The 30-Day Severance, Revenge Before I Leave Chapter 05

The 30-Day Severance, Revenge Before I Leave Chapter 05

Martha disappeared on the seventh morning.

At first, I thought Carl had called her to the packhouse.

Then the tea went cold on the nursery table, and the corridor outside my door stayed empty for too long.

North Ridge had many kinds of silence.

This one had teeth.

I held Mia against my chest and stood beside the window. Two cars were parked beyond the gates. The men beside them wore Silvermoon coats and kept their hands near their weapons.

Carl’s enforcers.

Martha had been caught.

My first thought was not fear.

It was shame.

She had come for my mother. For Mia. For the last piece of loyalty this house still had left.

And now Carl had her.

By noon, the old landline in the hall rang.

No one used that phone anymore.

I let it ring three times before answering.

Carl’s voice came through, low and controlled.

“Elena.”

I said nothing.

Behind him, someone cried out.

Martha.

My hand tightened around the receiver.

Carl exhaled softly.

“You have always been sentimental. That is your weakness.”

“What did you do to her?”

“I asked what she gave you.”

“And?”

“She is more loyal than I expected.”

There was a pause.

Then Carl’s voice cooled.

“But loyalty breaks. Bones break faster.”

My wolf slammed against my ribs.

For one bright, violent second, I wanted to give him everything.

The locket.

The blood veil.

The truth.

Anything to stop Martha from suffering because of me.

I closed my eyes.

And memory betrayed me.

Carl at nineteen, standing in the rain beneath my window because I was sick and too stubborn to call him.

Carl on our claiming night, pressing his forehead to mine and promising Silvermoon would be my home.

Carl holding my hand after we lost our first pup, whispering that I was still enough.

That man had existed once.

Or maybe I had invented him because I needed someone to love.

“Come back to the packhouse,” Carl said. “Bring Mia. We can still handle this quietly.”

Quietly.

Of course he wanted it quiet.

He wanted my pain quiet. My anger quiet. My daughter’s blood taken behind closed doors, with no one outside hearing enough to care.

Mia shifted against me, her tiny hand slipping free of the blanket to brush my throat, warm and impossibly small.

Her breath touched my skin, and I came back to myself.

“No,” I said.

Carl went still on the other end.

“Elena.”

“You may break Martha,” I said. “But you will not make me hand you my daughter.”

The silence changed.

For the first time, Carl understood I was not bargaining.

His voice dropped.

“Then you are choosing war.”

“No, Carl. You chose it at the Winter Solstice.”

I hung up.

Then I moved.

There were three things left in North Ridge that could expose us.

The ash from Martha’s burned note.

The silver needle I had used to wake Mia’s blood.

And the old nursery mirror, which had reflected the locket’s glow the night I hid her source.

I swept the ashes from the hearth into a bowl and carried them to the back garden, where the snow was deepest. I buried them beneath the frozen roses.

The needle went into the kitchen fire until it bent red and soft.

The mirror was last.

I stood before it with Mia in one arm and a fireplace poker in the other.

For a moment, I saw myself as Carl must have seen me.

Pale.

Tired.

Barefoot in a cold house.

A discarded Luna with a newborn in her arms.

Then Mia’s silver-gray eyes opened in the reflection.

Not weak.

Not erased.

Waiting.

I swung the poker.

Glass shattered across the floor.

The hidden glow in the mirror died at once.

When Selina arrived that evening, I was cleaning the nursery.

She came without knocking, wrapped in white fur, her face bright with the kind of pity that was only another form of cruelty.

“Elena,” she said softly. “Look at you.”

I kept sweeping glass into the dustpan.

Her eyes moved around the room.

To the crib.

To the fireplace.

To my wrist, where the silver mark sat hidden beneath my sleeve.

“You should stop making this so hard,” she said. “Leo is Carl’s son. The pack needs him.”

“The pack needs a child who can survive without stealing from mine.”

Her smile trembled, then returned sharper.

“Mia is a girl. You know how the elders are. Even if Carl registered her, she would never be what Leo can be.”

I looked up.

Selina’s smile faded.

“You still don’t understand,” I said.

Her chin lifted.

“Understand what?”

“You think this is about which child Carl loves more.”

For a second, she looked uncertain.

I stepped closer, holding the dustpan full of broken glass.

“It isn’t. Carl doesn’t love Leo either. He loves what Leo gives him.”

Selina’s face went white.

“That’s not true.”

“You already know it is.”

She slapped me.

The sound cracked through the nursery.

My cheek turned hot.

Mia woke and began to cry.

That was Selina’s mistake.

My wolf rose, cold and clean.

I set the dustpan down, picked Mia up, and let the full weight of my Luna blood enter the room.

Selina stumbled back.

I did not raise my voice.

“Touch me again in front of my daughter, and I will forget you were ever my friend.”

Her throat worked.

For once, she had no performance ready.

No sweet voice.

No wounded eyes.

Only fear.

I moved to the door and opened it.

“Go home, Selina. Hold your son while you still can.”

She stared at me.

“What does that mean?”

I looked at her carefully.

At the woman who had handed me drugged water.

At the friend who had smiled from a hospital bed while my world split open.

At the mother who still believed Carl’s ambition could become love if she fed it enough blood.

“It means Carl’s promises expire faster than you think.”

Selina left without another word.

That night, I sat beside Mia’s crib and listened to wolves howl beyond the northern woods.

Martha did not return.

I grieved her before I knew whether she was dead.

Then I opened the locket and checked the blood veil one last time.

Mia’s true source slept beneath the silver, hidden and whole.

The mark on my wrist read:

23 days.

I kissed my daughter’s forehead.

“Let them come,” I whispered.