He Chose Her, So I Refused to Become His Luna Chapter 06

Jasmine doesn’t leave.

She stands in the doorway of the nursery, tears streaming down her face.

“I didn’t know Rebecca was really going to leave.”

“You’re the ones who told me she was just throwing a fit. You’re the ones who told me to move in.”

William sits on the living room couch with his face buried in his hands, saying nothing.

At his feet lies the new pair of slippers he bought for Jasmine.

They’re pink, with a tiny kitten embroidered across the top.

He stares at them for a long time.

Then he suddenly thinks of Oreo.

Seven years ago, when Nathan and I find the kitten outside Pack territory, William is the one who complains

about it the most.

He always claims he doesn’t like pets.

Yet later, he secretly buys cans of cat food and brings them over every week.

Whenever I travel for work, he’s always the first to volunteer to feed Oreo.

But yesterday, he is the one who puts Oreo inside a cage at the boarding facility.

The cat keeps crying, its desperate meows grating on his nerves.

At the time, all he thinks about is how annoying the noise is.

He doesn’t even turn around to look at it.

Now William suddenly pulls out his phone and calls the boarding facility.

“Is the cat still there?”

The staff member is silent for a few seconds.

“The owner already picked it up.”

Then her voice turns noticeably displeased.

“She looked like she was in really bad shape. She stood outside holding the cat for a long time and nearly passed out.”

“If you’re listed as her family, how could you let her come here alone?”

William grips the phone.

For a long moment, he says nothing.

After the call ends, silence settles over the living room again.

Then Marcus finds a cardboard box in the storage cabinet that they never got around to throwing away.

Inside are several pregnancy journals and parenting books the four men bought at different times.

Their notes are still scattered across the pages.

Nathan has drawn three careful lines beneath a section about pregnancy precautions.

Henry copied every prenatal appointment into his calendar and even marked the phases of the moon.

William once complained that the baby’s nickname wasn’t good enough and seriously filled two entire pages

with name suggestions.

Marcus even prepared a schedule.

He said that once the baby was born, the four of them would take turns staying up at night. They would

never let me take care of the baby alone.

But after Jasmine returns to the Pack territory, those promises seem to vanish as if they never existed.

Nathan crouches down and picks up a medical report from the bottom of the box.

It’s the ultrasound from the first time they hear the baby’s heartbeat.

There’s a handwritten note in the bottom corner.

Nathan’s handwriting: [Daddy will protect you and Mommy.]

Nathan stares at the words.

His fingers slowly tighten around the paper until it trembles in his hand.

Henry suddenly stands.

“Where were the baby’s things taken?”

Marcus gives him the address of the waste transfer facility, and the four of them immediately get into their

cars.

But when they arrive, the staff checks the records and tells them the belongings have already been transferred for disposal.

All they can find in the corner is a crushed cloud–shaped lamp.

The shade is cracked, and the wiring has been torn apart.

Henry picks it up and holds it against his chest.

He stands beside the piles of discarded belongings for a long time without moving.

He remembers installing that lamp.

I was standing in the doorway with my barely showing belly, watching the four of them spend an entire afternoon struggling to put up a single light.

These four Alpha heirs normally can’t even tell a Phillips screwdriver from a flathead.

Yet they argue until their faces turn red, all because they want the lamp in the nursery to work properly.

Eventually, the light comes on.

I stand in the doorway, smiling.

“Do you think you’ll get annoyed with the baby after he’s born?”

They immediately compete with each other to promise me they never will.

But the baby hasn’t even been born yet, and they’re already blaming me for not being able to move on from losing him.

When they return to the Alpha House, an unfamiliar Volkswagen is parked in the driveway.

Jasmine’s father, Benjamin, the former Beta of the Pack, is standing beside it.

In just a few days, he looks ten years older.

He doesn’t greet them.

Instead, he hands Nathan a vehicle inspection report.

“The insurance company’s technicians took Jasmine’s car apart and inspected the entire system.”

“There was nothing wrong with the brakes.”

“She had her foot on the accelerator the entire time before the crash.”

All four men’s expressions change at once.

Deep down, they already know.

I told them before that Jasmine’s brake lights never came on, and the security footage from the scene clearly captured what happened.

They simply refused to believe it.

Nathan’s voice is hoarse.

“Ben, Jasmine said she’d been drinking. She told us she doesn’t remember what happened.”

Benjamin stares at him.

“She remembers. She just admitted that she saw Rebecca.”

“She was jealous because Rebecca was carrying your child. She wanted to scare her.”

“But she lost control of the car.”

William suddenly looks up, “Why is she admitting this now?”

Benjamin’s eyes turn completely red.

“Because she thought you’d protect her no matter what.”

The words leave the four men speechless.

Benjamin looks at them, his voice low and rough.

“My son saved your lives because he wanted you to survive.”

“Not so you could take his life and use it as an excuse to destroy the life of the woman who was supposed to become your Luna.”

His eyes fall on the broken cloud lamp.

“How is Rebecca’s dead child supposed to repay the debt for my son’s life?”

Nathan lowers his head.

The vehicle inspection report crumples in his fist.

They keep telling themselves that everything they’ve done is repayment for a life owed.

But from beginning to end, Benjamin’s family never asks them to sacrifice Rebecca.

No one forces them to take responsibility for Jasmine.

They choose Jasmine themselves.

Then, again and again, they wrap every hurt they inflict on Rebecca in the language of obligation, as if they had no choice.

Only now do they finally understand.

What they call repayment was never repayment at all.

They simply forced an innocent woman to pay the price for a debt she never owed.