“Oh? Trouble in paradise?”

“No trouble.” Olivia shrugged, stealing a sip of Sophie’s drink without asking. “I just told him he still has time to change his mind.”

“Change his mind about what?” Sophie asked.

“About me,” Olivia said casually. “He’s an alpha.Thealpha. And I’m just a Zeta. Last letter in the damn Greek alphabet.”

There was a beat of silence.

“That’s not true,” I said firmly, setting my cup down. “Zetas are the glue of the pack. You ground people. You feel everything, and somehow still manage to carry everyone else’s emotions too. That isn’t weakness, Olivia—it’s strength. And also... Zeta is the sixth letter...not the last.”

Sophie smirked. “And now we know our future Luna skipped history class.”

Olivia scoffed and waved her hand. “Please. I skipped history to go to an Ozzy Osbourne concert.”

Sophie burst out laughing. “Was that before or after you dyed your hair green?”

“During.”

Despite myself, I laughed too.

And maybe for the first time in a while, lunch didn’t feel like an obligation. It felt like something I might… actually look forward to again.

Olivia and Sophie zinged each other the way only sisters could—sharp, witty, and relentless—but beneath the sarcasm and eye-rolls, there was no mistaking the love between them. You could feel it in the way Sophie passed Olivia the butter without asking, or how Olivia refilled Sophie’s tea mid-rant without pausing her own story.

“You know Mom’s been trying to get in touch with me,” Olivia said, tearing into a croissant like it had personally wronged her. “Probably wants to apologize again and grovel for an invite to the ceremony.”

Sophie grimaced. “Are you actually doing one? I thought you were skipping the formal stuff.”

“Adrian’s forcing me to,” Olivia said with a sigh. “Packpolitics. He’s trying to make it official-official. So I told him I’m holding off on claiming him back until the ceremony. Petty revenge.”

“You are a strange wolf, you know that?” Sophie grinned over her teacup.

“Takes one to know one,” Olivia shot back with a smirk.

Then, suddenly, Olivia turned to me. “Speaking of mating ceremonies…”

I raised a brow.

“I don’t know a lot of people in this town yet,” she began, drumming her fingers against her water glass, “but I do know food. And I tasted yours at Sophie’s ceremony. Gained ten pounds just from licking all the damn plates. So I’m here today, in this fine purple establishment, to ask if De la Vega Events can cater mine, too.”

My inner wolf sat up, ears perked, tail wagging. Another high-ranking client. The mating ceremony of the pack leader. The kind of exposure that could solidify my business asthego-to caterer for elite pack events.

But I kept my expression calm, professional.

“Whenever you’re ready and have a date,” I said smoothly, reaching into my bag and pulling out a sleek business card, “stop by my office and we’ll go over the menu.”

Olivia took it with a grin. “Sweet. If I don’t get distracted and elope in Vegas first, I’ll be in touch.”

Sophie rolled her eyes. “Please don’t. You’ll give Adrian a heart attack.”

“If he can survive me, he can survive Vegas.”

They bickered again, something about Olivia refusing to wear white and Sophie insisting it was tradition, but I just sat back for a moment, quietly satisfied.

One job had opened a door. This one? Might blow the whole house down.

By the time I left lunch, I was riding the high of something I hadn’t felt in a long time—hope. Real, steady, pulsing hope. The kind that clung to your ribs and whispered that maybe, just maybe, you weren’t stuck in survival mode anymore.