Morning light cut through the windows of my room, clean and sharp.
It should have felt like a new beginning. Instead, it felt like a spotlight on my failure.
My phone was blowing up.
Clara had already sent a dozen screenshots—glowing headlines, supportive comments, the hashtag #PeoplesLuna trending.
The world thought I had won.
They had no idea.
I swiped the notifications away.
The praise was just noise.
The only thing that felt real was the cold, hard fact Falon had given me last night: a digital trail. A ghost of a car on a traffic camera. It was the thinnest of threads, but it was the only one I had to pull.
A knock came at the door. Clara entered, her face bright with triumph.
"Have you seen the analytics? Your approval rating has skyrocketed! The narrative has completely—"
"I don't care about the narrative, Clara," I said, my voice flat. I turned from the window.
"I care about the traffic cam footage from the west side. Has the tech team enhanced it yet?"
Her smile faltered. "I... I believe they're working on it now. But Riley, you should see this. They're calling you a hero."
"A hero?" A bitter, hollow laugh escaped me. "Heroes save people. I haven't saved anyone yet."
I walked past her, out of the room.
The victory from the interview was a suit that didn't fit.
It was heavy, uncomfortable, and it belonged to someone else.
The woman underneath was still the same: a mother with a missing son, now clutching a single, frayed thread of hope.
The public battle was over. The real war started now.
Falon's command center was buried in the heart of Gray Global, a secret heart beating behind the polished public face of the company.
The elevator ride down felt like descending into another world.
When the doors hissed open, it revealed a cavernous space that was part war room, part NASA mission control.
Walls of glowing screens showed everything from satellite imagery to real-time financial markets.
The air was cold and hummed with the sound of powerful servers.
I stared, taking it in. What does a man who already commands an army of wolves need with all this?
He stood before a central holographic display, his posture rigid.
He didn't acknowledge my entrance, his focus absolute.
A young, sharp-eyed tech specialist—Jax—sat at a console, his fingers flying across a keyboard.
"The vehicle was a black FORD. Heavily tinted," Jax said, pulling up the grainy footage.
"It turned off the main thoroughfare here, into a blind spot. We lost it for seven minutes."
My heart sank. Seven minutes was an eternity. They could have transferred Billy to another vehicle, taken him anywhere.
"But we got lucky," Jax continued, pulling up a new feed.
"A city traffic cam on the next block caught it emerging. The license plate is obscured with mud, but…" He zoomed in, enhancing the driver's side window.
The image was pixelated, but the profile was unmistakable. A heavy jaw, a brutal crew cut, a thick neck. A face I'd seen a hundred times, lingering in the shadows of the Onyx Club, doing Trevor's dirty work.
Finn, I whispered, the name a curse.
Falon's head turned slowly. His storm-gray eyes met mine, and in them, I saw the same cold, grim finality I felt.
"My brother," he stated. It wasn't a question. It was a verdict.
The evidence was circumstantial, but to us, it was irrefutable.
The who, the why—it all clicked into a horrifying, perfect picture. Trevor had discovered Billy was his. This wasn't just a kidnapping; it was a repossession.
"Where is it now? The car" Falon's voice was a low thrum of impending violence.
Jax tapped a final key.
A map populated with a single, highlighted route, ending at a sleek, modern high-rise in the city's financial district. A fortress of glass and steel.
"The Aurora Residences," Jax said. "Top-tier security. Private."
Falon turned, his gaze locking onto me.
"He's hiding him in our family hotel." The disgust in his voice was palpable.
"Get ready. We're not sending a team. We're going ourselves."
---
The Aurora Residences was a monument to cold, sterile wealth, a spear of glass and steel designed to intimidate.
From the back of the idling SUV, the building felt like a fortress.
"I'm going in alone," I said, my voice firmer than I felt.
My hand was already on the cool metal of the door handle.
Falon's gaze was a physical pressure in the confined space. "He is volatile. Unpredictable."
"Exactly," I countered, meeting his stormy eyes.
"If you're there, it becomes a pissing contest between brothers. He'll lie and posture just to spite you. But if it's just me... he'll see a victim he can toy with. His guard will drop. He'll want to gloat."
I let the truth of it hang between us.
"You are the sword hanging over his head. Remaining the unseen threat is more powerful than stepping into his arena."
A slow, measured silence.
Then, a single, sharp nod from the Alpha. "You have ten minutes. Not a second more."
The ride in the private elevator was a swift, silent ascent that felt like being swallowed.
When the doors slid open, they revealed not a hallway, but the heart of Trevor Gray's domain—a vast, oppressively white penthouse that smelled of expensive liquor and arrogance.
He was already standing, as if he'd sensed the intrusion.
A crystal tumbler dangled from his fingers.
His eyes, the same stormy gray as his brother's but clouded with malice, narrowed.
"You," he spat, the word laced with pure venom. "How did you get here? Who let you in?."
"Where is my son?" The words were quiet, but they cut through the air.
He laughed, a harsh, ugly sound. "You're still on that? isn't it obvious? I was bluffing. I don't have your brat."
"We traced the car. We have Finn on camera. It came here." I stepped closer, my voice shaking.
"Stop lying! You found out Billy is your son, and you took him!"
His face went through a rapid series of emotions: anger, confusion, and then a dawning, calculating horror.
He wasn't shocked by the news. He was shocked by the accusation.
"My son?" he repeated, his voice low and deadly.
He took a step toward me. "If he were my son, he'd be sitting right here next to me. Do you think I would be hiding him? I'd be parading him."
The brutal, twisted logic of it hit me like a punch.
He was right. Trevor's ego was his entire being. Why would he hide him?.
Which meant he truly didn't have him.
Before I could respond, before the full weight of his reaction could crush me, a sound broke the tension.
A loud, obnoxious ringtone. His phone, lying on a sleek, minimalist table, lit up with an incoming video call.
The name on the screen was SELENE.
The timing was like a bucket of ice water.
Trevor's head snapped toward the sound, his moment of personal revelation shattered by the outside world.
His face twisted with annoyance and something else—a flicker of... apprehension?
He strode over and snatched up the phone, his thumb hovering over the answer button. He glared at me, a silent command to get out.
I didn't need to be told twice.
The confrontation was over. The trail had led not to my son, but to a truth more complicated and dangerous than I had imagined.
I turned and walked back to the elevator, the doors closing on the image of Trevor Gray, my rapist, finally learning he was a father.
I had my answer.
He didn't take Billy.
But the look on his face told me one thing with absolute certainty: he wished he had.
I moved to the elevator, the doors slid shut, sealing me in a tomb of silence.
I leaned against the cool metal wall, my legs trembling.
He didn't know. He didn't have him. The mantra played in my head, a death knell for my last shred of hope.
The walk back to the SUV felt like a mile.
I pulled the door open and slid inside, the scent of leather and Falon's quiet power filling the space.
He didn't look at me, his gaze fixed forward. "How did it go?"
The word was so clinical, so final. It was the last straw.
"He didn't know," I whispered, my voice cracking.
"He... he didn't know Billy was his. He was shocked. He was telling the truth."
I turned to look at him, the dam inside me finally shattering.
"He doesn't have him, Falon. The car was a coincidence. The lead is dead. He's gone. He's just... gone."
A ragged sob tore from my throat. Then another.
I buried my face in my hands, the tears coming in a torrent I could no longer control.
The weight of every failed search, every dead end, every second of terror for my son came crashing down.
My body shook with the force of it, the elegant Luna persona dissolving into the raw, broken mother beneath.
I cried until my throat was raw and my eyes burned.
Through the haze, I was dimly aware of Falon's silence.
There was no sigh of impatience, no awkward pat on the shoulder.
Then, I felt it. A shift in the air. A careful, deliberate movement.
His hand came to rest on my back.
It was not a soft gesture.
It was firm, solid, an anchor in my storm. His palm was warm through the fabric of my dress, a point of unwavering stability.
He didn't pull me close, he didn't speak empty words.
He just held his ground, letting me fall apart, his silent presence the only thing keeping me from completely dissolving.
He let me cry until there were no tears left.
Until all that remained was a hollow, aching exhaustion and the steady, silent pressure of his hand.
When my breathing finally evened into shaky hiccups, he spoke, his voice low and impossibly calm.
"Then we find the next lead."
He withdrew his hand, started the engine, and pulled the car smoothly into the night.
The question of what came next hung between us, unasked and unanswered.
For now, the only thing that mattered was the quiet strength he had offered, and the grim determination to find the next thread to pull.
The car ride was a silence filled with the ghost of my sobs.
Falon didn't speak, his focus on the road absolute, granting me the dignity of pulling the shattered pieces of myself back together in the dark.
---
The hot water of the shower did nothing to scour away the feeling of failure.
I had stood in front of my rapist, the man I hated most in this world, and I had come away with nothing but my own shattered hopes.
And then I had broken down completely in front of the one person I needed to see me as strong.
The embarrassment was a slow, cold burn beneath my skin.
I dressed in silence and walked to his study, the door slightly opened.
He was at his desk, the fire casting long, dancing shadows. He didn't look up as I entered.
"I'm sorry," I said, my voice still rough from crying. "For losing my composure in the car. It won't happen again."
Silence.
It stretched, thick and heavy. He continued to stare at the papers before him, but I knew he wasn't reading them. He was waiting.
Finally, he lifted his gaze. It wasn't angry or disappointed. It was deeply, unnervingly calculating.
"What do you plan to do," he asked, his tone flat, "after you find your son?"
The question was so unexpected, so vast, it stole the air from my lungs.
My entire being, every thought and breath for weeks, had been funneled into a single, desperate goal: Find Billy.
After?
There was no after. The concept didn't exist. My future was a blank wall that started the moment I held him again.
"I..." I faltered, the words sticking in my throat. "I don't know. Let's find him first. Then I'll answer that."
I didn't wait for his dismissal.
I turned and left, the question echoing in the silent hallway, a terrifying chasm of uncertainty yawning open where my single-minded purpose used to be.
Back in my room, my phone buzzed on the nightstand. An unknown number. A part of me knew.
"Hello?" I said, my voice cold.
"Riley." It was Trevor. His voice was stripped of its usual swagger, replaced by a strange, tense urgency.
"What you said... about the boy. Is it true? Is he mine?"
"Get off my phone, Trevor."
"Wait—" The word was rushed, almost desperate. "I... I'm sorry. For everything."
The apology was so hollow, so pathetic, it ignited a fresh wave of pure, undiluted hatred.
"I wish you a painful death," I whispered, each word a shard of ice. "An extremely painful one."
"I want to help you—"
I ended the call.
The phone clattered onto the bed.
I stood there, trembling, surrounded by the ghosts of the men who had shaped my hell.
One was offering a future I couldn't fathom. The other was offering help I could never accept.
And my son was still out there, somewhere in the silence between them.