The next afternoon, Rocco sat in his office, a mountain of untouched paperwork on his desk.
But he couldn’t focus on any of it.
The incident at the bar last night had spread through the entire pack.
The way everyone looked at him had changed.
“Alpha, Miss Clara’s flight information.” A knock on the door, and his Beta, Marcus, placed an itinerary on the desk.
Rocco mechanically took the paper, and his pupils contracted.
Destination: Silver Moon Pack Territory
Flight Time: 8:00 PM
Return: Three days later
His hand began to tremble slightly.
“She’s… she’s really going.” The words were scraped from his throat, raw and broken.
He knew exactly what this meant.
Caterina was truly becoming someone else’s Luna.
“Alpha…” Marcus watched his expression cautiously.
“Get out,” Rocco’s voice was raw. “I want to be alone.”
After Marcus left, the office fell into a dead silence.
Rocco stared at the itinerary as if he could burn a hole through it.
1
Returning in three days.
That meant after the ceremony, Clara would come back.
And Caterina… would never be coming back.
A suffocating pain spread from his chest.
He stood up, his steps unsteady.
Almost involuntarily, he walked toward Caterina’s office.
The moment he pushed the door open, her familiar scent of lavender washed over him.
Faint, but still there.
As if she had just left.
The desk was empty, the design plans all gone.
But her chair was still there, in the spot where she always sat.
Rocco slowly walked over and knelt before the chair.
He gently pressed his face against the backrest.
Closing his eyes, he took a deep breath.
*
1/3
As if, by doing so, he could hold her one last time.
“Caterina…” his voice echoed in the empty office. “I know you’ll never forgive me.”
“But… but I truly regret it.”
Tears fell silently.
“I should have woken up sooner. I should have realized sooner that you were my everything.”
He hugged the chair tightly, as if it were Caterina herself.
“But now,” he whispered to the empty room, “it’s too late.”
