Underwater: The Silent Luna novel Chapter 135

Chapter 135

The difficulty of it settled over Joseph at once. His mother would not budge easily, not while Cain’s killer remained unpunished, not while the family still carried old wounds, not while Ethan’s condition remained part of the reality of their lives. Amber held grief and responsibility in the same fist. Joseph doubted she would let herself walk away from either.

Still, Levi was asking in earnest.

“I doubt she would listen, but I will try.”

Levi thanked him, and there was something genuine in that gratitude too. It made Joseph feel a little guilty for nearly swinging ht

him moments earlier. A little. Not much.

Levi stood from the chair and this time his gaze shifted to the surface of Joseph’s desk. He seemed only now to really notice the mess spread across it. The documents. The open file. The evidence of a man who had been carrying too much without pause.

“I know I am not your father, and I can’t replace Cain, but I have been in both you and your brother’s lives long enough for you to

know I mean well.”

Joseph looked up at him. That line landed somewhere quieter than the rest. Not because it fixed anything, and not because Joseph suddenly felt warmth where there had been distance, but because Levi had named the thing plainly. He knew what he was not. He knew whose place he could never take. At least he had enough sense not to pretend otherwise.

“I see you are working very hard, Joseph and I must commend you for it but try to live a little.”

Joseph said nothing. Levi continued, and the office seemed to still itself around his voice.

“I love your mother, so I never got to rest a day for the time I was holding the forte for Ethan. I do not want you to live in a way that your life will fly by quickly. Try to live a little. You have a beautiful fiancée, and she is expecting. Do not allow Alpha work to drown you. Ethan has learned that, so he has taken his wife on vacation. I think you should find the time to do that too. Your father used to when I was his beta. And I would hold the forte for him until he and your mother returned from their vacation.”

Joseph listened, quieter now than he had been at any point since Levi entered. Some of the words he might have rejected if they came from anyone else. Some he nearly rejected just because they came from Levi. But there was enough truth in them that he

could not dismiss them entirely.

The pack could consume a man. Joseph already knew that. He had seen it in Cain. He had seen it in Ethan. He felt the early shape of it in himself now. Every task led to another. Every decision opened into three more. The work did not end. It only waited. And while it waited, life moved. Wives waited. Children grew. Pregnancies advanced. Mornings vanished. Months disappeared. A man could convince himself he was doing the noble thing by giving everything to the pack and then wake up to realise he had missed what

mattered most.

Levi’s voice gentled further.

“Adam and Brian will support you, but you must live a little, or this job will consume you. It will make you miss out on the

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Chapter 135

important moments in your life, and there is nothing you will be able to do to get them back. Please do not be offended by my

words; I mean well.”

That last line mattered because Joseph had spent the first half of the conversation being offended. But now he only nodded.

“I will take your advice into consideration.”

He meant it enough for the words to be honest, though not enough to promise action. Taking advice into consideration cost little. Following it was another thing entirely.

Levi nodded in return, and perhaps the room might have softened further after that if Cynthia had not appeared at the door.

The office door was already open, so she knocked on the frame lightly to announce herself. The sound drew both men’s eyes. She stood there with visible nervousness and an uncertain smile, as though she had dressed for confidence but could not fully wear it once she arrived. Her gaze landed first on Levi. She smiled at him, and he returned it, though his smile had a sharper edge than

hers.

“I can’t believe you returned.”

Cynthia’s expression held for a second too long before she shaped it into something like grace. Shame flickered there too. She had probably heard versions of that sentence from many people since coming back. Not a welcome. A reminder. A jab with a smile

attached.

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Underwater: The Silent Luna