After Rejection Divorced Luna Becomes A Famous Doctor (Hailey and Dominic) novel Chapter 199

CHAPTER HUNDRED-FIFTYSIX

CHAPTER HUNDRED-FIFTYSIX

HAILEY

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“We’re going to watch her,” I said, my gaze sweeping over each of them. “We’re going to find out. who she’s working with, what her endgame is. We’re going to find a crack in her armor, a weakness we can exploit. We’re going to need to be smart, patient, and ruthless.”

“I’m in,” Valerie said, her voice firm, her eyes filled with a cold, hard light. “Whatever it takes.”

“Me too,” Giovanni said, his jaw tight. “I’ve got your back.”

Liam, sensing the tension in the room, looked up from his cookies. “Is everything okay, Mommy?”

I reached over and ruffled his hair, a forced smile on my face. “Everything is fine, sweetie. The

grown ups are just making a plan.”

“A plan to fight the bad guys?” he asked, his eyes wide with excitement.

“Something like that,” I said, my heart aching at the innocence in his eyes. I would do whatever it took to protect that innocence, to protect him from the darkness that was threatening to encroach

on our lives.

Later that night, after we had tucked Liam into bed Dominic and I stood on the back deck, looking out at the moonlit forest. The air was cool, the sound of crickets a gentle hum in the background.

“I’m scared, Dom,” I admitted, my voice barely a whisper. “I’m scared for our family, for our pack.”

“I know,” he said, pulling me into his arms. “Me too. But we’re not alone in this. We have each other, and we have our family. We’ll get through this. Together.”

I leaned my head against his chest, listening to the steady beat of his heart. He was right. We were not alone. And we would get through this. Together

The next few days were a tense, surreal blend of normalcy and paranoia. We went about our daily lives, Dominic overseeing pack business, me at the hospital, Valerie and Giovanni adjusting to life with a newborn, but there was a constant undercurrent of unease. We were all on high alert, our senses heightened, our eyes and ears open for any sign of Yasmine.

And then, she appeared.

She didn’t make a grand entrance. There was no fanfare, no dramatic confrontation. She just… showed up. I was walking through the town square on my way to grab a coffee, when I saw her. She was sitting at a table outside a small cafe, a book in her lap, a cup of tea steaming in front of her. She looked… normal. Harmless. Like a woman enjoying a quiet afternoon.

She saw me, and a small, knowing smile touched her lips. She didn’t wave, didn’t call out. She just watched me, her gaze a direct, unflinching challenge.

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I held her gaze for a long moment, my expression unreadable. I would not let her see me sweat. I

would not let her see the fear and anger that churned inside me. I gave her a small, tight nod,

before continuing on my way, my stride steady and purposeful.

She was playing a game, a dangerous game of cat and mouse. And I was done being the mouse.

Soon, she would realize that I was the cat. And I had claws.

It started subtly, the way an infection starts in a tiny unnoticed cut. A whisper here, a sidelong

glance there. At the grocery store, a pack mother who usually greeted me with a warm smile

pulled her child away with a sharp word. At the hospital, two nurses I’d known for years stopped

talking as I walked by, their guilty eyes telling me everything. The whispers were seeds of doubt

Yasmine was planting, and they were taking root in the fertile soil of fear and sentimentality.

“She’s just so sad,” a young wolf named Chloe said to her friend as I passed them in the hospital cafeteria. I didn’t break my stride, but my wolf bristled inside me. “To lose her mother like that, and

then to be cast out like a criminal when all she wants is to come home. The Luna seems so cold

about it. How could she be so wicked to a grieving daughter? I heard that they almost sent her out

if it weren’t for the council’s intervention.”

Cold. The word was a stone in my gut. They saw me, their Luna, as the villain in this twisted

narrative. Yasmine was the tragic heroine, and I was the cruel obstacle to her happiness.

She had managed to twist the story so quickly, so efficiently. She had turned my strength into coldness, my protectiveness into cruelty. I knew then that this was her real plan. She was creating a divide in the pack, turning them against me, against Dominic. A pack divided is a weakened

pack. And a weakened pack is a vulnerable one.

“She’s isolating us,” I said to Dominic that night, my voice tight. We were in our home office, the

door closed, the world shut out. “She’s not just trying to get back in. She’s trying to take over.”

“I know,” he said, his face grim. He was rubbing his temples, a deep line etched between his brows. “I’ve had reports. Pack members questioning my judgment, asking why I’m being so ‘hard’ on her. They don’t see the threat. They see a repentant woman trying to rebuild her life.”

“Because that’s what she wants them to see,” I said pacing the room. “She’s a master manipulator,

Dom. She’s playing the long game.”

“She’s playing them like a fiddle,” he agreed. “And the council is her orchestra. They’re so blinded by their stupid sense of forgiveness they can’t see they’re handing a loaded gun to a known murderer.”

Murderer. The word hung in the air between us, heavy and unspoken until now. We didn’t know it for sure, but it was the only thing that made sense. Her mother was dead, and the journals were gone. It was too perfect, too clean. Yasmine had covered her tracks, but she couldn’t erase the

stench of her crime.

III

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