Chapter 8
836 Words
CHAPTER EIGHT
Luna
The letter sat between them like a loaded gun.
Luna hadn’t spoken in ten minutes. Not since Cassian said the words that re-lit something wild and vengeful in her chest:
> “Then let’s destroy everything they built. Together.”
But even that fire couldn’t dull the one question screaming inside her skull:
Who the hell is “L”?
Her entire life, she’d believed her father — Leonard Knight — was the architect behind the Knight empire’s darkest deals. Cold. Calculated. Controlling. But this letter… it didn’t match him.
The handwriting was familiar, yes. But something was off.
A word choice. A tone. A signature.
Leonard Knight never signed his name “L.” He signed in full. Always.
She grabbed her tablet, pulling up internal records from Knight’s archives. Financial logs. Legal statements. Old board rosters. Every document her father had ever touched in two decades bore the same consistent, perfect signature: Leonard A. Knight.
But the letter to Steven Laurel?
Just L.
A chill crept up her spine.
Cassian noticed the shift in her breathing. “What is it?”
“It’s not him.”
He frowned. “Your father?”
She nodded slowly. “It’s someone else. Someone with access. Someone who knew about the deal… and me.”
Cassian sat forward. “You’re sure?”
“I know my father’s writing. This is close, but not exact. The slant is different. The loops. And the language—he doesn’t write like this.”
She opened the archives deeper.
And there it was.
A name buried under old Knight family filings.
Laurent Knight.
Her uncle.
Her father’s younger brother.
Officially declared deceased in a private jet crash twenty years ago.
Cassian read over her shoulder. “Laurent Knight. Vice Chair of Foreign Relations. Disappeared 2005. Presumed dead. No remains recovered.”
Lunaa stared at the screen like it was a ghost manifesting through code.
“No remains,” she whispered. “No death certificate.”
Cassian met her eyes. “Which means he could be alive.”
She stood, heart racing. “No—he’s not just alive. He’s behind this. He was the one who signed that letter to your father. L is Laurent. He’s the one who tied me to your empire before I was even born.”
Cassian was quiet for a moment, then said carefully, “Your father could’ve kept it from you to protect the Knight name.”
“No,” she said, sharper than intended. “He kept it because he’s too obsessed with image. With power. If the world knew Laurent faked his death and sold off pieces of the Knight brand to fund a covert arms deal with Laurel Tech…” She trailed off, the weight of it pressing down. “It would ruin everything.”
Cassian leaned back. “So what now?”
Luna didn’t hesitate. “We find him.”
By morning, Luna had traced three leads.
1. A set of encrypted wire transfers linked to an offshore account in Luxembourg, active only under a corporate ghost alias: Aurelius Capital Group — signed under a director named “L. K.”
2. A Knight archival photo of Laurent at a 2004 gala in Vienna — the last recorded public appearance before his “death.”
3. A digital footprint hidden in the Laurel Tech private satellite archives, showing someone using a restricted Laurel encryption protocol — traced to Sicily. The location was marked with one word in the metadata:
“Aurelia.”
She stared at that word until her vision blurred.
Her name.
Or rather, the name he gave her.
Cassian stood behind her, arms crossed, jaw tight. “He’s taunting you.”
Luna nodded. “He’s watching.”
Cassian paced. “This man doesn’t just want power. He wants you. Not as family — as the asset he helped create.”
“I’m not his asset.”
“Then we take away his control.”
Lunaa turned, fire in her chest. “I want to look him in the eyes. I want to ask him why he gave me a life that was never mine. I want to ask him what the hell I’m supposed to be now that I know I’m not a daughter, not a leader—just a placeholder in a pact between two monsters.”
Cassian stepped closer. “You’re not a placeholder.”
“Then what am I?”
He didn’t flinch. “You’re the end of their story. And the start of your own.”
Luna didn’t blink.
Didn’t breathe.
Because for the first time since this all began, she felt it:
Not guilt.
Not fear.
But power.
Real, unfiltered, unmanipulated power.
And it felt damn good.
She turned back to the screen. “Book a jet. We go to Sicily. Tonight.”
Cassian nodded, but before he left, he asked, “What if he’s dangerous?”
Luna’s answer was ice.
“Then he’ll learn where I got it from ”
- Writer
