Ch. I Refuse to Be Your Luna 184 I Refuse to Be Your Luna 184

Chapter 184 The Voss Heir

Alpha Damian’s POV

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I knew Flourish wanted to rush straight to F-Tech the moment Rhys confirmed Lydia’s presence, but I could smell the fear threaded beneath her determination, and that made me considerably more cautious than she wanted me to be.

Her wolf was agitated, her pulse elevated, and every instinct I possessed told me that walking directly into a room with someone who’d already used her mother’s name as a weapon would be reckless.

“We’re not going straight inside,” I said.

She turned toward me. “Why?”

“Because we don’t know what she wants.”

“I need answers.”

“You’ll get them.” I touched her cheek, keeping my voice low and calm. “But you’re not walking into a trap just because someone learned how to use your mother’s name to get your attention.”

Her expression softened for a moment. “Damian, this could explain everything.”

“I know.”

“Then why are you stopping me?”

“Because I almost lost you once already.” Her eyes widened slightly at that. “I won’t watch you walk into danger without knowing what’s actually waiting on the other side of that door.”

My wolf pressed forward as I spoke, and I forced myself to hold it steady.

The memory of finding poison inside my own villa still lived too close to the surface, and learning my own executive fleet had been used to spirit Nerissa away had already left me suspicious of nearly everyone around us both.

Flourish reached for my hand. “I’ll be careful.”

“I know you will.”

“Then trust me.”

I looked at her for several long seconds, “I trust you.” I lifted her hand and pressed a kiss to her knuckles. “I don’t trust the people circling you.”

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Chapter 184 The Voss Heir

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Her lips curved faintly despite everything. “That’s fair enough.”

We left the residence with Garret staying behind, and I noticed how visibly tense he grew as we walked toward the entrance.

He’d spent years controlling exactly what Flourish was allowed to know, and now someone else had forced all of it into the open regardless of what he wanted.

Before we reached the car, I caught a scent and stopped walking entirely.

Flourish turned immediately. “What?”

I looked toward the road. “Someone’s watching us.”

Her wolf surfaced at once. “Where?”

“Across the street.” I focused hard on the trace, but it dissolved before I could properly identify it. “Whoever it was left before we could get a clean read on them.”

She frowned. “Lydia?”

“Possibly.”

“Or Karl.”

I nodded, something cold settling through my chest at the thought. “That’s what worries me.”

The same enemy had already interfered with Ethan’s case, targeted Flourish directly, reached my own villa, and manipulated people inside Stonehedge itself.

If Karl had somehow found a way to connect himself to the Voss family on top of everything else, we were dealing with something considerably larger than either of us had understood until tonight.

I opened the car door for her, and she climbed in without argument. I was walking around to the driver’s side when my phone rang. Ragnar.

“What happened?” I answered.

His voice came through tense, clipped in a way I rarely heard from him. “We have a security breach.”

“Where?”

“Stonehedge.”

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Chapter 184 The Voss Heir

My wolf sharpened instantly. “How bad?”

“Someone accessed the executive archive.”

I glanced at Flourish through the windshield. “What was taken?”

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A pause stretched long enough to worry me further. “Old family clearance records.”

My grip tightened around the phone. “Which records?”

“Yours. Mine. Your uncle’s.” His voice dropped lower. “And Elara Voss’s.”

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I looked at Flourish again, and she’d clearly read enough in my expression already to guess

most of it.

“Someone’s looking for her records,” I said, ending the call.

“What did they take?” she asked, her face tightening.

“Your mother’s file.”

She went completely silent, and my wolf growled low in response. The connection between Stonehedge and Elara was no longer something either of us could dismiss as coincidence.

Someone was deliberately hunting for information about her, and whoever it was had enough reach to breach both the Steele Residence and Stonehedge’s own archives in the same night.

We arrived at F-Tech twenty minutes later. Rhys met us at the entrance, his eyes moving straight to Flourish. “Boss.”

“What is she doing?” I asked.

“Conference room.”

“Alone?”

“No.” His face tightened. “She brought two lawyers with her.”

“Lydia?”

“Yes.”

We walked toward the conference room together, and I stayed close beside Flourish the entire way, my wolf tracking every scent in the corridor, though none of them matched the trace from the Steele Residence.

Rhys opened the door.

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Chapter 184 The Voss Heir

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A woman sat at the head of the table, and she looked nothing like the threatening figure I’d been picturing since the first message reached Flourish’s phone.

Calm, professionally dressed, somewhere in her early fifties, dark hair pulled neatly back. Her eyes moved to Flourish first, then shifted to me, and she smiled like she’d been waiting patiently for exactly this moment.

“Finally.”

Flourish stopped just inside the doorway. “Who are you?”

The woman rose from her chair. “My name is Lydia Voss.”

My wolf reacted sharply at the sound of it, some old instinct recognizing the name as a threat before my mind had fully caught up.

Lydia reached into her handbag and drew out a sealed envelope. “I believe this belongs to you.”

Flourish stared at it without moving. “What is it?”

“Something your mother left behind for you.”

I stepped closer, my wolf still bristling. “What’s inside it?”

Lydia looked directly at me, entirely unbothered by the warning radiating off me. “The missing pages from Elara’s diary.”

Flourish’s breathing changed audibly beside me.

Lydia set the envelope down on the table between us. “But before I hand this over, there’s one thing you need to understand first.” Her eyes hardened, all traces of the earlier warmth draining out of them. “Your mother didn’t die because Garret broke her heart.”

Flourish went utterly still.

Lydia’s next words landed in the room like a blade, and my wolf snarled low and instant at the sound of them.

“She was murdered.”

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