Ch. I Refuse to Be Your Luna 178 I Refuse to Be Your Luna 178

Chapter 178 Her Diary

Lady Flourish’s POV

A

21

Finished

“Stonehedge’s executive fleet.” I said it slowly, letting the weight of it settle properly. “That’s not a stranger circling the edges anymore, Damian. That’s someone inside Ragnar’s own household.”

“Or someone with enough access to make it look that way.” His jaw stayed tight, though I could hear him working through the same possibilities I was, every scenario landing somewhere equally unwelcome. “I won’t accuse my own uncle on the strength of a license plate. I need proof solid enough that even Council elders can’t wave it off as coincidence.”

“Then get it,” I said. “I trust you to handle that piece.”

Something eased in his expression at that, small but real. “I need to get back to Fenwick and run this down properly. I’ll have Bram’s people escort you home.”

“I can drive myself.”

“I know you can.” He said it without any of the earlier friction from our last argument about this exact subject, and I recognized the concession for what it was, hard-won and deliberate. “I’d still rather not spend the drive imagining every possible thing that could go wrong.”

I let him have that one. My wolf, still restless from the scent in the trees, didn’t actually mind the company either.

The escort peeled off once I reached the gates of the Steele Residence, and I walked in to find the house quiet, my father’s car already parked out front, meaning he’d beaten me home despite my head start.

Mira spotted me the moment I crossed the entryway, her expression softening with the particular warmth she’d carried my whole life. “Lady Flourish, you’re back. I made soup this morning, thinking you might want something warm after the mountain.”

“That sounds perfect,” I said, some of the tension from the last hour finally loosening in the face of something this ordinary.

I lit a candle before Grandmother’s portrait first, the familiar ritual settling my wolf further, then made my way toward my father’s study to retrieve my voter registration before it slipped my mind entirely.

My records were still filed under his household, a formality I intended to correct the moment tomorrow’s registration made it possible.

The register sat exactly where I remembered, tucked inside the second drawer of his desk.

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12:02 Thu, Oct 1

Chapter 178 Her Diary

Finished

Beneath it, half buried under old paperwork, sat a small, yellowed notebook I didn’t recognize at all.

I opened it out of nothing more than idle curiosity, and my whole body went still the instant I recognized the handwriting.

My mother’s.

‘April 5th. Today I married Garret. We shared a family meal, and my heart felt so full. My only regret is that my father and brother couldn’t be there to see it.

‘Elara Voss’

I turned the page slowly, my wolf gone quiet and watchful, some old instinct already bracing for whatever came next.

‘September 9th. I’m expecting. Garret is thrilled. He says he wants this one to be a boy, and the next a girl, so the brother can grow up looking after his sister.

‘Elara Voss’

I kept reading, my chest tightening with every entry, until I reached one dated months later. the handwriting shakier than the rest.

‘October 10th. I felt despair for the first time today. I asked the doctor whether ending this pregnancy was possible, and he warned it might cost me any future chance of children. I never imagined Garret would betray our marriage. I gave up my father, my brother, everything I had, for him, and he still did this to me. What am I supposed to do now? Sweetheart, if I make this choice, will you resent me for it?’

The room seemed to tilt slightly around me. My father had been unfaithful, while my mother carried his second child, while she’d already sacrificed her entire family standing to marry him in the first place.

I thought of her, the mother I barely remembered, always quiet, always somewhere just out of reach behind her own eyes, and something in my chest cracked wide open with a grief I hadn’t properly felt since I was a child.

She hadn’t died from a weak constitution, the way I’d been told my entire life.

She’d died from a broken heart he’d caused himself.

And three months after her funeral, he’d married Lydia.

My wolf came up snarling, sharp and furious, every careful instinct I usually carried burning away entirely as the full shape of it settled into place. His betrayal hadn’t been a single mistake.

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12:02 Thu, Oct 1

Chapter 178 Her Diary

Finished

It had run the entire length of her final, desperate months, and he’d spent every year since pretending none of it had ever happened at all.

“Flourish!” My father’s voice floated up from downstairs, entirely oblivious, entirely unaware of what I’d just found sitting in his own desk drawer. “Sherry, have you seen Flourish?”

I heard Mira’s muffled answer through the floor, and I closed the diary slowly, my hands steadier than the fury actually running through me, and slid it into my bag alongside the register I’d originally come looking for.

“Flourish, what are you doing up there?” His voice carried up again, closer now, climbing the stairs. “Come down to the study. I have a question for you.”

My stomach turned at the easy, careless warmth still threaded through his voice, the same voice he’d used my entire childhood, never once betraying a single trace of everything he’d apparently buried in that desk drawer for over two decades.

I straightened my spine, tucked the bag against my hip, and made myself walk toward the door with a composure I absolutely did not feel.

匪

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