All Chapters of Rebirth of the Vengeful Luna: Chapter 31 - Chapter 40

Chapter 32Ravenna's POVI scheduled the meeting for nine.Small group, Collins, Raymond, the external media coordinator we had brought on after the broadcast deal, and Jaxen. Four people plus me. Intimate enough that there was nowhere to hide and large enough that his presence didn't feel like an event.I had thought about the composition carefully.Raymond because he handled sponsorship and needed to be in the room for the work to make sense. Collins because Collins was always in rooms where things were being decided and I trusted his read on people. The media coordinator because her presence made the meeting's purpose clear and Jaxen's role within it obvious.And Jaxen because I had signed the consulting agreement and a signed agreement meant something.I was in the conference room at eight fifty with the agenda printed and the materials distributed. By nine the others had filed in. Raymond with his tablet and his industry warmth. Collins with nothing and his eleven years of quiet

Chapter 34Ravenna's POVSienna caught me in the corridor at half past two.Not the open corridor, the narrower one beside the print room that nobody used after eleven because the afternoon light made it uncomfortably warm and people found reasons to be elsewhere.Sienna had learned which spaces in the building had natural privacy.I had noticed her learning this. It was the kind of thing I didn't point out because pointing it out would make her self-conscious about an instinct that was working exactly as it should.She fell into step beside me without preamble."Damien," she said quietly.I kept walking. "Talk.""He's been making calls from company property," she said. "Not the riders' phone, his personal mobile, but from inside the building. Track level, east corridor, the section outside the equipment room."I knew that section.Old building infrastructure meant the security cameras on the east corridor had a coverage gap between the equipment room door and the fire exit. The gap w

Chapter 36Ravenna's POVThe confirmation came through on a Friday afternoon at four seventeen.I know the exact time because I was looking at my laptop screen when the email arrived and the timestamp was the first thing my eyes landed on before the subject line registered.Vantage International, Partnership Confirmation.I read the email once.Then I called Collins.He answered on the second ring and I read him the key terms and he was quiet for a moment and then he said: "That's the biggest external deal this company has signed in eleven years.""I know," I said."Your father's last major international deal was the Brennan partnership in 2013," he said. "This is larger.""I know," I said again.A pause."Well done, Ravenna," he said.Collins didn't say that often. He said accurate things and useful things and occasionally devastating things but he rationed words like well done with the care of a man who understood that they meant more when they weren't freely given."Thank you, Coll

Chapter 38Ravenna's POVHis name was Gerald Mole.Father of Sandra Mole, the private investigator I had hired in my first life three weeks before everything fell apart. Sandra had been good, thorough, discreet, the kind of professional who understood that the value of information was directly proportional to how carefully it was handled.I hadn't gotten to use most of what she found.I wasn't going to make that mistake again.I had found Gerald through the same route I would have found Sandra, an industry referral buried in a legal directory, the kind of listing that didn't advertise because it didn't need to. The firm was small, two investigators and a support coordinator, operating out of an unmarked office on the third floor of a building that also housed an accountancy practice and a dental surgery.Deliberately unremarkable.I appreciated that.Gerald Mole was sixty one, recently returned from semi-retirement after his daughter Sandra had relocated abroad for personal reasons. H

Chapter 40Ravenna's POVGerald Mole was faster than three weeks.The preliminary report arrived on a Monday morning, sixteen days after our meeting, delivered by hand to the building's main reception in a plain envelope with my name and no return address.Sienna brought it up without opening it.I had told her it would come and what it would look like and she had nodded and asked no questions, which was the correct response and the one I expected from her.I waited until the floor was at full capacity before I opened it.Not because I needed privacy. Because I had learned that the moments before information arrived were worth protecting. Once you knew something you couldn't unknow it and the shape of everything adjusted to accommodate it whether you were ready or not.I made tea first.Then I sat at my father's desk and opened the envelope.Fourteen pages.Gerald's handwriting on a cover note brief, professional, three sentences. Preliminary findings attached. Significant gaps in sub