Chasing His Kickass Luna Back Chapter 370

Abby

My hand rests instinctively over my belly as I step through the front doors of my restaurant for the first time in ages. Dust motes dance in the late afternoon sunlight that’s streaming through the windows as Chloe and Leah follow me inside.

Leah lets out a low whistle once we turn on the lights and see the full extent of the place. “Damn,” she mutters. “This place got dusty fast.”

“You can say that again.” Chloe runs her finger along the bar and grimaces when she pulls it away to find that it’s turned black with dust. “This place is going to need a serious deep clean.”

I chew my lower lip as I walk around, inspecting the damage. “I’m just glad it wasn’t vandalized,” I muse with a slight laugh. “Dust I can handle, but graffiti is another story.”

“True.” Leah and Chloe follow me back to the kitchen, which is just as dusty as the front of the restaurant but otherwise in good shape. It’s going to be a hassle to clean all of the equipment, but I’m determined to have this place spotless by the time we reopen next week.

“Hey,” Chloe says with a grin. “How about a cleaning party tomorrow?”

Leah smirks. “Only if Abby makes her famous wood-fired pizza.”

“Seriously? You’d make a pregnant woman cater to you?” I tease, although I was already planning on making more than pizza for my staff in exchange for some good cleaning.

Chloe laughs and wraps her arm around my shoulders. “Yup. And we’d do it again.”

…

I let out a satisfied sigh and lean back to admire my work, wiping the sweat from my brow. The dishwashing station is finally as spotless as the day I bought this place. I can practically see my face in the stainless steel appliances.

“Take that, health department,” John says with a chuckle. “They got nothin’ on us now.”

“They never had anything on us to begin with,” I add.

The past couple of weeks have been a blur, to say the least. After Damon incriminated himself at the deposition, all it took was a little bit of interrogation for him to spill everything about his little scheme.

Officer Martinez’s suspicions had been spot on, too: he originally became obsessed with me when he was watching for the results on who would be catering the Alpha party.

His obsession grew and grew, but he still decided to frame me. In fact, to him, it just solidified his plan; bring me down, make me lose my restaurant, then make me an offer I couldn’t refuse.

All while murdering his illegitimate children.

You see, those two little kids at the Alpha party weren’t just any random kids. They were—still are, rather, considering the fact that his plan didn’t work—Damon’s illegitimate children. He had an affair with their mother, who never told him that she was pregnant.

When he found out that she had produced two kids who could technically inherit the throne from him, he decided that they had to go. And so he hired Alpha Hendrick, who hired Alexander Black.

I still can’t believe it, though. It all feels so twisted and fucked up—to think that Damon was planning on killing those kids.

He was planning on killing my baby, too; he already had a ‘forced abortion’ planned, in his words. He was fully intending on filling my tea with herbs that can cause miscarriages—in fact, there was a small amount of them in that tea he gave me on the night he tried to kidnap me.

I guess I was smart for following my intuition.

And I guess that his story about being infertile was just another way to try and get close to me, to make me think that we had some sort of shared experience to make me trust him.

Asshole.

Either way, it’s over now. Damon’s father, Reginald, offered absolutely no help to Damon. He let his son go to prison, cut him off from the family money, and disowned him publicly. Alpha Hendrick and Alexander Black got put behind bars, too.

And now that the truth is out, La Belle Vie is open to the public once more. The health department lifted the restrictions and soon, once I finish scrubbing this place within an inch of its life, things will be back to normal.

Sort of.

Karl and I still need to discuss what the future has in store for us. Right now, we’re planning on going along with taking turns staying in the city versus his pack territory.

But with the baby on the way, there’s still so much to figure out. We can’t do this forever, and lately…

Something seems off with Karl.

“Hey.” Chloe’s voice suddenly pulls me out of my reverie. I look up from my furious scrubbing to see her holding a cup of tea out for me. “Here.”

“Oh, thanks,” I say with a smile. I take the tea and take a grateful sip. We stand there for a few moments before Chloe levels me with that all-too-knowing gaze of hers.

“He’s acting weird,” she whispers.

She doesn’t need to say who; I know who. Karl. I follow her gaze over to the pantry, where he has been lingering in the doorway for the past ten minutes.

He’s got his phone in one hand and that business card in the other, and keeps stepping in and out of the room like he’s planning on making the call but then loses his nerve every time he tries.

“Yeah. He’s been like this for two weeks,” I say with a soft sigh. “Ever since he got that card…”

“He should just call,” Chloe whispers. “He’s only making things worse for himself by dragging his feet.”

“Trust me, I’ve tried telling him the same thing. You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink, right?”

As Chloe and I watch him, though, something seems to change. He taps his foot on the floor for a moment, chewing his lip, then nods to himself and storms into the pantry. A moment later, the door slams shut with a resounding thud.

“Maybe he heard us,” I whisper.

Chloe smirks. “I hope so,” she says, before wandering off to join the others in cleaning the front of the restaurant.

Once I’m alone again, I stare at the door for a few moments, chewing my lip nervously. Karl never elaborated on what that conversation with Damon’s father was about. Whenever I ask, he just says he doesn’t know.

But I think I have a pretty good idea as to what’s going on. I had thought that Damon’s father looked oddly like Karl when I saw his portrait, and seeing him in person at the deposition just solidified that suspicion.

Reginald looks like an older version of Karl. He’s got more wrinkles and more salt-and-pepper hair since that portrait was painted, but it’s uncanny. It’s like looking into the future.

And considering the fact that Karl was found by his current family as a baby, I can’t help but wonder if he and Reginald are related somehow.

Karl doesn’t come out of the room for some time. I find myself pacing back and forth in front of the door, wondering if it would be wrong to eavesdrop.

But then, just as I’m about to poke my head in to see if he’s alright, the door swings open. Karl’s soft brown eyes meet mine, and for the first time in two weeks, I see something that looks like… hope.

“Abby,” he whispers. “I…”

“What did he say?”