The Luna You Betrayed Is No Longer Yours

Chapter 111: Chapter 111 The news

_Kaelen’s POV_

I stood there for a moment and then I walked back to my study and sat down and told myself I was reading too much into things. Virella wasn’t even around to console me.

She had left early. She was upset about last night and she needed space and she had taken her bag and gone somewhere to clear her head. The cleared out wardrobe was probably just her taking things to the dry cleaner or moving things around the way she sometimes did when she was stressed.

I picked up my phone and called her.

It rang four times and then she picked up.

“Kaelen.” Her voice was normal. A little flat, the way it had been since the miscarriage, but normal.

“Where are you?” I said.

“I’m at my sister’s,” she said. “I needed a morning away. Is that alright?”

“The club,” I said. “Something happened with the club. I got a legal notice this morning about trademark infringement and the bank has put a hold on the accounts, plus I can’t reach Cole.”

She went quiet for a while.

“What?” she asked.

“Trademark infringement. Someone filed a claim saying the club’s name belongs to them and they registered it over a year ago.” I ran a hand through my hair. “The whole thing is frozen. I can’t access the accounts, the legal team is already moving, and Cole has gone completely dark.”

“That’s terrible,” Virella said. She sounded genuinely surprised. Not overdone, not theatrical, just the normal surprise of someone receiving unexpected bad news. “Who would do something like that?”

“I don’t know yet,” I said.

“Could it be Rowena?” she asked carefully, like she was just throwing out possibilities.

I thought about it.

The timing. Last night. The thing she had said about the club being gone by Monday.

“Maybe,” I said. But I refused to believe it.

“She seemed very calm last night when she said what she said,” Virella said. “That kind of calm usually means someone already has a plan.” Another pause. “I’m just saying. She had that look.”

“I know what look she had,” I said.

“I’ll come home tonight,” Virella said. “We’ll figure it out together. Don’t do anything until you’ve spoken to your lawyer properly.”

“Yeah,” I said.

“It’ll be okay,” she said and hung up.

I sat with the phone in my hand for a moment.

Maelis was in the sitting room when I came downstairs. She was in her chair with her legs elevated and her tea going cold beside her, which meant she had been sitting there thinking rather than drinking, which was what she did when something was bothering her.

She looked at me when I came in and read my face immediately.

“Sit down,” she said.

I sat.

I told her everything. The email. The trademark. The bank holds. Cole disappearing. All of it laid out in the order it had happened.

She listened without interrupting, which was unusual for her. She normally had something to say at every stage of a problem. The fact that she let me get through the whole thing before she spoke told me she was taking it seriously.

“How much is the club worth?” she asked when I finished.

“Everything I put into it,” I said. “Everything.”

She was quiet for a moment.

“You need help,” she said. “Real help. Not your lawyer and not your pack contacts.” She looked at me steadily. “You need to go to Alaric.”

I stared at her in shock. “No.”

“Kaelen.”

“Absolutely not.”

“He is the Alpha King,” she said. “He has the authority to intervene in business disputes at the regional level. He has legal resources that your lawyer doesn’t have access to. And right now, with everything frozen, he is the fastest path to getting any of this resolved.” She held my gaze. “You put your pride aside and you go to him.”

“After last night,” I said. “You want me to walk into his office after last night.”

“Last night was your fault,” she said simply. “What happened last night has nothing to do with what you need today.” She picked up her cold tea and looked at it and set it back down. “He is the Alpha King. That position exists for exactly this kind of situation. Use it.”

I looked at the floor.

I hated that she was right.

I hated it completely and thoroughly and I sat with the hating of it for about two minutes before I accepted that it didn’t change anything.

“Fine,” I said. “I’ll go this afternoon.”

I got up and went to the kitchen to get coffee because I needed something to do with my hands and my body for a few minutes before I could sit still again.

The television was on in the kitchen. The morning news. One of the staff had left it running and I barely looked at it while I poured the coffee.

Then I heard the name.

I looked up.

The screen showed the front of the Ebonmoon Packhouse. A news anchor was speaking over footage of the entrance. The chyron at the bottom of the screen read: Alpha King Alaric departs city on private trip, Marchioness of Ashthorne confirmed as traveling companion.

I put the coffee mug down.

On screen, the footage cut to the airfield. The Ebonmoon private plane on the tarmac. Ground staff moving around it. And there, walking across the tarmac together, Alaric and Rowena. freeωebnovēl.c૦m

She was in dark travel clothes with her hair pulled back and a bag over one shoulder. She was saying something to him and he was listening with his head slightly inclined toward her and they looked like two people who were entirely comfortable in each other’s space.

The anchor said something about the destination being unconfirmed.

I didn’t hear the rest of it.

My phone was in my hand.

I don’t fully remember the moment between seeing the screen and the phone hitting the wall. Just the sound of it. It was harsh and loud and then the pieces of it on the kitchen floor. My hand still in the shape of having thrown something.

The staff member near the counter had gone very still.

I looked at the screen again.

The footage was still running. Alaric holding the door of the plane for her. Rowena stepping in. The door closing.

“Shameless,” I said.

It came out the same way it had come out last night. The same word. The same voice.

My chest was tight and my hand was hurting from the throw and the coffee was getting cold on the counter.

I looked at the pieces of my phone on the kitchen floor.

I looked at the television.

I looked at the empty tarmac where the plane had already started moving.

I turned around and walked out of the kitchen because standing there watching it was something I was not capable of continuing to do.