Rejected Luna

Chapter 2: The Empty Apartment

On the way back to the apartment, I took a detour. I didn't want to get home to that empty place so soon. Neon lights flashed outside the window, and my hands on the steering wheel were trembling slightly. I took a deep breath and told myself: You're already a lawyer. You've beaten opponents ten times stronger than him. He's just a man. Not worth it.

When I finally got back to the apartment, it was already one in the morning. I didn't turn on the lights. Just collapsed onto the couch, still wearing my heels, too lazy to take them off. I pulled my knees up to my chest, curling into the fetal position — as if that was the only way to feel safe.

From the next room came the sound of Jay turning over in his sleep. The blanket rustled, then silence.

Five years.

Five years ago, I was seven months pregnant, teaching myself law in a basement in Manhattan. Five years later, I stood in court and tore my opponents apart until they had nothing left to say. But today — when I saw that man fall to his knees in the hallway —

Something deep inside me still hurt.

Not a sharp, cutting pain. More like countless tiny needles, one after another, pushing into the softest part of my heart.

I closed my eyes. My head was full of that night — the moonlit garden, the whiskey-sweet breath, those amber eyes. And the next morning — that cold, empty patch of grass.

"Damn it," I muttered, grabbing a cushion and burying my face in it, trying to suffocate every bit of unwanted softness. But it didn't work. A broken heart still beats. And that beating heart seemed to mock my own weakness.

My phone buzzed. It was my assistant.

"Luna, Kael Blackwood's lawyer wants to meet you privately. Do you want to see him or…?"

I stared at the screen. My thumb hovered over the keyboard for a long time.

Say yes — he'd think there was still a chance. Say no — he'd find some other, nastier way.

In the end, I typed two words:

"Turn him down."

Then I threw the phone to the other end of the couch, like tossing away a flame that had already singed my fingers.

But my fingers still hurt.

---

On the other side of the city, Kael Blackwood stood in front of his study window, a cup of cold black coffee in his hand. He just stared at his own reflection in the glass — the reflection of a man who had knelt.

He had never bowed to anyone in his life. Not even his father — the most iron-fisted old Alpha in the pack — had ever made him bend his knee.

But now he had knelt. Not because he was afraid of her. Because he had finally seen, after five years, how much of a bastard he had been.

A voice came from outside the door. "Sir, your wife is back."

Kael didn't move. "Let her in."

The door opened. High heels clicked closer, a skirt rustling. Seraphina wore her standard fake smile. "Darling, I heard you were in court today—"

"Did I have a vasectomy?" Kael cut her off.

Her smile froze for a moment. "What?"

"I asked you," Kael finally turned around, his amber eyes like ice, "did you fake my medical records? Did you lie to that half-blood, tell her I had been sterilized?"

She stepped back, her lips trembling. "I… I don't know what you're talking about. You believe her over me? That mutt—"

"Shut up."

Kael's voice wasn't loud, but it hit her like a hammer. She flinched. He stepped toward her, step by step, until her back hit the wall.

"Five years," he said, each word forced out through clenched teeth. "You bribed the driver. You bribed the clinic nurse. You forged my signature. You ruined her. You ruined my children."

Seraphina's face went white. Her lips parted, but in the end she only managed one sentence: "You should never have had children with someone like her anyway."

Kael didn't hit her. He just stepped back and looked at her like she was garbage. "Get out."

"Kael—"

"I said, get out."

---

The door closed. Kael didn't go back to the bedroom. He sat in the study, a stack of old photos spread out in front of him — snapshots taken at the garden party five years ago. In the photos, the girl had her head down, the hem of her long dress lifted by the wind, her eyes timid and clean.

He pushed the photos into a drawer and slammed his fist on the desk. The coffee cup jumped, spilling a dark puddle across the wood. He didn't wipe it up. He just stared out the window into the dark night until the sky began to pale.

---

Seraphina stood in the hallway, trembling.

She remembered that rainy night five years ago. Kneeling in front of her fiancé's grave. The face on the tombstone — young, vaguely similar to Kael's. He had died in that power struggle for the Alpha position. The killer was one of Kael's trusted men, not Kael himself. She had always known that.

But she still hated. Hated fate's cruelty. Hated her own weakness. Hated that she had become exactly what she despised.

She leaned against the wall, tears sliding silently down her cheeks.

"If only… if only I had died back then."

---

Seraphina went back to her room and locked the door. She opened the lowest drawer of her wardrobe and took out an old tin box. Inside was a faded silver ring and a photo — the two of them, smiling in front of the university library. She put on the ring and buried her face in her pillow, crying without a sound.

"If I hadn't pushed him to fight for that position that day… would you still be here with me?"

---

The next morning.

I woke to a soft rustling sound. Vivi was lying on my chest, her silky hair brushing against my chin. "Mommy, are you working today?"

"No. I'm taking you and Jay to the park."

"Yay!" She bounced off me and ran out barefoot to call her brother.

I stood by the window, watching their little backs jumping and skipping in the sunshine.

Suddenly, the apartment didn't feel so empty anymore. Because the two most important people in my life were here.

But then — the word most important triggered a thought I didn't want to have.

Maybe… I should let Kael see the children?

The next second, I crushed it.

No. He doesn't deserve it. At least not yet.

---