Chapter 34
One week later…
Dash slipped into a chair at his dining room table and opened his laptop. After signing into the meeting app, his screen opened to a sea of faces. He scanned the solemn faces of the Black Guard agents, only recognizing a few.
“Dash, welcome,” his ex-station lead, Hayden Harris, said. Hayden smiled. “You’re looking stronger today.”
“Feeling stronger, thanks.”
“I believe we’re all here now,” Hayden said. “Let’s get started. Dash, I first want to update you that our agents arrested Felix Crenshaw last night. He was attempting to flee the province.”
“I warned you he might,” Dash replied.
“Which is why we had a couple of agents watching the airfield and more tailing him,” Hayden said.
“We’ve currently got him sitting in a cell, letting him sweat it out, while we await the judge to sign off on the warrants for his home and office.
Without your initial investigation and the evidence you were able to salvage, we wouldn’t have been able to sweep in and do this so quickly. So kudos to you for that.”
“Doing what he does best. If only he still worked for us,” Jackson muttered from another box on the screen.
“Enough,” Hayden warned Jackson. “Ferris, how are we doing on the investigation into the Red Guard’s involvement?”
Dash didn’t know Agent Ferris, the one who spoke up.
“We found a low-level canary and he’s singing.
Thanks to him, we’ve so far found at least ten detectives and two captains who were involved in the abductions.
We haven’t finished our interrogations yet but suspect we’ll get at least one of them to break and give us more details. ”
“Dash,” Hayden said. “Do you think Mason might be willing to help us there? His interrogation skills could come in handy.”
“He might,” Dash replied. “I can ask him if you’d like.”
“I’d appreciate it. He’s been dodging my calls,” Hayden said.
Dash nodded. “How goes the search for the abducted alphas? Any news there?”
“Nothing concrete yet. Just more circumstantial,” Hayden said. “Once we get those search warrants, hopefully we’ll find a direct path to finding them.”
“Mr. Keller, sir!” a young agent named Harper spoke up.
“I’ve found another email in one of the captains’ inboxes that could be describing Jaye Lachlin.
It was sent to him two days after anyone last saw Jaye and fits his vitals.
It doesn’t give more than that, but it’s promising and could mean your hunch was right. ”
“That’s great news. Can you pass that along?” Dash asked.
“We’ll handle that investigation for now,” Hayden said. “You need to rest and recover.”
Dash rolled his eyes. “I thought I was allowed to work jointly on this with you?”
“We want you here as soon as possible, Dash, but not before you’ve been medically cleared and your alpha agrees you can return to work.”
Dash’s jaw set. His gaze traveled to where Emerson washed the breakfast dishes. Dash glared when his mate looked up. Emerson blew him a kiss and returned to washing the pan in his hands. Cheeks burning, he eyed Hayden. “Oh, yes. I can’t wait for my alpha to allow me to return to work.”
Jackson chuckled, grinning broadly. “Lockdown.”
Dash narrowed his gaze at Jackson.
“I did have a question about something I saw in your notes, Mr. Keller, sir,” Harper said.
Dash chuckled. “Sure. But you can call me Dash, Harper.”
“Yes, sir.”
The meeting continued for nearly an hour.
Dash itched to be in the midst of the action and not behind a screen, but if he was honest with himself, he still felt incredibly fatigued.
He wouldn’t admit that to Emerson, of course.
He fought every demand to nap and rest, all while secretly appreciating the opportunity to recover.
Still, the workaholic in him wanted more than two virtual hours a day to be a part of the investigation that was his.
At least they were including him in some way and communicating their progress.
It was better than being frozen out, like he’d feared.
After the meeting ended, he closed his laptop and stood. A wobbly sensation washed over him, and he reached for the edge of the dining room table. Emerson appeared out of nowhere and steadied him, grasping his hips.
“I hate this fucking weakness,” Dash whispered. “I thought I’d feel more myself by now. It’s been a week.”
An odd look crossed Emerson’s face.
“What?” Dash asked.
Emerson shook his head, feigning ignorance.
“I’ve seen that look before. Are you not telling me something?”
Emerson sighed before leading him to the couch.
He urged Dash to sit and sat on the coffee table directly across.
“I have been withholding something you have the right to know. I feared you weren’t strong enough to hear the news, and I suspect you’re going to be angry with me when I tell you, but hopefully you understand I was protecting you. Hopefully your heart can take it now.”
Dash inhaled, worry mounting.
“I told the doctors there was a chance you might be pregnant because I worried about a possible miscarriage and your health if that happened. If you’d had one and began hemorrhaging, you might’ve bled out before they even realized where you were bleeding from.
If they assumed you were alpha they might not have considered checking for that. ”
“We don’t need to relitigate this,” Dash said. “I know you had my best interests at heart when you did it—let’s move on.”
Emerson hedged, his gaze going to his hands.
“What’s wrong with me?”
Emerson lifted his gaze. “The pregnancy I worried ab—”
“The possible pregnancy,” Dash corrected.
“If you’d let me finish.” Emerson eyed him. “I’d be able to tell you it wasn’t possible.”
Wasn’t possible? “Are you telling me I can’t get pregnant?”
Tears stung the backs of his eyes and at first, he imagined they were joy.
He didn’t want to carry a child. But the man sitting across from him wanted a family—and if he was honest, there was a part of him that wanted one, too.
One day. The idea of giving Emerson a son no longer made him cringe with disgust. Suddenly, the option being robbed from him made it a little harder to breathe.
Emerson searched his face, frowning. “No… I mean, it’s not a hypothetical. You’re pregnant.”
Dash stared at Emerson, dumbstruck. Silence yawned between them, the rushing of his blood filling Dash’s ears.
“And you’ve known this how long?”
“Soon after you were taken into the ER,” Emerson murmured.
“And you kept it from me?”
“You’d just gone into cardiac arrest.”
Dash glared at him with a look that screamed ‘Are you fucking kidding me?’
“And I was too weak to hear the news, hmm?”
“Yes,” Emerson snapped, his stare unwavering. “I knew this was the last news you’d want to hear and after what you went through, your heart was in a weakened state. I feared another cardiac event, so I asked the staff to withhold the information to protect you.”
Anger swept into Dash. Along with denial. “This is exactly why I feared people learning I was part omega. They took your request because you were the alpha here—not me.”
Emerson winced, realizing Dash had a point. “They were worried about the shock of that news on your heart, too.”
Dash’s nostrils flared as he glared at Emerson.
Emerson held his breath, terrified Dash might kick him out again.
After almost a full minute of Dash silently seething, he finally spoke. The anger in his tone was clear. “Promise me that you won’t ever keep something this important—something about my own fucking body—a secret from me ever again, Emerson.”
Emerson nodded. “I promise.”
Dash’s gaze was deadly. Emerson knew he had no more room for error there. If he crossed the line again, it might spell the end of them.
“I was only trying to protec—”
Dash’s eyes widened with rage and Emerson shut up, quickly.
“It’s my body, Emerson. You don’t hide something that big from me. I don’t care if it kills me.”
Emerson frowned. “I do. I care if it kills you, Dash.”
Some of the anger leeched from Dash’s expression. He scrubbed both hands over his face and then dropped them in his lap with a sigh.
“The explosion was only a few days after my heat ended. How could they know that quickly? The test was probably wrong.”
“If you got pregnant on the first day of your three-day heat, a test could’ve picked it up. Pregnancy tests have gotten much more sensitive and incredibly accurate at early detection. All it needs is a trace of hormones four to five days past implantation.”
Implantation. It sounded like an alien invading his body. It basically was. “We only shared one heat, Emerson.”
“One’s all it takes,” Emerson replied.
Dash stared at Emerson, feeling like his skin was too tight. His chest hurt, his heart beating too fast. “My papa said I wasn’t. Did you lie to my parents, too?”
“I thought it would be easier for you if they didn’t know.”
“Easier?”
“I wasn’t sure which way your parents would lean on the matter of choice.” Emerson shrugged. “Leaving you free to make one without potentially causing a rift with them. It’s your call. No one else’s.”
Dash stared at Emerson, realizing what his mate was saying.
He’d given Dash agency—and complete control over his choice.
Ever the protector.
He’d make an amazing father.
Someday.
What if someday was now? What if this was their only chance?
“And how does Emerson Walker view choice?”
Emerson stared at his mate. He’d always envisioned having a family but lived a life thinking it was impossible.
Impossible—yet they’d made a baby together.
A miracle child, from the sounds of it. If it was up to him, they’d become a family—but he would never force Dash to carry a child he didn’t want.
Either they walked into parenthood together or they didn’t.
It wouldn’t be fair to their child not to grow up with two loving parents like he’d had.