Underwater: The Silent Luna novel Chapter 113

Chapter 113

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Brian joined them soon after and sat at the back, exhausted and bloodied, though thankfully not fatally injured. Outside, the rest of the

men were left to manage the dead and the damage. There would be no pretty ending to this day. They would have to dig a ditch and do a mass burial. Luna Amber had banned burning corpses, so burial it would be. Joseph had no energy to think about whether that mercy was

deserved by the wolves who had just tried to destroy them.

Adam got behind the wheel. Joseph took the passenger seat.

For a few moments, none of them spoke. The silence in the cab felt heavy, full of the battle they had just survived and the questions it

had left behind. Then Joseph turned slightly.

“How did it start, Brian?”

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Brian dragged in a breath and let it out slowly before answering. He was not just Joseph’s Gamma. He was his friend. That made the look

on his face harder to ignore. It was anger, yes. But there was something else too. Humiliation maybe. The bitterness that came from

realising danger had been closer than expected.

“We were on patrol because we traced a scent at the scene of Alan Wilde’s murder to this place. It was faint, but our trackers were able to

pick it up. Whoever attacked and killed the man came from this direction, it seemed.”

Joseph listened, his expression hardening.

“What I did not understand then was why we did not pick the scent earlier. I was just stupid.”

Brian sighed after saying it, disgusted with himself,

“We came to investigate further when suddenly we were ambushed.”

Joseph turned that over carefully. Alan Wilde’s murder. A scent leading this way. The border. Ambush. It was too neat now that he stepped

back from the battle. Too convenient.

“Who did you tell before coming here?” Joseph asked.

He needed to know whether someone snitched, whether information leaked, or whether the scent itself had been left as bait from the

beginning.

“Some of the men that betrayed us,” Brian said.

Then he added the names.

“Oscar and Luis.”

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Chapter 113

Joseph’s jaw tightened.

“How long did it take for you to get here after you had informed them?”

“About two hours.”

And there it was.

Joseph understood at once that it was both.

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There was no way Primewood pack members, if it had truly been them, could have responded on such short notice unless they had already

been waiting nearby. The attackers had been lurking around the place ahead of time. Lying in wait. Ready to spring. And that meant the

scent was almost certainly a trap. That also meant someone inside Whitewood had helped walk Brian straight into it.

Joseph thought back to the murder scene.

It was weird, in hindsight, that a scent connected to Alan Wilde’s death would still be lingering in a useful way after enough time had

passed. Too useful. Too miraculous.

“Let me guess. Oscar picked this miraculous scent.”

Brian gave a humourless nod.

“Yes, Alpha.”

Joseph sighed and leaned back slightly, fury and clarity colliding in him at once.

“The cancer is from within.”

The words came out flat and cold.

That was what this was. Not only an attack from outside, but rot from the inside. Something had gotten into Whitewood’s bones.

“We need to investigate our men. Henceforth we only use information that we find independently and do not run anything by any lower

rank officer. I do not know why another pack would be trying to use Alan Wilde’s death to get us, but we have to be vigilant.”

Both men agreed. There was no room for argument there.

Joseph kept thinking though. He could not help it. He also could not shake the detail Brian mentioned earlier, the one tied to Ethan’s

absence. That part bothered him in a different way. The attackers had said something about Ethan not being home. That meant his

brother’s absence mattered to them. It was not incidental. It was part of the timing.

“What did they say about Ethan?”

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Chapter 113

Brian’s face changed,

“That was what baffled me the most.”

He scrubbed a hand over his face before continuing.

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“Oscar said when a crippled, useless Alpha leaves his pack in the care of an incompetent one, the wolves come to the feast. They said they

want an active Alpha.”

The words landed like poison in the tight space of the truck.

Joseph went still.

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12:00 Wed, Jun 17

Underwater: The Silent Luna