The Hand That First Held Mine

My son accidentally burns my husband's first love's hand. My husband cruelly breaks my son's hand to teach him a lesson. He's in so much pain that he can't see straight and falls into a lake. Blood dyes the water red. I hold him close as I sob and call my husband, pleading for help. My husband doesn't care, though. "It's just a broken hand—he'll be fine once it's set in a cast. He'll only do worse things in the future if he's not taught a lesson now!" Later, my son drowns in the lake because he's not rescued in time. My husband loses his mind when he sees his body. "How could he have died when he only had a broken hand?"

I was a brilliant artist. But I crushed my right hand saving my mafia husband, Vincent, and my ability to create died with it for three years. Vincent promised he'd make me whole again. Our private doctor swore he was doing everything he could. But my hand remained numb, useless. Then, one day, I overheard a conversation that shattered my world. "Make sure she can never create again," Vincent told the doctor. "I can't have Isabella threatening Sophia's place in the art world!" "But, Mr. Torrino, another procedure might... she could lose the hand for good." "I don't care what happens to her! Sophia saved my life. I will not let her down!" It turned out my husband was the one who had destroyed me. And the assassin, Sophia, was the woman he truly loved. He let her claim my designs, turning her into the art world’s new darling while I was trapped in a broken body. When I confronted him, pregnant with our child, he slapped me in public and told the world I was losing my mind. That night, I burned everything that bound me to him. Then I dialed an encrypted number I hadn't used in what felt like a lifetime. "Grandpa. In three days, I need to disappear."

• • • FOR ADULT READERS ONLY • • •️️️ I shouldn’t have wanted him. Not when he was older. Not when he was untouchable. Not when he was my father’s best friend. Not when he belonged to a world I was never meant to step into. But I did. I was five years old when I decided he was mine. Standing at his wife’s graveside in the rain, I held his face with my little hands and told him I would grow up and be his. He said: Is that right. Not a question. So I kept my word. Adrian Keller. My father's best friend. The man who watched me grow. The man who built an empire on control. The man no one touches. The man I wasn’t supposed to want. For thirteen years, I loved him the only way I was allowed to. In silence. At a distance. Across rooms that belonged to our families — not to what I was carrying. Until the night I turned eighteen. I said it out loud. He shut it down in one word: “Don’t.” So I did. I stopped looking at him. I stopped wanting him. I stopped being the girl who built her entire world around a man who would never choose her. I walked away. That should have been the end. It wasn’t. Because the moment I stopped reaching for him, was the moment Adrian Keller started looking for me. Across rooms. Across tables. At midnight — staring at a name he shouldn’t want. The man who taught me control is starting to lose his. And this time… He’s not asking. And underneath the empire, Underneath the discipline, Underneath fifteen years of unshakable control— Something ruinous is coming loose.

I have a secret. Whenever I touch someone, I can see the face of the person they love most. This is not an ability ordinary werewolves possess. I am a Moon Seer, a rarity that appears perhaps once in a century. I cannot read thoughts or memories, but I have never been wrong about a person’s heart. I had been the person Ronan Hartson loved most since he moved next door at seven. Our wolves recognized each other when we turned eighteen. When our Mate Bond awakened, I still saw only myself in his heart. Ronan officially claimed me at twenty two. He left his mark on my neck and announced before the entire Blackridge Pack that I was his only mate and the Luna of Blackridge. Our Mate Bond remained unshaken for three years. Then, at six weeks pregnant, I touched his collar before he left for work. I had known Ronan for twenty one years and touched him more than a hundred thousand times. This was the first time I discovered that I was no longer the only woman in his heart. That night, he lied about patrols. That night, I saw him feed her cake with his own hands. He thought our Mate Bond would keep me tethered to him forever. He thought I would never leave. But he forgot one thing: I don’t need a man to feel whole. And I will never raise my child in a house built on lies. He chose to protect her. I chose to protect myself.

Before, I believed in First Love, but my First Love was defeated with a First Kiss. And only the First Kiss can change everything."It's not something you see ... It's just how you feel it".

Does the heart remember who it once loved? What happens if someone else possesses this heart and the actual owner is gone? How can he fight the feeling if his rival is his best friend? And worse, she is his best friend's first love. Should he just let go, even though he knows he will be hurt a second time, or follow his heart even if he hurts someone else?