Pursuing My Rejected Luna by Cara Anderson novel Chapter 280

ch.50

Noah

It’s two days later when we finally get our first break. Cole comes in mid-morning with a folder he’s holding and the look of a man who has found something he didn’t expect.

“Eastern correspondence cross-reference,” he says cryptically. “Administrative flagged something.”

He sets it on my desk almost reverently. I pick it up and read it. Then I read it again.

Cassandra-I know that’s who did this because that’s the only person it can be. I haven’t hired anyone else permanently, why would I when she can do it for free-has cross-referenced six weeks of eastern border correspondence against Ironwood’s internal administrative calendar, specifically the council meeting schedule, which is the information we log in the public-facing administrative record.

And the correlation is exact. The skirmishes don’t happen randomly within a window. They happen in a specific sub-window: the forty-eight hours following a logged council meeting. When leadership is occupied with internal governance, Reeves moves. When leadership is visibly free, he doesn’t.

Which means Reeves has either an inside source or someone watching our public administrative record closely enough to predict our occupied windows.

The analysis is clean. The methodology is sound. The conclusion is unambiguous once you see it-and you don’t see it unless you’re looking at the right two data sets simultaneously, which requires knowing which data sets to look at.

“She did this on her own?” I ask incredulously.

“Apparently.” Cole’s expression is the one he uses when he’s impressed against his better judgment. “She routed it to me rather than bringing it to you directly.”

I don’t respond to that last part. Of course she wouldn’t bring it to me. Would I have even bothered to look at it if she had? Taken it seriously? She knew I wouldn’t. If Cole hadn’t already reviewed it and found it noteworthy, I wouldn’t have given it a second thought.

It;s definitely relevant.

And, fuck me, Now I’m going to have to thank her directly.

“This helps, man. It helps a lot.” Cole rambles on, oblivious to my inner turmoil. “We can finally get ahead of him.”

“Yeah,” I answer half-heartedly. “Yeah, we can.”

That door in the back of my mind cracks open again but I slam it closed. I’m not opening it. Not now.

I made a decision four days ago and I’m not complicating it three days later just because one time Piper seemed uninterested in the welfare of the pack while Cassandra was busy analyzing a threat pattern that I’d been searching for for days and couldn’t see. That’s not a basis for anything. People have different strengths. That’s the ordinary fact of human difference, not a sign from the universe about my choice.

I close that door hard and go back to work.

“So what’s the plan?” Cole nudges me again. “How are we going to use this information to our advantage?”

“We’re going to organize our entire response around it.” The words come easy as my mind fills with ideas. “We’ll adjust the council meeting schedule-randomize it so the pattern Reeves has been exploiting no longer exists.

And we’ll change what goes into the public administrative record. The window Reeves has been watching will close completely. But keep our men ready to respond on the original dates…”

“In case he’s frustrated by the change and decides to go through with the attacks anyway.” Cole finishes for me. “Good idea. I’ll

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Ch. 50

+15 Bonus

run it through the council, and the eastern boundary feam.

By the end of day, I finally feel like we’ve gotten somewhere, like I can take a break. And I have Cassandra to thank for it.

Our plan is demonstrably better than any we’ve had up to now. Her analysis changed the entire strategic shape of what we’re doing. That’s the quality of good intelligence work: it doesn’t just add information, it reframes what the information means.

I think-briefly, just briefly, a thought I’m having and not following-about what Ironwood needs in a crisis like this. What a Luna needs to be, for this specific pack with this specific territory and this specific kind of threat. What it looks like when someone engages with the entire pack’s security in mind rather than just being present and supporting the Alpha.

On my way to the council chamber, I pass the administrative office. The light is on. She’s in thère-I can see her through the glass, at her desk, working on something. Late enough that she’s the last one there. Her head is down, the focused posture of someone in the middle of a task.

I stop, just for a moment. Outside the door.

I could go in. Say something about the analysis. Acknowledge it. The internal record will have the credit noted but she doesn’t know that–she routed it through Cole and got nothing back, not a word from me.

I don’t go in, go straight to the council chamber instead. I tell myself I’ll thank her later. I don’t have time right now.

The meeting runs two hours. When I come back, the administrative office light is off. She’s gone.

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