Alpha's Regret The Luna He Left Behind novel Chapter 5

Chapter 5

Third–Person POV

Every head in the room turned at once.

Serena’s eyes narrowed. “Who are you?”

Jay Mercer dipped his chin and let out a quiet laugh.

“Just someone carrying out Ms. Genevieve’s wishes. I’m not what matters here.”

He held up the box.

“What’s inside is.”

The whole room leaned forward.

Every camera swung toward it.

“Open it then,” Derek said. “Let’s see what Genevieve left for Serena.”

Serena stepped forward fast.

“Don’t.” Her voice came out sharp. “Something this personal should be opened at home. In private.”

Russell shook his head slowly.

He stepped around her and lifted the box himself.

“You gave Genevieve a grand tribute in front of everyone.”

He pulled at the ribbon.

“Whatever she left you shouldn’t be hidden.”

The lid came off.

Inside, nestled in tissue paper, was a small USB drive.

Russell turned it over in his palm.

“Probably a final message. Something she recorded before the end.”

He walked to the chapel’s presentation table and plugged it in.

The large screen flickered.

Then it filled.

Page after page after page of documents.

The first page was a wall of chat logs.

Serena’s name.

The driver’s name.

A conversation laid out in full, every message timestamped and clean.

A plan.

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Written out in their own words.

The room went completely still.

The second page loaded.

Dashcam footage.

Technically restored, audio sharpened until every sound was crisp.

The crash.

The fire.

And then Sebastian’s voice, unmistakable, choosing.

Walking away from Genevieve’s door.

Pulling Serena out first.

Nobody breathed.

The third page.

Serena’s medical records.

Official letterhead.

A doctor’s signature.

And underneath, line by line, the analysis that tore it apart.

No heart condition.

Never had one.

The pills she swallowed every morning in front of the whole Silvercrest Pack were vitamins.

Just vitamins.

The silence that followed was the kind that has weight.

Then every single person in the room turned.

They looked at Serena.

They looked at Sebastian.

The color left both their faces at the exact same second.

Serena’s mouth opened.

“No. No, that’s not right. I didn’t set her up. I’m really sick. I have always been sick. I-”

Her hand flew to her chest.

She started breathing fast, shoulders heaving, fingers pressing in.

Nobody moved toward her.

Not Diane.

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Not Russell.

Not Derek.

Not even Sebastian.

The reporters didn’t lower their cameras.

They stepped closer.

One small voice floated up from somewhere in the crowd.

“Isn’t the heart on the left side?”

Serena’s eyes dropped.

Her hand was pressed flat against the right side of her chest.

The room exploded.

“It was all fake.”

A reporter’s voice cut through the noise.

Clarity Che Py

“No wonder that painting looked like something out of a nightmare. You don’t paint grief like that out of love for your sister.”

“She faked being sick for years?”

“She stole her sister’s mate and her work?”

“A future Luna? She’s a fraud-”

Diane shoved through the crowd and slapped Serena across the face so hard the sound cracked off the chapel

walls.

“You killed her.”

Her voice broke wide open.

“You killed my daughter. My daughter!”

Russell lunged forward and grabbed the painting – the devastating, technically flawless, stolen painting – and tore it straight down the middle with both hands.

Derek’s fist connected with Sebastian’s jaw before anyone saw him move.

“No wonder you never pushed for an investigation.”

His voice was raw and shaking.

“You knew. You knew exactly what happened and you left her in there.”

Sebastian shoved him back and swung.

“Don’t act righteous with me. You favored Serena your whole life.”

His Alpha aura flashed, sharp and unstable, rippling through the chapel.

“If you’d been in that car, you would’ve made the same call and you know it.”

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Derek’s eyes went red.

Clem I Crus #

For a second, the future Beta of Silvercrest looked ready to shift right there in the aisle.

The chapel dissolved into chaos.

Voices overlapping

Cameras clicking.

Somebody knocking over a flower arrangement.

The crash of something hitting the floor.

Blackthorne guards moved toward Sebastian.

Silvercrest members pulled Derek back.

And then-

A soft laugh.

It came from the screen.

Everyone stopped.

A woman sat in a chair wrapped in bandages, a small smile on her face, her voice quiet and completely steady.

“Hi, everyone. My name is Genevieve Sterling.”

The room went dead silent.

She spoke slowly.

No anger in her voice.

No trembling.

Just calm, the way someone sounds when they’ve already let something go.

She talked about her paintings.

The ones taken piece by piece, her name scraped off each one and replaced.

She talked about the years she put the brushes down because fighting felt pointless.

She talked about Christmas.

How every year, without fail, the gifts under the tree were for Serena.

She talked about Silvercrest Pack.

About being born Alpha–blood and still feeling like the stranger in her own home.

She talked about the fire.

About lying there in the wreckage, skin tearing, lungs filling, watching Sebastian walk away from her door.

“The flames got in everywhere,” she said.

Her voice didn’t waver.

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“In that moment, I wanted to die. I thought, why am I the one still fighting?”

A small pause.

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“But then I thought – why should I be the one to go? Why should I be the one who disappears quietly and leaves nothing behind?”

Her smile returned.

Soft.

Unhurried.

“I was given one more month. That was enough.”

Sebastian flinched.

One more month.

The words landed harder than any accusation.

He had known her wolf was gone.

He had not known she was dying.

Not when he told her she wasn’t fit to be his Luna.

Not when he chose Serena.

Not when he watched Genevieve sit alone in the corner of his wedding.

The screen held Genevieve’s face.

Then she tilted her head slightly toward the camera.

“Serena.”

The name landed gentle as a stone dropping into still water.

“You’ve wanted everything I had since we were children. My paintings My family. My chosen mate. My place as

Luna.”

A beat.

“I gave it all to you.”

Her eyes were clear.

“I hope it made you happy.”

The screen held her face for one more second.

Then it went dark.

The silence lasted exactly as long as it took for Serena to understand what had just happened.

The ten million dollars.

Given over freely.

The paintings, handed across without a fight.

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