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Chapter 9

Author: Cece West
Photographs from hotel rooms.

Flight details with dates.

Recordings of Jake promising on the phone that he would spend the night with her.

And one message she had sent me:

So what if you haven’t broken up? He’s here with me now.

The first time I made the evidence public, I had been angry and unprepared.

Jake deleted the original post.

Emily cried and offered an explanation.

Everyone believed I had taken things out of context.

This time, I exported the messages and preserved the timestamps, original files, and verification information.

I didn’t publish any footage involving nudity again.

I wanted to prove that she had knowingly pursued a man who had a mate and deliberately provoked me.

I didn’t need strangers looking at her body.

The messages were clear enough.

The most important recording came from a voice message she had sent before Mom died.

She must have thought I was already completely broken.

“They came to see you because they couldn’t stand watching you bully me.”

She laughed in the recording.

“I didn’t tell them to do anything.”

Two seconds passed.

Then she added, “But if you’d learned to apologize sooner, you wouldn’t have embarrassed yourself like that.”

I listened to it once.

Then I stopped the recording.

My email to the foundation’s board included evidence that she had used project resources for personal promotion.

My emails to the perfume brand and her talent agency included a complete relationship timeline and verifiable contradictions in her earlier public statements.

The final package went to an investigative news outlet beyond Blood Moon’s control.

The reporter had already spoken with me twice.

She asked whether I was willing to use my real name.

I said yes, but only after I was safely away.

“We won’t publish a report based only on one person’s account.”

“I understand.”

“We’ll independently verify what you’ve provided and contact them for comment.”

“All right.”

I didn’t need her to insult anyone on my behalf.

I only needed her to verify what had happened, piece by piece, and restore the parts that had been erased.

Emily’s rivals within the foundation also received the relevant material.

Jake’s support had pushed them out of projects.

They had no reason to cover for her now.

I didn’t promise anyone I would win.

I simply stopped leaving every decision in Jake’s hands.

The boarding announcement began.

I closed my laptop and went to the restroom to wash my face.

In the mirror, the scrape on my forehead had scabbed over.

My knee still ached when I bent it.

The mark on my neck had grown fainter.

I touched it.

Jake’s voice no longer reached me.

Before, even when he didn’t contact me, I could always feel that place inside my mind.

Like a door left slightly open.

I couldn’t help moving toward it, wondering what he was doing.

Wondering whether he thought of me.

Now, at last, the door was closed.

My phone rang while I was waiting in line at the gate.

Jake’s name filled the screen.

I looked at it for a moment.

Then I answered.

It was quiet on his end.

“Where did you go?”

“Did you need something?”

He paused, probably unused to being answered that way.

“The housekeeper said you didn’t leave an address.”

“There was no need.”

“Susan.”

His voice hardened.

“I wasn’t going to hold your attitude in the study against you. Don’t push it.”

I watched the line move slowly ahead.

I said nothing.

He seemed to mistake my silence for surrender.

“There’s something else. I forgot to remind you.”

“Under Blood Moon procedure, there’s a thirty-day review period before the dissolution is registered.”

I lowered my eyes.

Blood Moon’s internal procedure.

Not the Alliance’s protected departure process.

He thought I was still somewhere he could approve, delay, or revoke my choices.

“If you regret it, you can come back before the deadline.”

He sounded casual.

As though giving me a way to save face was already an unusual kindness.

“But I don’t want to see a repeat of what happened before.”

“Emily hasn’t been doing well lately. You should at least take the initiative and prove you aren’t going to keep targeting her.”

Holding the phone, I suddenly remembered the transfer application beside Mom’s bed.

The one we never got to use.

I had only wanted to take her away.

If Jake had stopped hurting us, I would have given up the apology.

Given up clearing my name.

Yet he still thought I was the one who needed to prove I wouldn’t hurt anyone.
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  • The Alpha’s Rejected Luna: His Regret   Chapter 35

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