The Final Countdown Novel Novels & Stories

The marking ceremony had reached the moment when the Luna crown should be exchanged, but my mate in name only still refused to lower his head. Once Drake Blackwood bit the side of my neck and completed the marking, our 66th ceremony would finally become real. Yet his eyes stayed fixed on his phone, and he did not even look at me. All because his widowed sister-in-law, Scarlett Moore, had posted a claim-release statement an hour earlier. Her late husband had been Drake’s older brother. Under pack law, Drake was obligated to protect her. Attached to her post was a ticket for a private pack flight, showing that she would land in an hour. Drake suddenly rose and announced in a low voice to the elders and pack members that the marking ceremony would be postponed. Then he left me standing there alone, turning me into a joke before the entire pack. I calmly packed away the Luna crown, calmly apologized to the guests, and calmly saw everyone off. After that, I opened Scarlett’s latest post on the MoonNet feed. In the photo, Drake stood beside her, holding out a newly hunted moonstone. I gave a bitter smile and called my birth parents through the private pack link. “Father, Mother, I’m willing to come back now.” “I’ll accept the marriage alliance for the Frostvale Pack.”

I hadn't seen my mafia husband, Luca Moretti, and our daughter Dora in three whole months. Why? Because his mother, Fiona, said Dora should stay with her "for a while." And Luca? He was "too busy with business," as always. So when Luca finally called and said he was going to pick me up for a family reunion at the villa, I was overjoyed. I thought maybe, just maybe, I'd finally get to hold my little girl again. I spent the whole damn day running around the city, buying her favorite dolls, snacks, a new pink dress, anything I thought would make her smile at me again. But when the car arrived, it wasn't what I imagined. Before I could even say Hi, Dora turned her head, took one look at me… and then wrapped her arms even tighter around Maria, the maid. She buried her face in Maria's neck like I wasn't even there. Like Maria was her mom. I tried to approach her, but Dora straight-up told me she didn't want to ride in the same car as me. And Maria, wearing that fake, polite smile, kept trying to gently talk me into giving Dora "a little more time." I looked over at Luca, hoping he'd step in. Instead, he just looked annoyed, like he couldn't be bothered to lift a finger to help fix things between me and our daughter. Clearly, they didn't want me there. So what was the point of trying to join the ride? I stepped back from the SUV. Then Luca just turned to me and said, "Just wait here. I won't be long." What he'll never understand is… I'm done waiting for him.

To everyone else, I'm the wife of Stefano Pace, the man who runs this city's underworld. To others, I am living the kind of luxury every woman in town envies. But what no one knows is that in three days, I'm leaving my husband for good. It started when I took Stefano's car to wash and spotted a black stocking that wasn't mine wedged in the passenger seat cushions. It was balled up and still reeked of sickly sweet perfume. The sight of it was like a knife to the heart. I knew that perfume. It is Isla Torelli's. She's Stefano's underboss, the only woman besides me who's ever taken the passenger seat. My hand trembled as I gripped the stocking, but I kept my cool. I thought back to our wedding seven years ago, when Stefano stood in front of the whole family and vowed, "If I ever betray you, then betray me a hundredfold!" He probably did not think those words would come true.

"Where's Donna? Is she asleep?" "My Don... Donna Seraphina has been gone for three days. She told me to give you this." Seraphina Reed. The day I found out I was pregnant, my Mafia husband, Lorenzo, declared in front of the city's elite that our marriage was nothing but my "calculated scheme." I waited anxiously and helplessly for his explanation, but only received a taunting message from his secretary, Victoria. "Your husband isn't coming home tonight. Do you know why?" "Because he's with me, handling some… private business." At that moment, loving him so deeply I would have given him everything, I felt like the world's biggest joke. It turned out everyone thought I married him for money. They bet I would break, they bet I would cry, I would kneel and beg for a scrap of his love. But I didn't. I simply went back to the room, took off my wedding ring, and sealed it in an envelope along with my pregnancy report. Then, I left the cage that had trapped me for ten years. Later, he went crazy looking for me. He turned over every port, locked down every airport, and mobilized the entire family's power. He offered up everything he had, just to beg for my love.

When my Alpha mate, Logan noticed I hadn't submitted a single expense request in three days, he reached out to me on his own for the first time ever. "Baby, I've already approved the next phase of your wolf's healing. See? As long as you learn to behave, there's nothing I won't give you." His tone was still so affectionate, as if he were truly a good Alpha, worried sick over his mate. But he didn't know that as his "Baby" flashed across my phone screen, I had already finished drafting the agreement to sever our mate bond. Before I left, the only thing I could take with me was the old T-shirt I had worn when he marked me. No one would ever believe that the beloved Luna of the Blackmoon Pack, in the three years since our bonding ceremony, couldn't even scrape together five decent dresses of her own. Every household expense I incurred had to be approved by the Luna's seal, the very symbol of my power. "Sienna, managing the books is too tiring. It will wear you out." "Just let Chloe handle the tedious work with the seal. All you have to do is be beautiful, be my perfect Luna." And so, the Luna's seal, which should have been mine, became something I had to beg for from Chloe, the Alpha's secretary who was supposedly "handling the tedious work for me." Three days ago, my wolf was on the verge of collapsing. I cried and begged him for the two hundred thousand needed for an emergency intervention. But Chloe deliberately withheld the seal, delaying approval by claiming improper procedure. Finally, my already fractured wolf went completely silent in the depths of my soul. And with that, I was done with this Alpha, too.

When I was three years old, during a car accident, I was struck in the head by a car while trying to protect Mom. After that, the doctors said something inside my head had broken, and I'd never be quite right. Everyone back home called me the slow one. Late at night, I'd see her crying alone. On my seventh birthday, Mom took me to Manhattan, and that was when I discovered that she had a second home and another daughter, Charlotte. In front of strangers, she wouldn't claim me. She only let me call her Miss Eleanor. On the third night, She sat down at her vanity. On the table was a small black box. I thought it was a present. She opened the box and took out a black silicone bracelet, with a little light embedded in the clasp—small, dark, switched off. "This is called a TruthBand. It's something a company in California makes. The light turns green when you tell the truth, and red when you lie. If you wear this, Mommy will always know." She fastened it around my wrist. Tight. The little light blinked green. I thought that if I was good enough, she would love me the way she loved my sister. But then she made me do ski practice with Charlotte. Charlotte was a junior champion. "You're both my daughters. I don't play favorites. Whoever falls, gets punished." Charlotte never fell. I couldn't even keep my skis straight. Every single run, I was the one Mama dragged off the mountain and locked in the cellar. On Thanksgiving Day, Mama spent the whole afternoon cooking. I wanted to help. I dropped a bowl. She closed her eyes. When she opened them, they were red. She grabbed a little pill bottle off the counter, tipped my chin up, and forced something between my teeth. "Dumb as a rat. Are you happy now? Did you finally embarrass me enough? " I lay on the kitchen floor, gasping. While she wasn't looking, I scraped up three little pink pellets that had spilled and tucked them into my fist. Mommy, I told myself, I'll be good now, and then you'll be happy. Right?

Just one second before Alpha Daniel’s fated mark burned into my skin, a sharp voice pierced the air at the bonding ceremony. “Stop!” Jessica, Daniel’s first love, stumbled forward, her belly swollen. “Are you all really going to let this vicious woman become your Luna?” she cried, pointing at me with trembling hands. “She’s been torturing me for months! She poisoned my tea, left knives at my door, and tried to force me to abort Alpha’s pup!” My mind went blank at her sudden, fabricated accusations. “What? I didn’t—” Before I could finish, Jessica lunged toward me. Acting on instinct, I raised my arm to block her, but she collapsed heavily to the floor. “My pup!” she shrieked. “Daniel, look! She’s trying to hurt us again! Call the enforcers to arrest her!” In the next heartbeat, Daniel rushed forward, shielding Jessica in his arms without hesitation. He looked at me, his gaze cold and disappointed. “Rosie, why couldn’t you just behave? This pup is our pack’s heir!” Around us, the elders exchanged dark, knowing glances, silently condemning me. With no way to prove my innocence, I was sentenced to three years in the nightmare Silver Prison. Whips, hunger, endless violence… Eventually, I learned what Daniel really meant by “behave”. But why was he the one who regretted it?

Five years after I mated to Alpha Derek Blackwood, his childhood sweetheart broke her mate bond with another Alpha and returned to our pack. Even worse, I had depleted my life force saving Derek when he was mortally wounded, and now I was dying. In the less than six months I had left to live, I continued to play the role of Derek's good mate. Until I passed away. And Derek, after reading the journal I left behind, completely fell apart.

Seven days before our bonding ceremony, I overheard my mate joking with his friends. He had already moved our bonding from the snowfield altar I chose to the coastside grounds because Lyra liked the sea. But that was not the part that made them fall silent. What shocked them was that he had also prepared a Luna crown for her. One of them laughed nervously. “Changing the bonding site is one thing. Maybe Serena will forgive that. But the Luna crown? That’s different. For a woman, that crown means everything. Aren’t you afraid she’ll leave?” My mate only smiled, calm and certain. “It’s just a crown. Serena won’t care.” “She loves me. When has she ever refused me anything? She’s not going to throw a tantrum over something this small.” And for the first time, I realized he was right about one thing. I had loved him enough to forgive too much. But not anymore. So when the bonding day came and he stood at the coastside grounds calling for me again and again, I only watched the snow fall outside the window and thought: He was right. I did not make a scene. I did not demand an explanation. I just walked away without a word. He thought that meant it was nothing. He would only understand later that a woman who leaves in silence is not giving you another chance—she is leaving you with nothing but regret.

The night I confessed my love to my girlfriend, she wept so hard she could barely breathe. She said she had seen the future, and she wanted to make a promise with me. I asked her why. She only shook her head and said, "I don't remember… all I know is that in the future I regret something terribly. Frank, no matter what happens, you must give me three chances. Will you?" I was deeply in love with Agnes Grey, so I agreed without hesitation. But later, it was as if she had forgotten all about that night—forgotten it when she clung so intimately to her male assistant. Only then did I understand why she'd made me promise that all those years ago. Because the moment I signed my name on the divorce papers, I heard a familiar voice. It was Agnes at nineteen. Through her sobs, she pleaded, "Frank… you promised me, didn't you? You said you'd give me three chances."