GH spoilers: Pascal almost admits to Jason — until a lone text halts him in his tracks and the person who sent it alters everything Jason believed he knew about Dalton, sending the entire investigation careening into a darker, more unpredictable direction than anyone could have anticipated, because when Pascal first showed up at the safe house with sweat on his brow and guilt heavy in his voice, Jason could tell that the man was on the edge of confession, his hands trembling as though he were holding a truth so volatile it might explode the moment he let it out, and Jason, with his trademark focus and stillness, pressed him gently but firmly, urging him to finally reveal what he had been hiding about Dalton’s connections, motives, and the shadowy organization that seemed to follow him like a ghost, but just as Pascal opened his mouth, a vibration from his pocket sliced through the tension, freezing him mid-breath as he pulled out his phone, stared at the screen, and went pale in a way that made even Jason shift his stance, because Pascal wasn’t a man who scared easily, yet whatever he saw shattered the fragile courage he had spent days working up, and Jason watched the transformation happen in seconds — from near-confessor to terrified pawn — as Pascal’s eyes darted around the room like he expected snipers to materialize from the shadows, and he muttered, “I can’t… I can’t die for this,” before stepping back as though putting distance between himself and the truth would save him, leaving Jason to demand, “Who sent that?” only for Pascal to whisper a single name that hit Jason harder than a bullet: Dalton himself, a man they had all believed was either underground, incapacitated, or playing a deeper game with no direct access to the people circling him, yet the message on Pascal’s phone told a different story, a chilling message consisting of only four words — “Not another word, Pascal” — accompanied by a timestamp proving Dalton had eyes on them right now, forcing Jason to rethink every assumption, every intel lead, every alliance he had built around the notion that Dalton was separated from his network and on the defensive, because Jason knew that if Dalton could reach Pascal at that exact moment, then he had either infiltrated their digital systems, bugged the safe house, or had a physical advantage they had failed to detect, each possibility more dangerous than the last, and what unsettled Jason most was Pascal’s reaction afterward, the way he collapsed into a chair, rubbing his temples and muttering incoherently as though the message had rewired his entire sense of loyalty, fear, and survival, and Jason, attempting to regain control of the situation, pressed him for clarity: how was Dalton contacting him, what leverage did Dalton still hold, what connection existed between them that Pascal hadn’t disclosed, but instead of answers, Jason was met with Pascal’s sudden shutdown, a terrified refusal to speak, as though one wrong word would trigger consequences that went far beyond threats, suggesting Dalton’s reach was more intimate and personal than Jason had ever been led to believe, and as Jason stepped outside to call Spinelli, hoping to trace the message, block further access, or at least confirm Dalton’s location, he learned something even more unsettling: the message didn’t ping off Dalton’s known devices, nor did it match any of his documented communication patterns, meaning someone else could be acting on Dalton’s behalf — or worse, pretending to be Dalton — and the deeper Spinelli dug, the more irregularities he found, inconsistencies that hinted at a third player manipulating both sides, someone who stood to gain from keeping Jason misinformed and Pascal terrified, someone intelligent enough to imitate Dalton’s digital signature while masking their own identity, and as Jason reentered the safe house, he found Pascal gone, vanishing without a trace despite the locked doors, leaving behind nothing but a toppled chair and the faint imprint of panic still hanging in the air, forcing Jason to consider the possibility that Pascal had been extracted, abducted, or willingly fled back into Dalton’s grasp, but none of those possibilities made sense without understanding the true nature of their connection, and Jason’s instincts told him something far more convoluted was unfolding, something rooted not only in Dalton’s operations but in a hidden chapter of Pascal’s past that no one had uncovered, so he began retracing Pascal’s last movements, questioning each detail, each hesitation, each story he had told, realizing that Pascal had been protecting someone — not Dalton, but someone who held power over both him and Dalton — and the text message, whether sent by Dalton or someone posing as him, was designed to silence Pascal before he could reveal that link, and as Jason pieced together the timeline, a chilling pattern emerged: every time they got close to cracking Dalton’s network, some unseen hand intervened at the last possible moment, redirecting events, manipulating outcomes, and keeping Jason chasing shadows while the real puppeteer stayed hidden behind layers of misdirection, and now Jason, more alert than ever, understood that Dalton was no longer the center of the conspiracy but a pawn himself, controlled or monitored by someone with far more access, technological reach, and psychological leverage than anyone had suspected, turning the entire case upside down as Jason whispered to himself the most dangerous realization of all — that the person sending that text wasn’t warning Pascal to protect Dalton, but warning Pascal to protect the truth about someone Dalton feared, someone Jason had yet to identify, someone whose unveiling would change everything he believed he knew about the man he had been hunting and the enemies lurking behind him, setting the stage for a shocking turn that would pull Jason deeper into a labyrinth where trust meant nothing, allies could turn in an instant, and every truth was layered with lies waiting to unravel.