5-Price for Being Naive

Bruce stands in that empty corner, confused at his excited wolf: “There is nothing here.”

“Yes, there is!” Aspen insists, lowering his head and sniffs around. He sniffs from left to right and up and down, occasionally stops and thinks before he continue.

Finally when he found the wall Mia leaned against he jumps up: “Here! Right here! She came back! She was here!”

“She is?” Bruce mumbles, couldn’t believe what he just heard.

Staring at the gray-green wallpapered corner for a very long moment, Bruce then slowly stretches out a hand, putting his slightly trembling fingers over it.

“Are you sure?” Bruce tries to feel the wall. He is dreadful to

“Definitely! A hundred percent sure!” Aspen pushes his nose close to sniff again, taking in the scent carefully, “It’s her! She was right here not too long ago!”

Thank the moon goddess! She is still alive. There were so many sleepless nights where he struggles in bed, haunted by the possibility that she might have died already. Bruce clenches his fingers slowly but firmly as if he wants to grab the air in his palm. His heart finally loosened up after a tormenting year. Something he lost is finally back: “Then we will find her.”

With a swift turn, Bruce leaves the corner and waves over Sophia, his secretary : “She came. Go get the security footage and locate her. Get our men to search the whole manor. Keep it low key and alert no one.”

“The Luna?” Sophia raises her eyebrows in shock, but she quickly adjusts and back to profession: “Right away, Alpha.”

Bruce turns after Sophia left and leans on the wall Mia just leaned on, taking a deep breath.

He has been waiting for this moment for a whole year now, and it’s not because a lack of searching.

He went looking for her on the same night of her family’s incident, but he found no trace of her. She cut her ties to the pack and... to him, too. That makes it extra hard to find her.

Round and round of searching, and failure after failure of investigation with no fruit. Disappointment has become normality to him, numbing his heart. Even now he is having trouble believe that she really is back.

She is back. He repeats to himself.

Dipping his head into the wall, Bruce wonder if Mia stood here in the same posture. He desperately wants to feel her mood again, like when their mate bond used to tie them together. With what kind of a feeling did she came back? Why didn’t she come to him if she was here?

Actually, why didn’t she?!

The moment this question pops in his mind, Aspen’s fury blows out: “I knew something was wrong! I knew it! I told you she was alive! Someone tricked her into leaving us! Make the liar pay! Make them pay!”

“I will. No need to scream.” Bruce says with a firm tone. His mood is also twirling, and Aspen is not helping calm him down. But people already noticed him and they are coming over.

Some important people are among them, and even as the Alpha and CEO of the company, he can’t just blow them off. Bruce forces himself to maintain his perfect manner, nodding along as he provides simple reactions such as “totally”, “really?” But in fact, his mind has followed Sophia to the manhunt.

“Fine...” After roaring in Bruce’s mind for long with no fruit, Aspen grovels reluctantly, “At least we know she is alive now. She will be ours again, sooner or later.”

Second floor, Robert is still playing Mia’s earworm: “I know you want a revenge. But it would still be easier with the Luna’s title.”

In the empty thick-carpeted hallway, any sound would attract attention. So Mia keeps her silence. But when Daisy takes Robert’s stand, Mia sighs -- she has been thinking about that night nonstop in this past year, and she realized her true problem, is being too naive. She knew little, and she didn’t think too much into things. She could have seen Elena’s hostility toward her. She should have noticed things were going wrong. But she didn’t. She was living in a little bubble, and she paid her price for it.

She is not naive anymore.

After she recovered from the poison, Mia calmed down and thought. She believes that Bruce didn’t give the order of wiping out her family, but she knows he doesn’t care too much about it either. He is a good Alpha. A good Alpha has a lot to care. An ordinary family that he married into only because they were true mates obviously is not his priority.

It’s simple as that.

Following her thoughts, Daisy gradually calms down and grovels with a whimper.

With a refreshed determination, Mia slows down int he corridor, focusing on the mission. How to find the target from these closed doors? Knock as a maid and ask if they required a meal? Or, using her photographer’s excuse looking for Mrs Adina?

Right at this moment a door opens, and a short fat person comes out.

The figure, the fat face and the hair! Aren’t this convenient?! It’s Clint Wood!

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