.
His face darkens—red to purple to something almost black. The stench of urine fills the air as his bladder lets go, liquid running down his legs and pooling beneath him.
He claws at my arms with his good hand, nails raking skin, drawing blood I don’t feel. His eyes lock on mine, pure terror now—pleading, knowing this is the end he earned.
I expect someone to pull me back.
Instead, Dredyn’s hands cover mine, adding pressure until his cartilage snaps audibly under our combined grip.
Chase convulses once, hard, back arching off the pillar. A final, wet rattle escapes him. His pupils blow wide, then fix on nothing.
His body goes slack and his head lolls forward, neck bruised black and purple, mouth frozen open.
Mara doesn’t move, doesn’t scream, just watches with those dark eyes, bearing witness.
Talon moves into action. “We need to wrap the body—move it.”
“We’ll put him in the freezer in the garage,” Dredyn says. “Keep him on ice until we’re ready.”
My knees finally give out, and I sink down to the cold concrete. The puddle of Chase’s piss spreads thin across the floor, and for a second, it’s not his body in front of me, it’s hers. Evangeline—face turned sideways, hair soaked, eyes open but already gone.
I found her like that—floating in inches of water. I remember the way my hands fumbled across her skin, the way I begged her to wake up. The way I screamed until my voice cracked because I thought if I was loud enough, I could pull her back.
I rock forward, palms pressed to the floor, heart hammering like it’s trying to escape my ribs.
The memory rises up like bile, and all I can do—all I can fucking do—is pray that Chase felt even a fraction of that desperation.
That same helpless, soul-tearing panic as the world slips through your fingers and you’re left clawing at death like you can bargain with it.
But there’s no bargaining, not anymore.
This was justice.