"Three days." Asher's voice is rough, stripped of its usual control. "Three days of watching her seize and crash and come back and crash again. I stopped sleeping. Stopped eating. Almost killed Jax when he tried to pull me out of the room."
"Youdidtry to kill me," Jax mutters.
"You lived."
It's not a joke. The flatness in his voice makes my stomach turn.
"She flatlined twice." His jaw is tight. "The second time, it took Kade putting me in a bear hug to keep me from destroying the medical bay."
I look at Kade. He nods once.
"I don't remember most of it." Vanessa reaches for Asher's hand. "I was unconscious. But they remember." He takes it, his knuckles going white. "Miguel remembers."
Miguel sets down his coffee cup. The ceramic clicks against the counter, too loud in the quiet room.
"I had to watch my little sister die by inches." He doesn't look at Vanessa. Can't, maybe. "And I had to keep it from our parents. Couldn't tell them she was seizing every few hours, that her kidneys were failing, that we didn't know if there'd be brain damage." He stares at the floor. "I run differential diagnoses in my sleep. I couldn't diagnose my own sister."
Vanessa's grip on Asher's hand tightens.
"Victoria Lockwood has a PhD in pharmaceutical chemistry." Her voice is steady now, hard. "She synthesizes compounds for a living. Poisons. Sedatives. Things that kill without leaving traces. She could have identified that neurotoxin in fifteen minutes. Could have told us exactly how to counteract it."
No one speaks. Remy shifts his weight against the counter, looking at the floor.
"She could have saved me three days of dying. She could have savedthemthree days of watching."
Under the table, Cole's hand finds mine. His fingers thread through mine, and the tension I'd been holding in my shoulders releases.
I think about what it would do to him to watch me slip away for three days. The violence that would come after. The breaking that might never heal.
"That's not nothing," I say quietly.
"No." Vanessa's grip on Asher loosens slightly. "It's not."
Kade lets the silence sit for a moment before he continues. "She's the only thread to her handler. Handler doesn't know she's compromised. We could feed false intel, track communications back to whoever's running this."
"And her pharmaceutical knowledge is real," Remy adds, pushing off from the counter. "Having a poison expert on retainer isn't the worst idea."
"On retainer." Xander shakes his head. "We're really doing this."
"We're considering it," Kade corrects. "That's why we're here."
"She's killed more people than I have." Damian hasn't moved, arms still crossed, shoulder blades against the wall. But his voice has an edge I haven't heard before. "Doesn't make her innocent. Doesn't make the bodies disappear. But I know what I am. She knows what she is." His eyes find mine. "That's useful. If you're willing to live with what it means."
Uncle Sal's voice echoes in my head. The judgeship I didn't earn. The verdict three years ago, the drug case where his people were the suppliers and I found a technicality to throw it out. The defendant's face when I announced the ruling, confused at first, then slowly understanding that justice had nothing to do with it.
That's what you do for family. You protect your own.
Cole's thumb traces across my knuckles. Grounding.
"She has to agree," I say. "We offer. We don't force."
Kade nods. "Then let's make the offer."
The holding room isn't a cell, but it's close.
A bed with actual sheets, a small table with two chairs, fluorescent light that someone dimmed to something bearable. The air smells like industrial cleaner and recycled ventilation.
Victoria Lockwood sits on the edge of the bed with her hands folded in her lap. She looks up when we enter, and her shoulders draw back, chin lifting. Bracing for a verdict.