The Luna he threw away

THIRTY PERCENT

Seraphina POV

The boardroom on the forty-second floor of Voss Enterprises smelled like leather and old money.

I'd been in this building before.

Years ago, as Seraphina Voss, I'd walked through this lobby with my eyes down and my shoulders small, painfully aware that every person who glanced at me was thinking the same thing…she doesn't belong here.

I used to take the elevator with my arms crossed over my chest like I was trying to take up less space. Like if I made myself small enough, no one would notice I was there at all.

They noticed anyway. They just didn't care.

Now I walked through the same lobby in a white blazer and pointed heels, hair pinned back, face neutral, and the receptionist smiled at me like I was someone.

I am someone.

Just not the someone any of them expected.

My name tag read Ava Sinclair, Sinclair Capital Group. Clean. Untraceable. Three years of careful construction, and Marcus had made sure every layer held.

The elevator opened on the forty-second floor and a young man in a slim suit stepped forward immediately.

"Ms. Sinclair." He extended his hand. "I'm Reid, Mr. Voss's personal assistant. He's been briefed on today's meeting and is…"

"Running late," I finished.

Reid blinked. "Actually, yes. How did you…"

"He's always late to things he doesn't think matter." I walked past him. "Which room?"

He scrambled to catch up. "The main conference room. End of the hall. But Ms. Sinclair, the meeting doesn't start for another ten minutes"

"Then I'm early."

The conference room was glass-walled on two sides. Long mahogany table, twelve chairs, a view of the city designed to make people feel small. I chose the chair at the head of the table, set my bag down, and opened my portfolio.

The other attendees filtered in over the next eight minutes. Three senior executives. Two lawyers who clearly hadn't slept. A financial advisor who looked at me sideways when he saw where I was sitting, but didn't say anything.

Then Damien walked in.

I felt him before I saw him.

That was the part I hadn't prepared for.

I had told myself, for three years, that whatever I'd once felt for Damien Voss had been burned away cleanly. That what lived in its place was something cold and purposeful and useful. That I had taken every soft, humiliating, hopeful thing inside me and I had dealt with it, the way you deal with a wound, cleaned it, closed it, moved on.

I had lied to myself.

Because when he walked through that door, something in my chest pulled. Sharp. Involuntary.

Like a stitch being torn open from the inside.

My wolf stirred, a low, desperate recognition that I hadn't felt in years and for one horrible, unguarded second I remembered what it had felt like to love him. Not the version of love that's quiet and patient and hopeful. The earlier version. The version from before I understood what he was. The version that had lived in my chest like something warm.

I pressed my foot into the floor.

I put her away.

He looked the same. That was the problem. Taller than I remembered, or maybe that was just the suit. Dark eyes sweeping the room the way they always had, quick, calculating, dismissing things one by one until they landed on me.

They stopped.

He stood in the doorway a half-second too long. Long enough for me to notice. Long enough for his CFO to nearly walk into his back.

Then Damien moved to his chair. The one at the other head of the table. Our eyes hadn't broken contact.

"You're in my seat," he said.

"You have twelve other options," I said.

The room went very quiet.

Something shifted in his expression. Not anger. Closer to interest, the particular kind a person gets when something they'd written off suddenly moves.

He sat in the chair immediately to his left without another word.

His lawyer cleared his throat. "Shall we begin?"

We began.

The first fifteen minutes were procedural. I let Damien's team lead. I sat, listened, took notes I didn't need because I already knew everything they were going to say. I had studied Voss Enterprises for twenty-two months. Their revenue structure, their debt position, their weak contracts, the three divisions quietly bleeding money.

When the presentation ended, the CFO looked at me with polite expectation.

"Ms. Sinclair. If you'd like to introduce Sinclair Capital's position."

"Of course." I turned one page of my portfolio, though I didn't need to look at it.

"Sinclair Capital Group has been acquiring shares in Voss Enterprises through a series of subsidiary holdings over the past two years. As of last Friday, we hold thirty point four percent of the company's publicly traded stock."

The room didn't erupt.

It froze first. That particular silence before things start falling.

The CFO's pen stopped moving.

One of the lawyers said, very quietly, "I'm sorry…thirty percent?"

"Point four," I said pleasantly.

Damien hadn't moved. But something in the line of his jaw had shifted, and I knew him well enough…or I had, once to know that behind that stillness, something was moving very fast.

"That's not possible," his other lawyer said, reaching for a tablet. "We've been monitoring…"

"You were monitoring for a single buyer." I smiled, small and polite, the kind that didn't reach anything.

"We moved through seven different entities. You never saw us because you weren't looking for us. That's understandable."

Damien spoke. His voice was controlled. Low.

"What do you want?"

I looked at him directly. I had practiced this moment for three years. Not the words but the stillness. The ability to look at Damien Voss and let nothing show.

"A seat at the table," I said. "A real one. Co-governance. Equal voting rights on all major decisions, acquisitions, restructuring, leadership appointments. Sinclair Capital in, Voss Enterprises restructured as a shared entity."

"That's not going to happen," he said immediately.

"Then I'll be forced to vote my shares in ways that aren't helpful to your Q3 projections." I closed my portfolio. "You have a weak partnership in the northern territory, a distribution contract expiring in six weeks that hasn't been renewed, and a board that's increasingly nervous about leadership. I can make all of that worse, Mr. Voss. Or significantly better."

I folded my hands on the table. "Your choice."

Dead silence.

Damien looked at me for a long moment. That gaze… dark, still, relentless was one I remembered from a hundred moments in our marriage. The look he used to make people back down.

I didn't back down.

The edge of his mouth shifted. Not quite a smile. Something harder than that.

"Meeting adjourned," he said to the room, not breaking eye contact with me. "Everyone out."

His team exchanged glances. Then they filed out, lawyers and all, and the door clicked shut.

We were alone.

In three years I had not planned for this exact moment. I had planned for the reveal, the power play, the controlled exit. I had not planned for an empty room and Damien Voss looking at me like I was the most interesting problem he had ever been handed.

"Who are you?" he said.

"I told you. Ava Sinclair."

"That's a name. I asked who you are."

I began packing my portfolio slowly, deliberately. "Someone with thirty percent of your company, a very good legal team, and nowhere to be until Tuesday."

I stood. He stood at the same moment, and because we were both reaching for control of the same half-second, we ended up closer than I'd intended.

Close enough that I could smell him.

Cedar. And something underneath it… something his wolf carried that mine recognized even now. Even after everything. My wolf shifted toward it the way a plant shifts toward light, instinctive and stupid and impossible to stop completely.

My jaw tightened.

I stepped back.

"I'll have my lawyers send revised terms," I said. "I'd recommend reading them before refusing."

I walked to the door. My hand was on the handle when his voice came from behind me, quieter now.

"You're not afraid of me."

I paused.

"No."

"Most people are."

I turned just enough to catch him over my shoulder. "I know," I said. "That's always been your problem."

I left.

In the elevator, alone, I pressed my back against the wall.

Four seconds. That was all I allowed myself.

Four seconds with my eyes closed and my hands not quite steady at my sides, feeling the full weight of what had just happened. Not the victory I get later, alone, in a room where no one could see my face. What I felt right now was older than the victory. Messier.

He'd looked at me like I was interesting.

Not like a wife he was discarding. Not like a piece of furniture he'd decided to replace. Like something that had surprised him. Like something worth watching.

Don't, I told myself. Don't you dare.

Four seconds ended.

I opened my eyes, straightened my blazer, and watched the floors tick downward on the panel above the doors.

By the time the lobby arrived, I was Ava Sinclair again.

Back in the lobby, my phone rang. Unknown number.

I almost didn't pick up. But something probably instinct, or the particular restlessness that comes after adrenaline fades made me answer.

"Ms. Sinclair." The voice was female. Smooth. Familiar in a way I couldn't place, which meant either I'd never met her in person, or she'd changed enough that I wouldn't recognize her.

Both options were bad.

"Who is this?"

"Someone who thinks we should talk before your next meeting with Damien." A pause, deliberate and unhurried. "I know more about you than he does. For now."

The line went dead.

I stood in the Voss Enterprises lobby holding my phone, the city moving around me like nothing had shifted.

Everything had shifted.

Three years of careful, meticulous construction, the name, the entities, the paper trail that led nowhere and someone had found a thread. I didn't know how much they'd pulled. I didn't know how much was already unraveling.

What I knew was this: if my identity reached Damien before I was ready, I lost everything. The thirty percent meant nothing if he had time to prepare. The whole plan collapsed if he saw me coming.

I had built this so carefully.

Someone had been watching me build it.

I put my phone in my bag, walked through the revolving doors, and stepped into the cold morning air.

The car was waiting. I got in. I didn't let myself think about the elevator, or the way his wolf had pulled at mine, or the look on his face when he'd said who are you like the answer actually mattered to him.

I thought about the caller instead.

Find the thread before it unravels. That was the only move now.

I had not come this far to lose because someone else had been paying attention.