The Rogue is a Female Alpha novel Chapter 629

Chapter 629

Snowflakes

The time seemed to fly rather than crawl. One moment I was hunched over faded witness statements, the next I was trying to stretch the crick out of my neck, only to glance up at the wall clock and realize it was already evening.

The fluorescent lights buzzed overhead like they’d been on forever; my eyes burned, my stomach growled and still nothing jumped out as obviously wrong in the transcripts.

No glaring inconsistencies. No smoking-gun slip. Just the same careful, rehearsed words from four years

ago.

I sighed, pushing back from the desk. My legs felt stiff as I stood and started toward the break room for coffee then froze mid-step.

Lunch.

Cupid’s lunch was still sitting in my car downstairs. I’d completely forgotten in the frenzy of files and

timelines.

My cheeks heated at the thought of him carefully packing it this morning, only for me to leave it to go cold in the parking garage.

I glanced around. Quince as buried in digital logs, fingers flying across his keyboard, Mr. Gerald hadn’t moved from his chair either, eyes glued to the same page he’d been staring at for hours.

“Show?” Mr. Gerald’s voice cut through the quiet without him looking up. He beckoned with two fingers, still focused on the file in front of him.

“Yes?”

“Ares Bani said something during his statement four years ago. It feels… off. Come look.”

He slid the folder across the table. I leaned over his shoulder and flipped to the highlighted line.

I was returning from the pack when I heard the scream.”

Mr. Gerald tapped the adjacent page, GPS ping data from Ares’s phone, timestamped to the exact window of the attack.

“His location that night,” he said quietly.

I stared at the coordinates, the street name glaring back at me.

“Love Avenue.” I murmured.

Mr. Gerald nodded once.

“Exactly. He claims he was coming from Mooncrest territory. But he was already in the city, deep in the city when the scream supposedly happened.”

3/3

1149 Fri, Sep 18

Chapter 62H

“He’ll argue he was disoriented,” Quince said from across the room, not looking up from his screen. “That the woman he loved was in pain, his judgment clouded, memory fuzzy. Classic defense.”

I skpok my head slowly. “It’s still a lie. A deliberate one. You don’t mistake Love Avenue for pack lands. Not even when you’re a human.”

“We need to bring this to Eshan,” Mr. Gerald said, already rising.

Before he could take two steps, hurried footsteps echoed down the hall. Zayah appeared in the doorway. breathing hard, lab coat sleeves pushed up to her elbows.

“Come on, guys. We found something.”

We moved as one, files abandoned, chairs scraping, into the elevator. The ride down felt eternal no one spoke.

When the doors finally opened on the detective floor, we filed into the room.

Wrinks was already at the central data desk, multiple screens glowing with partial matches, chemical breakdowns, and a blinking “PROCESSING” bar that moved like molasses.

Eshan strode in right behind us, face grim.

“We can’t risk calls or unsecured lines anymore,” he said without preamble. “They might already be tapped. What do you have?”

“Not much yet,” I answered. “But Ares’s statement doesn’t hold up. He said he was returning from Mooncrest pack lands when he heard the scream. His phone pinged him on Love Avenue at the time of the ingident.”

Mr. Gerald added, “Love Avenue. Not even close to pack territory.”

Eshan’s jaw tightened. He shifted his gaze to Wrinks’s main screen, where a DNA profile spun slowly, partial alleles lighting up one by one.

“I knew that bastard was slippery from the start,” Eshan muttered. “Sera pulled viable DNA from the stored fluid. We’ve got semen markers, but the system’s dragging its feet on a match. Too many partials. Too old.”

Sera walked in then, looking as exhausted as the rest of us, hair pulled back messily, dark circles under her eyes, but still sharp.

“So what now?” she asked.

Eshan exhaled through his nose. “We invite Ares Bani in for formal re-interview.” He glanced at Mr. Gerald. “Suggestions?”

Gerald’s eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “The first witness on scene is always the prime suspect until proven otherwise. How about we play a little mind game?”

I leaned forward, interested. “How?”

“If he’s hiding anything and I think he is, you don’t come at him straight. You let him taste victory first. Act like we’re grasping at straws, losing momentum. Let him relax, get cocky. Then hit him with the contradiction. We know he wasn’t coming from Mooncrest. We know he was on Love Avenue. He’ll snap.

273

149 Fri, Sep 18 d

upa 629

Men like him crack when they think they’ve already won.”

as a solid plan, classic psychological pressure but I shook my head.

“Ares won’t come alone. He’ll bring his lawyer. Rusi from White & Co. That man’s a brick wall. If we isolate Ares completely, maybe we break him. But with Rusi in the room, he won’t say a word beyond ‘no

VERIFYCAPTCHA_LABELVerify