THE FABULOUS DOCTOR LUNA HE THREW AWAY?

CHAPTER 4

DIMITRI

TWO DAYS AGO

I shouldn't have gone to her apartment.

I knew that. Viktor told me that. He stood in front of my desk with his arms crossed and said the exact words, "This is a bad idea, Dimitri. Send someone else."

But I couldn't send someone else. Not for this. Not for her.

I hadn't seen Sera in two years. Two years of silence. Two years of her name sitting on my tongue like a prayer I didn't deserve to speak. Two years of my wolf howling at nothing, scratching at the walls of my chest, punishing me for letting her go.

I didn't let her go. I drove her away. There's a difference. One makes you a victim. The other makes you the villain.

I was the villain.

And seeing her again, standing in that doorway with her brown eyes wide and her hands trembling, looking at me like I was the worst thing that ever happened to her. That destroyed me more than any bullet ever could.

Because she was right. I was the worst thing that happened to her.

But I couldn't think about that now. I had to focus.

"Tell me everything," I said to Viktor, who was sitting across from me in the car. We were parked outside the Volkov compound, the engine still running, the night pressing in around us.

Viktor pulled up his tablet and handed it to me. "The Zanettis have been digging into old files. Pack records from before the war. They found documents linking Sera's father to the Volkov bloodline."

My fingers tightened on the tablet. "How? Those records were destroyed."

"Not all of them." Viktor's voice was careful, measured. "Someone kept copies. We don't know who yet, but the Zanettis got their hands on them three weeks ago."

I stared at the screen. Names. Dates. Old pack alliances that were supposed to stay buried. And right there, circled in red by whoever compiled this file, was the name that changed everything.

Nikolai Kraev.

Sera's father.

The man was a legend in our world. Not the good kind. The kind that made grown wolves go quiet when his name was mentioned. Nikolai Kraev had been the most feared enforcer the eastern packs had ever seen. He answered to no Alpha. He worked for whoever paid the highest price. And he had secrets. Dangerous ones. The kind of secrets that people killed for.

And people did kill for them. They killed him. They killed his wife. They burned his home to the ground with his children still inside.

All except one.

Sera.

She survived because she wasn't home that night. She was twelve years old, sleeping over at a friend's house while her entire family was slaughtered. By the time she found out, there was nothing left but ashes and graves.

I didn't know any of this when I married her. She was just Sera to me. Beautiful, fierce, stubborn Sera who challenged me in ways no one else dared. Who looked at me like I was more than just an Alpha, more than just a name.

I found out the truth about her father a year into our marriage. Not from her. From my own people, who dug into her background without my permission. When I confronted her about it, she looked at me with those brown eyes and said, "If I told you, would you have still married me?"

I said yes.

I was lying.

And she knew it. That was the beginning of the end for us. Not the affair. Not the other woman. It started with that lie, sitting between us like a crack in glass, spreading slowly until everything shattered.

"The Zanettis think Nikolai hid something before he died," Viktor continued, pulling me out of the memory. "Something valuable. Weapon caches, financial records, pack alliances. Whatever it is, they believe Sera knows where it is."

"She doesn't," I said immediately.

Viktor raised an eyebrow. "You sure about that?"

Was I? I thought I knew Sera. I thought I understood her. But she hid her entire identity from me for a year. She buried her father's name so deep that my own intelligence network almost missed it. What else was she hiding?

"It doesn't matter," I said, my voice hard. "Whether she knows or not, the Zanettis think she does. And they won't ask nicely."

Viktor nodded slowly. "So what's the plan?"

The plan. Right. I needed a plan that didn't involve me losing my mind every time I thought about her. A plan that kept her safe without dragging her back into the world she fought so hard to escape.

But I already knew there was no version of this where she stayed out of it. The Zanettis were coming. If I didn't get to her first, they would.

"We bring her in," I said.

Viktor stared at me. "Bring her in? To the compound? Dimitri, she hates you. She's not going to come willingly."

"Then I'll convince her."

"How? By breaking into her apartment again?" He shook his head. "That went so well the first time."

I shot him a look that would make most men flinch. Viktor just stared back. That was why he was my second. He wasn't afraid of me. Someone had to not be afraid of me.

"I'll figure it out," I muttered.

My phone buzzed. I looked down at the screen and my blood turned to ice.

It was a photo. Sent from an unknown number. In the photo, Sera was walking out of the hospital, her coat pulled tight around her, her head down against the wind. The photo was taken from across the street. Close. Too close.

Underneath the photo was a single message.

"Pretty doctor. It would be a shame if she couldn't save herself."

Viktor saw my face change. "What is it?"

I turned the phone toward him. He read the message and went completely still.

"Call every man we have," I said, already moving. "Now."

Viktor grabbed his phone. "Where are you going?"

I was already out the door.

"To get my wife."