The Luna You Betrayed Is No Longer Yours

Chapter 100: Chapter 100 Two hundred thousand

_Virella’s POV_

I lay on the floor for a moment after he left.

Not because I couldn’t get up. I could get up. I lay there because moving felt like it required a decision and the decision required energy and for about thirty seconds I didn’t have the energy for anything except lying on the floor of my own corridor and looking at the ceiling, trying to understand what my life had become.

After a while, I got up.

I went to the bathroom and looked at the cut along the side of my head in the mirror. The blood had made it look worse than it was, which was how head wounds always looked, and my wolf was already working on it. I pressed a cloth against it and held it there and looked at my own face in the mirror.

He had said the things he said.

I had heard every word.

I stood there, letting the anger arrive fully and properly for the first time since I had been trying to manage it and explain it and talk myself out of it for months.

I let it come completely, it was considerable and I stood in it until I understood what I was going to do with it.

I picked up my phone.

The first call was to a woman named Renata who had grown up two territories over and who had, over the course of a complicated life, developed a very specific skill set for identifying what people deserved.

She was not someone I called for ordinary things. She was someone I called when I needed to think out loud with a person who had no sentimentality about outcomes.

I told her what had happened.

She listened without interrupting.

“You want him to suffer?” she asked when I finished.

“I want him to grovel and beg,” I said. “Specifically. I want him to understand what I’m worth by experiencing what it costs to lose it.”

“That’s more interesting than suffering,” she said. “Give me a few days.”

Then she hung up.

I made another call. The second call was different.

This one’s name was Theo and he had been in love with me since we were nineteen years old. He had never hidden it, had never been aggressive about it, had just maintained a consistent open availability that I had never taken advantage of because I had thought I was building something with stupid Kaelen.

I had been wrong about that after all.

He answered on the second ring.

“I need money,” I said. “I need it quickly and I need it in a form that’s usable.”

He didn’t say anything for a while, and then he replied. “How much?”

“As much as you can move without it being complicated,” I said.

“Where are you?” he asked and I told him. ƒree𝑤ebnσvel.com

“The Velour Grand,” he sighed. “Come tonight at eight o’clock.”

The Velour Grand was the kind of hotel that didn’t need to advertise its rates because the people who stayed there already knew what they were and had decided it wasn’t the most important consideration. It sat on the elevated end of the city’s central district, understated outside and precise inside. It was a place for the rich who didn’t know what to do with their wealth.

And of course I’d be there.

At exactly eight, I reached there.

Theo was already there.

He was exactly as I remembered him. Well-built, handsome as usual and his eyes darker and alluring.

He looked at me when I walked in with the expression he had always had, the one that said he was glad to see me and had made peace a long time ago with the fact that glad to see me was all he was going to get.

He looked at the mark on my face that my wolf had not been allowed to heal. I let her leave it.

His expression changed instantly.

“Sit down,” he said calmly and I did.

We talked for a long time. I told him what I needed and why and what I intended to do with it. I didn’t tell him everything. I told him enough. Theo was not a man who needed complete information to make a decision. He needed to understand the shape of the situation and he understood the shape of this one quickly.

He was angry but didn’t act on the anger.

“One night with me, please.” He pleaded, holding my gaze with his.

“I’m married, sorry. I can’t.” I said with a smile.

Theo sighed. “You both will get divorced and when it does happen, I’ll be waiting for you. My love for you will never die.”

He then wrote and handed me a cheque.

I looked at the amount and smiled.

Close to four hundred thousand.

I folded it and put it away. But before I left, I did something bold. I moved to where he sat, positioned myself on his lap and planted my lips on his.

The kiss was filled with unspoken words.

His hands found my waist as he kissed me back, ready to take my clothes off.

But I stopped him before he could go further.

I smiled and cleaned the lipstick stain at the side of his lips. “Thank you.”

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Kaelen was in the study when I got back to the mansion.

I heard him before I saw him, he was shuffling papers like an angry bull.

I stood in the doorway for a moment and watched him.

He looked up at me. His eyes moved to the mark on my face, the one I had made sure stayed visible, and something moved through his expression that I noted carefully. The bastard wasn’t guilty. It was something adjacent to it.

“Virella,” he started. “Where did you go?”

I ignored the question and just sat down across from him.

I made my voice soft. I made my eyes soft too. I had been performing things for a long time in this marriage and this was one more performance except this time I knew exactly what it was and exactly what it was for.

“I’m not here to fight,” I said. “I’m tired of fighting.”

He looked at me carefully.

“I know things are bad,” I said. “I know the family is in debt. I know you’re carrying things you don’t have a way through.” I paused. “I want to help.”

“Virella....”

“Let me finish,” I said gently. I reached into my bag. I set the cheque on the desk between us. “Two hundred thousand,” I said. “It’s for the family. For the debts. For whatever is most urgent.”

Kaelen stared at the cheque in shock.

I watched him look at it and I watched the calculation run through his face and I waited for the part where the calculation concluded.

“Where did this come from?” he asked.

“I made some calls,” I said simply. “I have connections you don’t know about. I did some business.”

He looked at the cheque and then looked at me.

He reached out and took it with the speed of a man who had decided not to ask questions that might complicate a solution he needed. He stared at the number for a long moment.

Then he looked up and his expression changed completely, the hardness gone, the drinking-alone flatness gone, replaced by something that I had not seen from him in months.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “About today. About all of it.” He reached across the desk. “Forgive me.”

I looked at his hand and then at his face.

I put my hand in his and I smiled at him. Kaelen Varkos, you’re finished.