Page 66 of False Catch

Jackson's eyes flick to Reese, then Eli, something raw and vulnerable flashing across his face before his walls slam back up. "The woman who chose me. Who chose us."

"Us?" Beckett asks, looking between the three of them. "Wait, are all three of you...?"

"Together," Eli confirms, his hand finding Jackson's. "Yeah."

The silence that follows is suffocating. Everyone processing, calculating, trying to figure out what this means.

"We're fucked," Tyler says from the doorway. None of us even heard him come in. He's got his laptop bag over his shoulder, looking exhausted from his study group. "The probability of keeping this hidden from Torres is essentially zero. Claimed bonds change everything - scent, behavior, biological responses. We have maybe 72 hours before it becomes impossible to hide."

"Less," Cameron adds. "48 at most."

"So we're done," Gray says flatly. "Season over. Careers over. Everything we've worked for, gone. Because Jackson couldn't keep his dick in his pants."

"Gray," I warn, seeing Jackson tense.

"What? It's true! One moment of weakness and he's destroyed nine futures—"

"It wasn't weakness," Reese interrupts, her voice steady despite the tears I can see gathering in her eyes. "It was the opposite. It was Jackson being brave enough to take what we all want but are too scared to admit."

"Brave?" Gray laughs bitterly. "There's nothing brave about giving in to base instincts—"

"Isn't there?" She steps forward, and even from here I can smell how Jackson's claim has changed her. She smells like pack now. Like home. Like everything we've been pretending we don't want. "You've been holding yourself back for weeks, Gray. Killing yourself with need. We all have. At least Jackson had the courage to stop pretending."

"Courage," Gray repeats, voice dripping with disbelief. "You think this was courage?"

"I think," Reese says carefully, "that we were already past the point of no return. This just makes it official."

The truth of that settles over the room like a weight. Because she's right. We've been a pack in everything but name for weeks now. The claiming bite just makes it impossible to deny.

"What do we do?" Zane asks quietly. "How do we fix this?"

"We don't," Jackson says simply. "We deal with the consequences."

"Easy for you to say," Beckett snaps. "You got what you wanted."

Jackson's expression darkens. "You think this is what I wanted? To put her at risk? To destroy the team? You think I wanted—" His voice cracks slightly. "I fought this harder than any of you. But sometimes fighting isn't the answer."

"Then what is?" Gray demands.

Nobody has an answer for that.

I look around the room at my teammates - my family, really. Gray vibrating with fury he’s desperately trying to hold onto. Jackson standing straighter than he has in years despite everything. Eli positioned protectively between them. Reese marked and claimed and looking somehow more herself than ever. The others scattered around the kitchen, lost and afraid and hurt.

"Maybe," I say slowly, "we stop trying to control something that was never meant to be controlled."

Gray turns on me. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means we're a pack," I say simply. "Have been for weeks. Fighting it is what's been tearing us apart. Maybe it's time to stop fighting."

"And lose everything?" Gray asks.

I look at Jackson, Eli, and Reese - the way they're standing together, connected in a way that goes deeper than anything rules or policies can touch.

"Maybe," I say quietly, "we already have. The question is what we're going to do about it."

The silence that follows is heavy with possibility and dread in equal measure. Because I'm right, and we all know it.

Everything just changed.