The morning air was sharp, tasting of steel and silence.
Luna stood in the center of the training room, hair pulled back, knuckles wrapped in gauze. Damien stood beside her, arms folded, flanked by a man she hadn't seen before.
"This is Kade," Damien said. "He's ex-military, private sector now. He'll be your handler while I manage… other business."
Kade was tall, gruff, with eyes like winter. He didn't bother with a greeting just tossed her a pair of weighted gloves.
"Put those on," he said. "First rule: if you're still breathing, you're not done."
She slid the gloves on, fingers stiff. Her palms were already raw from the short warm-up she'd done alone.
The next hour was pain.
Push-ups until her shoulders screamed. Core drills until her stomach felt like it was tearing apart. Punches, blocks, dodges, again and again until the mat blurred beneath her feet.
But Luna didn't stop.
She'd died once already on the day they took her family, her name, her peace.
This was rebirth.
Kade grunted as she stumbled again on a jab combo. "Sloppy."
She snapped her head toward him. "I'm not a fighter."
He stepped closer. "You're not anything right now. You're just meat waiting to be carved. So start fighting like your life depends on it because it does."
Luna launched at the dummy, fists flying, her breath ragged. Every punch was a scream she didn't let out. Every jab, a memory of fire, sirens, and silence.
When Kade finally called for a break, her hands were shaking.
But she was still standing.
From the balcony above, Damien watched, unreadable.
Beside him stood a woman draped in silk and shadows Verena Wolf. His half-sister. Cold, elegant, and cruel.
"She's weak," Verena said. "She won't last a week."
"She's surviving," Damien replied. "Which is more than most."
Verena's lip curled. "She's a liability. You've already gone soft."
Damien didn't flinch. "She's a Cross. That bloodline doesn't break. It bends, sharpens, and eventually… it cuts."
Verena's eyes narrowed. "Just make sure it doesn't cut you."
Down below, Luna caught a glimpse of them watching.
For a second, their eyes met hers and Verena's.
Ice and fire.
Enemies written in fate.
She didn't look away.
Let them see her.
Let them doubt her.
Let them try to break her.
Because Luna Cross had finally decided something:
She wasn't here to survive.
She was here to take back everything.
The second half of training was worse.
Kade didn't speak much. He didn't need to. Every move he demonstrated was a silent challenge one Luna had to meet or fall flat.
She fell. More than once.
Her lip split open. Her ribs throbbed from where she'd missed a block. Her legs ached so badly she nearly collapsed just walking back to her room.
But she didn't cry.
She didn't scream.
She endured.
The walls of the Wolf mansion were colder now less prison, more battleground. She passed portraits of people she didn't recognize, eyes in gold frames watching her like ghosts. She hated them. Every smug, dead stare. Every reminder that this life, this war, wasn't one she chose.
As she pushed open her bedroom door, something slipped beneath her boot.
A letter.
No seal. No handwriting.
Just her name, printed in perfect block letters: Luna Cross.
Heart pounding, she unfolded it.
"The wolves are not the only ones watching.
The past is not buried.
And neither are you."
There was no signature. No explanation.
Only a small insignia at the bottom barely visible in the corner of the page.
A black rose.
Luna stared at it for a long moment, her mind spinning.
Who sent this?
And how had it gotten into her room through security, guards, and Damien's entire lockdown system?
She turned the page over. Nothing. No other clue.
Her stomach twisted, but not in fear. Not this time.
In resolve.
Someone was watching her. Testing her.
Let them.
She tucked the letter into the drawer beneath her bed.
Then she walked to the mirror and stared at herself bruised, bloodied, breathless.
Still standing.
She touched her lip, felt the sting of the split.
And smiled.
Just slightly.
The girl from before the university student, the daughter of ghosts she was gone.
In her place, a weapon was forming. Slowly, painfully. But real.
Tomorrow, she would train harder.
Tomorrow, she would bleed more.
And tomorrow, she would start looking for answers.
About the black rose.
About her father's secrets.
And about why she was really brought here because the closer she looked at Damien, the more she realized:
He wasn't just protecting her.
He was hiding something, too.
Night fell hard over the Wolf estate.
The moonlight leaked through the high arched windows like silver ink, painting long shadows on the marble floors. Luna sat on the edge of her bed, the letter with the black rose still clutched in her hand. Every instinct screamed that it wasn't just a warning.
It was a reminder.
She was being watched not just by Damien, or the mysterious Verena but by someone else. Someone who knew what the Wolf family was keeping buried.
She couldn't sleep. Not yet.
Her body protested with every step, muscles screaming from the day's brutal training. But her mind was sharper than it had been in weeks. Maybe ever.
She moved through the dark corridors like a ghost, careful not to draw the attention of the night guards. She needed air. Answers. Space to think.
But as she turned down a hallway she hadn't explored before, something made her pause.
A painting.
It hung on a wall of gray stone, nearly hidden between two tall shelves of antique books. A portrait of a man regal, with sharp green eyes and a cruel smile. A black rose embroidered on his suit collar.
Luna stepped closer, her breath catching in her throat.
She'd seen that smile once before. In a photo buried at the bottom of her mother's old box.
Her father's photo.
Only… this man wasn't Damien.
This wasn't a Wolf.
This was someone else entirely.
Beneath the frame, a small tarnished plaque read:
Dominic Cross Founding Partner, 1989.
Partner?
With who?
Luna's fingers curled into a fist.
They'd lied to her.
Damien, Verena, the entire Wolf empire—they hadn't just taken her in to protect her.
They'd brought her back to control her.
To hide something about the Cross name… and the truth about what her father really was.
She turned away from the painting, pulse racing.
If they thought she was just a broken girl desperate for a place to belong, they were wrong.
She wasn't here to be their pawn.
She was here to reclaim her legacy.
Even if she had to destroy them to do it.