The morning had started with the promise of productivity. Leona sat in the office she shared with Stella, the air smelling of roasted coffee and the faint, ozone scent of her magic. They were prepping for the Southern Alliance meeting—a deal that would cement Lunar Logistics as a powerhouse. Leona had spent weeks on the data. It was her masterpiece.
Then, her phone vibrated. It was Barrett, Jessica's current boyfriend. Leona's brow furrowed; they weren't close enough for casual calls.
"Hey, Barrett! How are you, buddy?" she asked, a bit surprised.
"Hi, Leona," Barrett's voice was strained. "Actually... have you spoken with Jessica this morning?"
Leona's pulse spiked. She was Jessica's diary; she knew every secret. "No! Did something happen? Did you guys fight? Did her mom find out about you again?"
"No," Barrett said, his voice dropping. "Actually... Jessica's father passed away an hour ago. She isn't answering my calls. I thought I'd check with you."
Leona was stunned. The office air suddenly felt too thin. "Oh! She hasn't called me. I'm just getting to know about it from you."
Barrett sounded relieved that she understood the gravity. "Will you please call her? She needs you right now. You know her mom doesn't approve of me, and I don't want to take the risk of visiting her after her heart attack last year."
Leona understood. She thanked him and immediately dialed Jessica. The line barely rang before it was picked up.
"Jessica! How are you, darling?"
The sobbing on the other end told her everything. Jessica knew why she was calling. "I am devastated, Leo. I don't know what to do. He wasn't a good father or a good husband, but still... he was my father, you know?"
"Oh, Jess. I wish I was there right now," Leona said, her heart breaking for her friend. "Do you want me to come over?"
Jessica's parents had a legendary, toxic love—the kind that was beautiful in stories but hell in reality. Jessica had been the collateral damage of that hell since she was a child.
"No... we're leaving for Texas in a while," Jessica said, her voice turning sharp with venom. "He was there with her... his current girlfriend and her kids."
"Jess, honey," Leona said firmly, already reaching for her bag. "Do you want me to come with you?"
"Leo... can you come? Please? I don't know what to do." Leona didn't just feel bad; she felt a crushing weight of responsibility. She knew Jessica's history. She knew that behind the shopping bags and the "lavish life" persona, Jessica was a girl broken by a toxic divorce.
"I have to go," Leona said, her voice trembling as she shoved her laptop into her bag.
Stella stood up, her face a mask of shock. "Leo, wait. The meeting is tomorrow at nine. The board members are flying in. You are the only one who can walk them through the tiered logistics model. If you aren't there, we lose the contract. We lose months of work."
Leona paused at the door. The " Demon" screamed at her. If you stay, you're a bad friend. If you go, you're a bad partner. She looked at Stella, her eyes filled with a desperate kind of pain. "Stella, I'm so sorry. But Jess is alone. Her mom can't handle this, and Barrett is banned from the house. If I don't go, she has nobody."
"We could lose the company, Leona," Stella said softly, not out of anger, but out of fear.
"I'll make it up to you. I promise," Leona whispered, and she ran.
The fight at home was worse. When she walked in to pack a bag for Texas, her father, Harvey, was standing in the foyer like a stone statue. You're leaving? For a funeral? During the busiest week of the year? You are impulsive, Leona. It's childish to drop your duty for this."
"Jessica's father died, Dad. I'm going with her to the funeral" she shot back, grabbing her keys.
"She has a mother. She has a boyfriend," Harvey barked, his temper flaring. "You are always running to fix other people's lives while your own responsibilities sit here gathering dust. It's impulsive. It's childish."
Leona didn't stop packing. "It's called being a friend, Dad. Something you wouldn't understand because everything to you is about 'duty' and 'optics.'"
She left at 11:00 PM, driving through the night to reach Jessica. The drive to Texas was a blur of dark highways and caffeine. When she arrived, Jessica was a wreck. The "sweet and innocent" girl was gone, replaced by a screaming, sobbing mess of grief.
For the next five days, Leona wasn't a business owner or a War Mage. She was a ghost. She handled the funeral director who tried to overcharge them. She sat in the kitchen with Jessica's mother, listening to her talk about how much she still hated her ex-husband even as she wept for him. Leona slept on a cramped couch, her back aching, her phone buzzing constantly with "URGENT" emails from Stella that she didn't have the heart to answer.
But the real nightmare started when the "Investment" came up.
Jessica, desperate for the "easy money" she craved to maintain her lifestyle, had put nearly all her savings into a high-yield fund Leona had mentioned months ago. Leona had told her it was a solid firm, but she had warned her: "Only invest what you can lose, Jess. Start small."
Jessica hadn't started small. She had gone all in.
While they were in Texas, the news broke: the firm was a Ponzi scheme. The broker had vanished. Jessica's screen went black as she tried to log into her account.
"It's gone," Jessica whispered, her face turning a ghastly white. "Leo... it's all gone. My college fund, my apartment deposit... everything."
Leona felt a cold hand wrap around her heart. Even though she had warned her, she felt responsible. She was the one who had the "business mind." She was the one who had introduced the name.
"We'll fix it," Leona promised, her voice cracked. "I'll call the police. I'll call my father's lawyers. I'll find him, Jess."
Leona spent the rest of the week in a fever. She was managing a funeral on one hand and a fraud investigation on the other. She barely ate. She didn't sleep. She used her own savings to cover the funeral costs because Jessica's cards were being declined. She went to with her father, Harvey. She swallowed every ounce of her pride and asked him—begged him—to use his Alpha connections and the pack's security team to track the fraudster.
Harvey felt bad for Jessica; she had been a fixture in their pack house for years, almost like a second daughter. He agreed to help, putting his own resources on the line to track the money.
But gratitude didn't last long.
One afternoon, while Leona was trying to manage a failing work project, Jessica snapped. "What if your father is just pretending to help?" Jessica asked, her voice cold. "What if he's just trying to get a reward for himself while I'm suffering?"
Leona stared at her, stunned. "My father is using his private resources for you, Jess. Why would you even say that?"
Leona stared at Jessica, her hand freezing over her laptop. The office was quiet, save for the hum of the air conditioner and the rapid thud of Leona's own heart. "My father is using his private resources for you, Jess," she said, her voice dropping into a low, hurt whisper. "He's doing this because I asked him to. Why would you even say something so cruel?"
Jessica didn't look up. She just continued to stare at her phone, her thumb swiping mindlessly over the empty bank app. "I don't know, Leo. I don't know who to trust anymore. Everyone says they're helping, but I'm the one who's broke. I'm the one who's fatherless."
The air in the room felt stagnant. Leona realized then that logic had no place here. Jessica's grief had turned into a weapon, and she was swinging it at the only person standing close enough to hit.
Leona stood up slowly, her body aching from the week of sleepless nights on Texas couches and the constant stress of the fraud case. She had sacrificed the Southern Alliance contract for this. She had endured her father's cold fury for this. She had emptied her own savings to cover a funeral for a man who wasn't even her kin.
"I'm going home, Jessica," Leona said softly. "I'll let you know if the investigators find anything."
Jessica didn't say goodbye. She didn't even look up as the door clicked shut.
As Leona drove away, the "Overthinking Demon" didn't need to shout. It just sat beside her in the passenger seat, pointing at the cracks in her life. She had thought she was being a hero, a loyal friend, a "Pillar." But as the sun set over the pack territory, she realized she was something else entirely.
She was a ghost in her own office, a disappointment to her father, and now, a suspect in her best friend's eyes.
She looked at the calendar on her dashboard. Six days. In six days, she would have her Awakening. She had always thought she'd celebrate it with Jessica and Isla by her side. Now, she wasn't even sure if they would answer her calls.
She thought she was proving her loyalty, but all she had done was prove how much she was willing to lose for people who weren't willing to keep her. The seeds of bitterness hadn't just been planted in Jessica; they were starting to take root in Leona, too.