Rise Of A Shattered Luna (Natalie) by Kave Derry novel Chapter 369

10:36 am P p pp.

Chapter 369 The Broken Vanguard

Chapter 369 The Broken Vanguard

Baron’s POV

“Flynn.”

No answer.

+10 Free Coins

I waited. One second. Then another.

The only response was the steady, rhythmic ticking of the grandfather clock in the corner of the study and the low, heavy hum of the heating unit struggling against the sudden drop in temperature outside.

My fingers curled slowly at my sides.

“Flynn.”

He was gone.

I already knew why.

The moment she reclaimed the identity that had been stolen from her, the balance shifted.

I had spent years believing I was the one person capable of protecting her, constructing an elaborate fortress of security protocols and misdirection.

But the truth had been standing beside me the entire time, quiet and waiting.

The moment she walked away out that heavy front door, Flynn followed.

I lowered my gaze to the desk.

The realization carried a strange, clinical cruelty. I understood it. And I hated that I understood it.

My own family had left.

The house suddenly felt too large. Too quiet.

The high ceilings, designed to project authority and wealth, now only served to amplify the silence.

I forced my shoulders back into position.

A lifetime of discipline refused to let me collapse into the leather armchair behind me.

Not here. Not in the room where she had looked me in the eye and dismantled every justification I had spent half a decade manufacturing.

I reached inside rny coat and removed my communication terminal.

The device recognized my biometric signature, flickering awake beneath my thumb with a dull blue glow that cut through the dimness of the room.

For a moment, I stared at the screen.

1/7

10:36 am P ppp.

Chapter-369 The Broken Vanguard

+10 Free Coins

There were dozens of channels I could activate with a single tap. Security details. Estate command. External assets. Every resource Blackridge had built over generations.

None of them mattered.

I bypassed every official network. Every recorded frequency. Every channel that carried my title.

Instead, I opened the one line that existed outside the World I controlled, a hidden satellite connection, a ghost path. The kind of channel you created when you needed the truth to travel without leaving a digital footprint.

The signal struggled, fighting against the heavy stone walls of the estate.

Static.

Interference.

Then, a voice answered.

“Baron,”

Shannon. 2

Her tone was sharp immediately. No greeting. No softness. She already knew something had happened.

“The maritime records are collapsing,” she said, her voice tight over the encrypted channel. “The Leviathan’s movement triggered every border watcher along the coast. I spent the last hour burying the trail, but the signatures are messy.”

I leaned against the edge of the heavy mahogany desk, the wood cool against my palms.

“Where is she?”

A pause.

“You already know.”

My jaw tightened.

“Say it.”

“She’s with her parents.”

The words landed quietly in the empty study.

They still felt like a weapon.

I closed my eyes, the image of Natalie packing her small leather bag flash-frying my retinas.

“Natalie is gone,” !imurmured.

୮

“No,” Shannon’s response was immediate, cutting through the self-pity before it could take root. “She’s not gone.”

A bitter breath escaped me, catching in my throat.

2/7

10:36 am P p p p

Chapter-369 The Broken Vanguard

“She teft, Shannon. She walked right out of the house.”

“Because you gave her areason to

The statement was simple.

Cruel but accurate.

My fingers tightened around the casing of the communicator until the glass groaned under the pressure.

“You don’t know what I was trying to prevent.”

+10 Free Coins

“I know exactly what you were trying to prevent,” her voice hardened, losing its digital flatness. “You were trying to stop the council from finding her.”

“Yes.”

“You were trying to keep Sean and Susie safe.”

“Yes.”

“You were trying to protect the woman you loved.”

Silence stretched between us, heavy and suffocating.

Then Shannon delivered the final blow.

“And somehow, Baron, you convinced yourself that meant she didn’t deserve the truth.”

I looked down.

The polished wood of the floor reflected the amber light of the desk lamp.

Everything looked pristine.

Everything looked like it belonged to a man who had won.

Except the rooms were empty, and the air smelled faintly of the jasmine perfume she had left on the vanity upstairs.

“I made a choice,” I said.

“No,” Shannon corrected me. “You made a decision for someone who had the right to make it herself.”

My throat tightened, the collar of my shirt suddenly feeling restrictive.

“You know what would’ve happened if I hadn’t stepped in.”

“I do,” her voice lowered a fraction. “I know exactly what those people would’ve done. If they discovered Natalie’s lineage five years ago, they would’ve hunted her across every sector. They would’ve taken her children before she even had the chance to. understand what they were. I don’t dispute the danger, Baron.”

“Then why are you acting like I was wrong?”

“Because your reason was understandable,” she paused, letting the silence hang. “But your method destroyed the very thing you

10:36 am P p pp.

Chapter-369 The Broken Vanguard

+10 Free Coins

were trying to save.”

I looked away from the terminal, staring toward the darkened window that overlooked the manicured gardens below.

The words struck because they carried no hatred.

Only the cold, unyielding weight of truth.

Shannon continued, relentless.

“You watched her suffer.”

My eyes closed.

“You watched her blame herself for things she couldn’t control.”

“Every night,” I whispered to the empty room.

The memories came without permission, flooding the dark spaces of my mind.

Natalie’s pain during those long winter nights.

Her frantic, desperate questions.

Her fear that she was losing her mind.

And every single time she looked to me for answers…

I had stayed silent.

“You let her believe the monster was somewhere out there,” Shannon’s voice dropped to a near-whisper. “When you were standing right beside her.”

The silence afterward was unbearable because I had no defense left.

No argument.

No calculation.

No strategy.

Only the image of her face when she finally put the pieces together in this very room.

The look that hurt more than anger.

The look of someone who loved me and realized they couldn’t recognize me anymore.

“Where is Yvonne?”

The question escaped before I could stop it, an instinctual pivot back to logistics, back to variables I could still manipulate.

Shannon went quiet for three long seconds.

“Still searching for an escape route?”

4/7

10:36 am Pppp.

Chapter 369 The Broken Vanguard

+10 Free Coins

“No,” my voice hardened, reclaiming a fraction of its former authority. “Her network was supposed to protect the northern trail. She had contingency plans for an emergency evacuation.”

“Had.”

The past tense bothered me.

“What happened?”

Shannon exhaled, a ragged sound over the line.

“The moment Natalie stepped into public view at the terminal, every one of Yvonne’s proxy systems collapsed.”

I frowned, stepping away from the desk.

“Collapsed? She has triple-redundant servers in the outer rim.”

“Vanished,” Shannon clarified.

A cold feeling moved through my chest, distinct from the chill of the room.

“Explain.”

“I can’t. There are no logs. No exit trail. No final transmission. It’s like someone pulled the plug from the inside. She disappeared, Baron.”

The study seemed to grow colder.

Yvonne didn’t disappear without a reason.

Not unless she wanted to.

Or unless someone forced her hand.

Behind me, down the long corridor, a weak impact echoed from the lower levels of the house, the secure holding area beneath the wine cellar.

Jensen.

I turned my head slightly toward the sound, though I didn’t move.

His voice, carried through the internal intercom, on the desk, was barely audible, a raspy thread of sound.

“Baron…”

I didn’t respond.

Not because I couldn’t hear him, but because I had no space left for another problem.

Jensen was a prisoner of circumstance now, a remnant of a conflict that had already moved past him.

Everything that mattered had already walked out the front door.

Shannon spoke again, her voice snapping me back to the terminal.

Γ

5/7

10:36 am P p pp.

Chapter 369 The Broken Vanguard

+10 Free Coins

“Baron.”

“She’s taking the children north, said, my voice quieter now, the reality settling into my bones. “Back to the wandering lanes. She told me before she left… she said the door was closed.”

Shannon didn’t argue.

She didn’t try to soften it or offer false hope about time healing wounds.

Instead, she said:

“Then accept that.”

My fingers froze.

“She isn’t a prisoner you can retrieve with a tactical squad, Baron. She’s not a problem to solve. She’s Natalie. And she has chosen.”

The communicator crackled with low-level atmospheric interference.

“Shannon.”

“Yes?”

My voice almost failed me, catching like dry ash.

“What happens now?”

For once, the smartest operative I knew didn’t answer immediately

When she finally spoke, her voice carried a profound, heavy pity/

“Now you live with the truth you were so desperate to hide.”

The line went silent.

The connection ended with a soft click.

I remained standing there, alone in the center of the study.

The automated security system on the wall continued flashing its low-intensity status light.

Amber.

Then darkness.

Amber.

Then darkness.

Like the slow, fading heartbeat of something dying in the walls.

The estate had survived.

Blackridge still stood.

6/7

10:36 am Pppp.

Chapter-369 The Broken Vanguard

My titte still existed, intact and feared across the territories.

My power remained absolute within these boundaries.

But the one thing I had never considered losing…

was already gone.

+10 Free Coins

My family had walked into the fog, leaving behind a house that was no longer a home, just a collection of expensive rooms and heavy locked doors.

And for the first time in my life, I had no army large enough to bring them back.

717

10:36 am P P P P