Chapter 172: You Are Under Investigation By The Council

Torin

The scratch of my fountain pen against the bond paper was the only sound in the reception area of New Hope. I dragged the tip across line after line, signing my name..

Form after form. Consent for minor reconstructive plastic surgery on Lorali’s cheek. Consent for surgical debridement and nerve-mapping on Walter’s face. Consent for anesthesia, for overnight observation, for psychological evaluation, for emergency blood transfusions. The funny thing is, I just know Lorali and Walter are going to be back here for one reason or another.

This entire situation is a nightmare. I clenched my jaw until my teeth practically groaned under the pressure. Two of my Omegas rushed to the ER, with slits across their faces and half a dozen crew members running their mouths to every tabloid representative in a fifty-mile radius. Why must my packmates insist on ruining the only source of income this pack has?

I flicked my wrist, signing the final page, and slapped the clipboard onto the high reception counter.

"Torin Spade."

The voice came from directly behind me. The voice carried that distinctive, sickeningly artificial authority that only irritates me. I turned around slowly, smoothing the lapels of my dark coat. Standing a few feet away was a middle-aged Beta woman. She wore a dark gray knee-length skirt suit, her dark hair pulled back into a bun so tight it looked painful, and silver-rimmed reading glasses resting on the bridge of a narrow nose. She looked like the physical embodiment of a legal summons.

I narrowed my eyes slightly. "Yeah. Who are you?"

She didn’t flinch. She pulled a leather-bound identification folder from her handbag, flipped it open, and presented it with a tilt of her wrist.

"I am Esmeralda Clegg," she announced, her voice flat and devoid of warmth. "I am a senior field investigator from the Omega Council."

My blood instantly ran cold. A sudden, sharp prickle of cold sweat broke out along the back of my neck.

Shit. Damn it. Panic flared like a localized explosion behind my ribs. Why the Omega Council?! Why now?! The Council hasn’t intervened in a major pack case in three years! Who brought them in?! If those useless old fossils start digging through our records... God, things are about to get very, very bad.

Despite the alarm bells blaring inside my skull, I didn’t let a single muscle in my face betray me. I forced a small, polite, thoroughly convincing laugh and clasped my hands in front of me.

"Ah, the Council," I said, putting on my most disarming, cooperative Alpha persona. "How can I help you today, Ms. Clegg?"

Esmeralda Clegg adjusted her glasses with one finger, her expression remaining entirely flat. "Well, a formal case file has been submitted. I have been officially dispatched by the regional board to investigate a violent incident between your registered Omegas. It has been reported, and corroborated by emergency room intake data, that they brutally attacked each other on a commercial set. The Council is deeply concerned that the Spade Pack has cultivated an inherently hostile, unsafe environment."

My stomach churned, but my smile remained rigidly in place.

"I can assure you, Ms. Clegg, there is no such thing going on," I said smoothly, injecting just the right amount of calm, aristocratic confidence into my tone. "What happened was merely an unfortunate misunderstanding between two passionate individuals. Nothing more."

Lies, my inner voice hissed mockingly. Pure fiction. The pack is collapsing, one omega is mental, the other is two seconds away from falling into depression and you’re standing in a hospital lobby pretending we’re a picture-perfect family. Classic me

Esmeralda peered over the rims of her glasses, her eyes cold, and entirely unamused. She wasn’t buying a single word.

"Unfortunately for you, Mr. Spade," she said, her voice dropping into a chillingly matter-of-fact register, "because the medical facility flagged this entire situation, and because our team has already conducted a preliminary sweep of the commercial set where this occurred, the Council has officially made its ruling. Effective immediately, the Spade Pack has been placed under our active Watchful Eye protocol."

My hands tightened inside my pockets. "Watchful Eye?"

"Furthermore," she continued, pulling a thick envelope from her handbag, "your pack is mandated to undergo mandatory therapeutic intervention. All registered members of your pack, including yourself, are required to attend weekly pack counseling."

I blinked, a sharp, bitter laugh escaping my throat. "Pack counseling?"

"Yes, you heard me clearly," Esmeralda replied, stepping closer and extending the envelope toward my chest. "I am delivering this notice directly so that it is properly logged on the legal record. In addition to mandatory counseling, I will personally be conducting unannounced, random welfare checks at your primary residence over the coming months."

I didn’t take the envelope immediately, staring at it as if it were laced with poison.

"This whole monitoring process will last approximately six months," she added, her eyes locking onto mine with ruthless intent. "If, during the course of our investigation, the Council determines that the Spade Pack has bred a toxic, abusive, or dangerous environment, you could potentially face severe administrative and criminal charges... and we will forcibly relocate your Omegas to a protected sanctuary."

A genuine, dry laugh burst out of my chest, it was more of a defense mechanism to hide the sudden, cold dread pooling in my gut. "This is a complete waste of Council time and resources, Ms. Clegg. Nothing is happening in my house."

"I have heard that line a thousand times, Mr. Spade," Esmeralda countered without missing a beat, her tone dry as bone. "And every single time an Alpha says it to me, something catastrophic is happening behind closed doors. Yes, I am well aware the Omega Council has a reputation for moving slowly. But we always get the job done. And especially now that our regional division is under new, leadership, I can personally promise you that we will leave no stone unturned."

She stepped even closer, her shadow falling over the floor between us.

"So," she said quietly, her voice razor-sharp. "If there is anything you would like to disclose to me right now, Torin Spade... now would be the precise time to do it. Before we waste public resources on an investigation that uncovers things you could have simply confessed."

My posture went completely rigid, my Alpha aura flaring just enough to make the air in the corridor feel heavy.

"Look here, Esmeralda," I said, my voice dropping into something low, dangerous, and utterly pissed. "There is nothing wrong with my pack. They merely had a little fight that ended with a few minor grazes on their faces. That is it. Nothing happened between my Omegas, they love each other. And I am not one of those thousands of weak Alphas you deal with who are hiding dark secrets. We are not hiding anything. We are an open book. I have been nothing but entirely truthful to the media, to the public, and to everyone who asks."

Esmeralda stared at me through her lenses for a long, quiet moment. A small, faint, almost pitying smirk touched the corner of her lips.

"No one is truthful, Mr. Spade," she said simply. "Nobody."

She adjusted her handbag, pulling her posture straight.

"In any case," she concluded, her tone returning to that detached, bureaucratic drone, "if there is nothing you wish to disclose, I am simply informing you that the formal investigation is underway. Your attendance at pack counseling is absolute, non-negotiable law. And you may take solace in the fact that anything disclosed during those therapy sessions is protected by medical confidentiality, it will not be reported to the Council board unless an immediate threat to life is identified. It is strictly for the betterment of your pack."

She gave a brief, tight nod of her head. "Thank you for your time, Mr. Spade."

She turned around, her dark high heels clicking loudly against the floor as she strode out the heavy automatic glass doors, vanishing into the morning light.

I stood completely frozen near the counter, staring at the empty doorway. My chest was heaving with quiet, furious breaths, my mind spinning into an absolute panic.

This is bad, I dragged a hand down my face as the full weight of her words hit me. This is really, really bad. Oh no. Oh, Goddess, if the Council starts poking around... if they look into the venomous bond... if they find out about everything...

"Torin?"

A voice rang out from the adjacent hallway. I snapped my head around to see Kei walking toward me. He looked exhausted, his hair messy, his hands shoved deep into the pockets of his track jacket.

He stopped a few feet away, eyeing my pale face with mild concern. "Torin, you good? Who was that lady you were just talking to?"

I looked at Kei, my mind racing at a million miles an hour.

Should I tell him? I asked myself, weighing the options in a split second. What good would telling him actually do? Kei would just panic, Oril would blow a fuse, and Walter who is currently lying in a hospital bed with half his face stitched up, won’t take it well. No. I can handle this all by myself. It’s just the Omega Council. I’ll hire the best legal team in the city, throw a substantial amount of money at their administration, and make this entire investigation quietly disappear. No one in the pack needs to know.

"Nothing," I said smoothly, forcing my posture to relax as I offered him a calm, dismissive smile. "Nothing at all. Just an annoying accountant checking the paperwork."

Kei narrowed his eyes, studying my face suspiciously for a second. He clearly knew I was holding something back, but he let out a heavy breath and decided not to push the matter.

"Okay..." Kei muttered, shaking his head. "Whatever. I heard you went up to talk to Lorali earlier. How is she?"

The memory of my encounter with her on the cold, wind-swept rooftop flashed vividly behind my eyes, Lorali standing on the ledge, her arms spread wide, her bandaged face splitting into a terrifying, breathless laugh as she declared it the happiest day of her life.

My jaw tightened. "She’s a madman, Kei."

Kei blinked, startled by the sheer bluntness of my tone. "I think I’m noticing it a lot more now that she’s completely unleashed," I continued, staring blankly at the floor . "She’s crazy. Things are bad, man... really, really bad in that girl’s mind. But... I’m pretty sure with a bit of time, she’ll be all right. And therapy."

Kei froze, raising an eyebrow at me. "What? What therapy?" I cleared my throat, shifting my coat over my arm. "I decided to sign all of us up for pack counseling." Well, we were signed up by absolute legal force by the Omega Council, I added mentally, but he doesn’t need to know that part.

"Pack counseling?!" Kei echoed, his voice rising in sheer disbelief. "Why on earth would we go to pack counseling?!" I slowly turned my head, giving him a flat, deadpan look that lingered for three full seconds.

Kei’s expression faltered. He looked down at the floor, rubbing the back of his neck as the reality of our living situation caught up with his brain. "Yeah... okay. Fair enough. We definitely need it. But... do you honestly think she is going to go? You think Lorali is going to sit in a room with a therapist and talk about her feelings?"

"She’ll have no choice," I said coldly. "I’ll make her." Kei let out a dry, humorless snort, shaking his head as he looked out the window toward the rising sun. "You know..." Kei muttered softly, his tone heavy with a dark, bitter foreboding. "Something tells me next year is going to be a very long year. Heck... it’s going to be way worse than this year."

I let out a dry, bitter chuckle, adjusting my cuffs as I turned toward the exit. "Ugh," I grumbled, stepping forward into the morning shadow. "Don’t curse it, Kei. Don’t curse it."