Chapter 1 Beating Up Her Cousin
"Ella, there's a thief in the house! Call the cops!" Luna Brown swung the bat with all her might, and the guy on the floor was screaming, clutching his head in pain.
"What the heck is going on in the middle of the night?" An impatient voice came from behind.
Ella Brown and Travis Lewis, jolted awake by the noise, stumbled out to see Luna going to town on the thief with a bat.
Travis, still half-asleep, fumbled for his phone to call the police, but Ella stopped him.
She shoved Luna aside and flipped the "thief" over. When she saw the bruised and battered face, she screamed and started smacking Luna on the back. "Luna, you idiot, you just beat up your cousin!"
The poor guy on the floor, looking dazed and confused, was none other than Luna's cousin, Ethan Lewis.
"Ethan, are you okay? Get up, let me see." Ella, worried sick, helped him up and shot Luna a furious look.
Ethan, sprawled on the couch, kept groaning and only started to come around after a bit. Luna's over-the-shoulder throw had been no joke, and his head had hit the ground hard, leaving him dizzy.
Luna, a cop who'd just been transferred to the Criminal Division, was working late on her first day. She'd just gotten home and didn't turn on the lights to avoid waking Ella's whole family.
Ethan, thinking Luna wouldn't be back, had snuck into her brother Eric Brown's room to steal the money Luna had left for Eric.
Just as he was about to make his getaway, he bumped into Luna, who had just come back from work.
Seeing a shadowy figure, Luna instinctively performed an over-the-shoulder throw, slamming the "thief" to the ground.
A series of miserable cries then came from the bedroom.
Luna recognized the voice immediately, her eyes narrowing as she grabbed a baseball bat from beside the door and started whacking the "thief."
Sure enough, it was her cousin Ethan.
Ethan lay on the couch, while Luna looked at Ella's family with fake embarrassment. "I didn't see clearly, how could it be Ethan? I thought it was a thief."
She knew Ethan had been stealing, but she didn't want to cause a rift with Ella's family openly.
Ella said, "Luna, just because you're a cop doesn't mean you can act all high and mighty. You can't just assume everyone is a thief, especially your own cousin."
Luna smiled awkwardly, slipping a plastic bag into her pocket behind her back, something she had taken from Ethan earlier.
Seeing Luna's sincere attitude in admitting her mistake, Ella let it go after a few more words.
Ella then took some medicine from the cabinet and went to apply it to Ethan.
Luna and her brother Eric were currently living with Ella's family in an old-style neighborhood.
The house wasn't big, about a thousand square feet, with only three bedrooms. The master bedroom was for Ella and Travis, the second bedroom for Ethan, who was two years older than Luna, and Luna and Eric shared the smallest room.
When Luna entered the room, she saw Eric looking at her with concern.
She patted Eric's fluffy head and gave him a reassuring smile, indicating everything was fine.
Then she sat next to Eric, her thoughts drifting back to what had happened earlier in the day.
Sixteen hours ago, at the County Clerk's Office, a man, with a smiling woman on his arm, handed their IDs to the clerk and exclaimed, "We want to get married!"
Luna, standing beside the man, widened her eyes in surprise. All eyes in the room, including her task partner's, turned towards him.