Ch. I Refuse to Be Your Luna 153 I Refuse to Be Your Luna 153

Chapter 153 Ruining Relationships

Lady Flourish’s POV

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Finished

I stood frozen in my own doorway, every sense straining outward, my wolf pressed low and alert just beneath my skin.

The scent was too faint to place, already fading the way Damian’s mystery visitor had faded outside his own villa hours earlier.

Whoever had been here hadn’t lingered. I moved through the apartment slowly, methodically, checking every room before I let myself breathe properly again.

Nothing missing. Nothing disturbed, not obviously until I reached my bedroom and found a single dried flower sitting in the center of my pillow, its petals long since gone black and brittle.

I didn’t touch it. I didn’t need to. Something about the sight of it, deliberate and precise, sent a slow chill down my spine that had nothing to do with temperature.

Someone wanted me to know they’d been here. And they wanted me to know it without leaving anything I could actually use against them.

I thought about calling Damian. My phone was already halfway out of my pocket before I stopped myself, some stubborn, contrary part of me refusing to hand him one more thing to feel responsible for tonight.

I photographed the flower instead, sealed it in a bag without touching the stem, and told myself I’d deal with it properly once the sun came up and my thoughts weren’t quite so tangled from everything else the evening had already thrown at me.

Sleep, when it finally came, was thin and unsatisfying.

By nine the next morning, I’d folded myself back into something resembling composure, seated at my desk at F-Tech with a coffee I hadn’t actually started drinking when my phone

rang.

“Flourish! Just getting to work?”

Vesper’s voice, bright and familiar despite the months since we’d last actually spoken. “Vesper! Yeah, just walked in. What’s up?”

We hadn’t crossed paths properly since a mutual friend’s dinner ages ago, plenty of vague talk about catching up again, none of it ever quite materializing. Vesper was a singer, which meant her time belonged to everyone but herself most days. A phone call, this early, meant business.

“I have a friend who needs legal help,” she said. “Mind if I connect you two?”

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Chapter 153 Ruining Relationships

“Of course. What kind of case?”

Finished

“Copyright infringement. He wrote a song, and a rising singer lifted it without asking.”

That afternoon, I met Vesper’s friend, Ethan Carver, in one of F-Tech’s smaller conference

rooms.

“I’m not sure how much Vesper explained,” he said, settling into the chair across from me. “A track I wrote three years ago just got plagiarized by someone with a lot more reach than I’ve ever had.”

“She gave me the outline. Better if you walk me through it yourself. Can you play both versions?”

He didn’t hesitate, pulling up the first track on his phone. Quiet, traditionally styled, clearly built for a niche audience rather than mass appeal, but genuinely lovely in a way that made me understand immediately why he’d want to protect it. “This one’s mine. Wrote it at the end of 2022.”

“It’s beautiful,” I said, and meant it.

He swiped to the second track, a polished, radio-ready version sung by a woman whose voice I didn’t recognize, though the melodic bones underneath it were unmistakable, echoed through the verses and the bridge in a way that felt far past coincidence.

“Who’s the artist?” I asked.

“A newcomer. Phina Jacobs. Stonehedge Studios has been promoting her hard the last few months.”

My wolf went still, every instinct sharpening at once. “Phina Jacobs sang

this?”

“That’s her. Word is she came back from overseas with connections straight to Stonehedge’s top management. A lot of muscle behind her for someone this new.” He leaned forward, voice tightening. “Her whole debut album’s being marketed as original composition, produced by Stonehedge’s own top team. I don’t even care about the money. I care that she’s calling my

work hers.”

I sat with that a moment, pieces sliding into place faster than I liked. Of course Stonehedge Studios would spend whatever it took on Phina, she wasn’t just talent to them anymore. She was about to marry into the family that owned the label outright.

And it wasn’t only the music, either.

“Interesting,” I said slowly. “My firm’s actually handling a separate infringement case involving her album artwork. One of my colleagues has it.”

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Chapter 153 Ruining Relationships

Ethan’s eyebrows shot up. “Seriously? Even the poster?”

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Finished

Whether Phina had a hand in either theft herself was impossible to say yet. But F-Tech had done business with Stonehedge Studios before, and the relationship had gone cold enough after the last contract that Rhys had never bothered chasing a renewal.

Taking Ethan’s case on top of Lila’s would mean burning that bridge permanently, not a decision I could make without Rhys’s blessing first.

I walked Ethan out and headed straight for Rhys’s office, already rehearsing how to frame it.

I didn’t make it that far.

“Ms. Steele.” Poppy Farlane’s voice cut across the hallway, sweet enough to set every one of my instincts on edge. She stopped directly in my path, smile sharp as a drawn blade. “So sorry to spring this on you but Stonehedge Studios used to be your team’s account, didn’t it? I just signed the paperwork on their new contract this morning.”

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