Underwater: The Silent Luna novel Chapter 207

Chapter 207

Ethan’s recovery was a very welcomed development, and because it mattered so much, they would have to keep it under wraps. Joseph repeated that to himself until the guilt quieted a little.

The rest of the ride was quiet.

When they got to the mansion, they noticed the corpses had been removed. That should have made the place feel better, but it did not. The absence of bodies did not remove what had happened there. The ground remembered. The walls remembered. Joseph remembered. He could still see the fight in flashes. The blood. The panic. The bodies hitting the floor. The feeling of being surrounded, cornered, forced to choose between pride and lives he could not let be lost.

Even without the corpses, the battle still played in both their heads. Adam’s face was hard, his silence heavy. Joseph knew his beth was seeing it too. Both of them were grateful to the goddess for their lives. They were lucky to remain alive because Sebastien and Cynthia had not come to frighten them. They had planned a total wipeout. That truth sat cold in Joseph’s stomach. If things had shifted even slightly differently, if Amber, Levi, Ashley, Adam, or Joseph had fallen in the wrong order, if Joseph had refused to sign that day could have ended with far more bodies than the ones already removed.

“Are you going home or going to stay at the mansion today?” Joseph asked Adam while alighting the vehicle at the entrance.

“I think I should stay,” Adam said.

Joseph nodded. He had expected that answer. Adam wanted to be around in case another problem ensued, and Joseph was grateful for it. His beta had a room in the mansion, so he opted to stay there. It made sense. Nothing about that night felt stable enough for everyone to scatter back to their usual places and pretend the pack was still functioning like before.

Joseph returned to his room and went to shower. He moved almost mechanically at first. He closed the door, took off his clothes, stepped under the water, and for a moment he just stood there. Then the water touched his head, and everything he had been

holding in rose at once.

He did not know how much he was carrying until that moment. The hot water ran over him, down his face, over his shoulders, but it could not wash anything away. Everything that happened played in his mind. The attack. Sebastien’s face. Cynthia’s betrayal. Ashley’s lie. Dr Rosenberg’s hurt. Dr James’s confession. Ethan coming home too soon after surgery. His mother behind glass, hooked to a machine, her body fighting a battle she had hidden from them.

His mother’s health was the most heart-wrenching.

Joseph leaned one hand against the bathroom wall and bowed his head. He was not happy with her for keeping it from them. That anger came with the grief, and he hated himself for it even though he knew it was fair. She had no right to keep that from them. She had no right to let them walk around blind while she counted her remaining time alone. She had no right to put that secret on Meadow and Dr Rosenberg and keep her sons outside the truth like children who could not handle pain.

He wondered when she would have told them. At what point would Amber have decided they deserved to know? When she could no longer stand? When her body turned yellow and weak? When she collapsed? When there were weeks left? Days? Or never?

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Chapter 207

Somehow, Joseph knew she would not have told them. She might have spent the two years she had in silence simply because she did

not want them to worry. That sounded like her. Proud. Stubborn. Loving in a way that hurt people because she believed she knew

what they could bear better than they did. She would have kept scolding them, pushing them, arranging their lives, and pretending everything was fine until her body betrayed her loudly enough that the secret could no longer be hidden.

Joseph thought of everything and went to bed. He did not sleep immediately. He lay there staring into the dimness of his room

listening to the house settle around him. He was grateful that it was not over and that they had another chance. That was what he

forced himself to focus on. Amber was not dead. Ethan was alive and recovering. Dr Rosenberg had offered a possible solution.

Whitewood had not truly been surrendered because Joseph had signed the wrong name. Their enemies had won the surface, but no

the heart of it. Not yet.

While he lay in bed, he wondered how Sebastien could pull off something of that magnitude. The question had been there from he

start, but now that the immediate panic had eased slightly, it grew sharper. Deep down, Joseph knew Sebastien could not gather that

much followership and might on his own. It did not make sense. Sebastien had been packless. His main issue had been survival,

position, and status. Why would he come for Whitewood after just taking over Ceenas? Why take over two powerful packs in the

region so quickly? Why risk that level of retaliation unless he believed he had enough backing to survive it?

Where did he get the resources and the backing to do it?

The more Joseph thought about it, the more he began to suspect that Sebastien was also taking orders. No one used to giving orders

from the shadows would suddenly show up in a petty battle unless there was a reason. And however serious that fight had been, it

was still small in the larger sense. It was more of an ambush than a fight. It was fast, targeted, and meant to force surrender, not

start a proper war that could drag on for months.

Maybe Sebastien was the blade, not the hand holding it.

After Joseph thought of everything, he chose not to write anyone off or underestimate anyone. He could be wrong. Sebastien might

be the main guy and had only involved himself because taking over Whitewood was his main goal. But Joseph would not make the mistake of assuming stupidity where strategy could exist. He had already paid too much for not seeing what was in front of him

quickly enough.

Unfortunately, Joseph’s warriors were not loyal, and he had been unprepared for the challenge. That truth burned. A pack could survive external enemies if its own spine held. Whitewood’s spine had cracked because people inside it had been willing to sell

access. Renegade warriors. Possible staff. Maybe more. He did not yet know how deep the rot went, and that frightened him more

than he wanted to admit.

Joseph lay on his side, unable to get comfortable, and he could not wait for Ethan to come home so they could reason together. He needed his brother. Not because he could not think alone, but because Ethan saw things differently. Ethan carried the Alpha mind even after seven years of being forced to sit back. Joseph needed that mind beside his. He needed someone who understood both the family and the pack, someone who would not panic at the size of the mess, someone who could help him pull all the broken pieces

into something that looked like a plan.

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Underwater: The Silent Luna