Ava sat on the edge of Damien's penthouse balcony, the city sprawled beneath her like a map of old decisions. Cold wind tugged at the edges of her blazer, but she didn't move.
Behind her, the party was still going. Crystal laughter. Clinking glasses. Expensive lies.
She exhaled slowly.
Lena's voice still echoed in her mind from earlier that evening:
> "You can't keep pretending this engagement is only business. Not when he looks at you like that."
But it wasn't Damien's gaze that haunted her.
It was her father's.
The last time she saw him—before prison, he hadn't said goodbye. Just walked into the courtroom like it was a boardroom. Tie straight. Spine stiff. Eyes empty.
"Do you always run away to rooftops when you're thinking about committing fraud?" Damien's voice slid in behind her.
She didn't flinch.
"Only when I want to be alone and mildly dramatic."
He joined her, sitting on the low wall, too close and not close enough.
"Everything okay?" he asked.
A ridiculous question, really. But not cruel. Not cold. Just… human.
Ava swallowed.
"You ever think about who you were before all this?"
"Every night."
She glanced at him then. He wasn't smiling. His tie was gone. Shirt sleeves rolled. The man behind the mask, for once, unarmed.
"Do you ever miss it?" she asked.
"Only my mother."
A pause. Then— "And music. I used to play piano. Before it felt like a betrayal."
That startled her.
"You still play?"
He nodded. "When no one's watching."
They were quiet for a while. Below them, headlights blurred like falling stars. The kind that didn't make wishes come true—just passed by, beautiful and indifferent.
Then, softly, Ava asked, "Why did you choose me?"
He looked at her. "Because you're the only one in this city who understands what it costs to rebuild your name. And because I trusted you not to lie to me."
She laughed once—bitter and soft.
"I've been lying every day since I was seventeen."
Damien's voice was lower now. "But not right now."
Their eyes met.
And for the first time, she didn't look away.
Cameron Blake wasn't supposed to be at the gallery opening.
But then again, Ava Hart wasn't supposed to be engaged to Damien Thorne.
He moved through the crowd like a man who belonged — tailored charcoal suit, easy charm, eyes like lit fuses. People noticed him, but not enough to remember. That was his gift: being unforgettable only when he wanted to be.
Tonight, he didn't.
Instead, he lingered by the exhibit's crown jewel — a minimalist piece Damien had anonymously purchased last year, now mysteriously "donated" by the Thorne Foundation. A calculated move. One of many.
Cameron tilted his head, pretending to study the painting. But his eyes were fixed on Damien and Ava across the room.
They stood too close.
Ava laughed — not her media-trained laugh. The real one. The one he remembered from that internship in D.C., when she still wore flats and believed in ethics.
> "You're smarter than this, Ava," he muttered into his glass. "Why now? Why him?"
"Blake," came a smooth voice at his shoulder. "Didn't peg you as the art type."
Edward Marks.
Of course.
Cameron didn't flinch. "Didn't peg you as the type to still hang around Damien Thorne's leftovers."
Edward smiled, cold and effortless. "Oh, I'm not hanging around. I'm watching."
"Watching what?"
Edward took a sip of his bourbon. "The beginning of an empire. Or its end. Depending on how she plays her cards."
Cameron glanced at Ava again, the way her hand brushed Damien's arm. Intentional? Calculated? Real?
He didn't know. And that unsettled him.
Because if Ava Hart — the Ava who once called out her own father in front of a senate ethics committee — was really in love with Damien Thorne, then maybe this wasn't a game.
Maybe it was a war.
And Cameron Blake never lost wars.
He pulled out his phone, snapped a discreet photo of Ava and Damien mid-laugh, and sent it to his editor with a single caption:
> "Thorne's queen. But for how long?"
"I think she's desperate. Desperation makes people unpredictable. Even the good ones."
They both looked toward Ava again.
She stood alone now, scanning the gallery as Damien spoke to the curator. She looked radiant, disarmed — human.
Cameron's jaw tightened.
"Did you know," Edward said casually, "her father's final campaign donations came from one of Damien's shell companies?"
Cameron turned sharply. "You're lying."
"Am I?"
He pulled a small envelope from his breast pocket. "You didn't hear it from me."
Cameron hesitated — then took it. Just like Edward knew he would.
"And what do you get out of this?" he asked.
Edward's smile sharpened. "Collateral damage."
He disappeared into the crowd before Cameron could ask more.
Ava was still smiling, chatting with a young art student who clearly adored her. She had no idea the floor beneath her was already crumbling.
Cameron looked down at the envelope.
He didn't want to use it. He really didn't.
But she was playing with fire — and Damien Thorne wasn't just a story. He was a storm waiting to hit.
> If she's lying to the world, she's lying to herself, he thought.
And I can't let her burn alone.
He turned away from the light, toward the dark.
Cameron didn't go home that night.
He ended up in his office — a cluttered corner suite with newspaper clippings taped to the walls, notes scribbled on napkins, and a cold espresso shot he forgot to drink hours ago. The envelope Edward had given him sat unopened on his desk, radiating tension.
He stared at it for a long time.
When he finally broke the seal, he didn't expect what was inside.
A series of wire transfers. Dates. A memo signed by Damien's CFO. The name Senator James Hart scrawled in red.
> God, Ava, he thought, sinking into his chair. What the hell have you gotten into?
And worse — what had she known?
The truth didn't just raise the stakes. It rewrote the rules.
Damien wasn't the only one cleaning up legacies.
Across the city, Ava sat at the edge of her bed in Damien's penthouse, a silk robe clinging to her like armor she didn't know she needed. She scrolled through an old article on her phone — the one that had first blown up her father's career. Corruption. Lobbyist ties. A whisper of embezzlement that was never proven, but never disappeared either.
The comments were still there. So were the threats.
So was her shame.
Behind her, Damien stepped out of the bathroom, towel low on his hips, water trailing down his chest. But his eyes weren't soft tonight. They were studying her — like he knew the walls were thinning.
"You're quiet," he said.
She didn't look up. "Do you ever wish you could delete the past?"
"I don't waste time wishing," he replied. "Only rewriting."
That made her flinch.
He noticed.
"Ava," he said, walking toward her. "What's going on?"
She met his gaze finally, and in that moment, the thing she'd been hiding nearly slipped from her lips.
But just then — her phone buzzed.
Unknown Number. One attachment. No text.
She opened it.
A scan of the same memo Cameron had seen. Her father's name. Damien's company logo. And one line at the bottom:
> "You're not the only one with secrets. — C"
Her blood ran cold.
Damien saw her face pale. "What is it?"
"Nothing," she lied, locking the screen. "Just old ghosts."
He didn't believe her.
But he didn't push. Not yet.
As he wrapped his arms around her, Ava leaned into the warmth and closed her eyes — and all she could feel was the lie burning between them.
The silence between them stretched longer than usual that night.
Damien, sensing the subtle withdrawal in Ava's posture, poured two glasses of the Bordeaux he'd been saving for a night they'd both be honest. But tonight, neither of them had the courage.
"Red or white lies?" he asked, handing her the glass.
She gave a small smile. "Depends on how much they cost."
He chuckled, but there was no humor in it.
Ava sipped slowly, letting the wine warm the hollow ache blooming beneath her ribs. She wanted to tell him everything — the photo, the memo, the fear crawling back up from the ruins of her father's scandal.
But how could she?
She didn't even know if Damien's hands were clean. Not when Edward was circling like a shark. Not when Cameron had started digging.
Not when her own feelings had blurred so far past professional she could no longer see where the contract ended and the truth began.
Damien watched her from across the room, his gaze sharper than the blade of any threat Edward could throw at him. "You're thinking too loudly."
She laughed softly. "You're not listening hard enough."
"I am. I just don't like what I'm hearing."
They stood at the precipice of something—an unraveling, or a reckoning.
Damien placed his glass down and approached her. His fingers brushed her wrist. "I know the weight of secrets, Ava. I carry more than I care to admit."
She looked up at him then, and something in her broke open.
"Do you believe in second chances?" she asked.
"I believe in leverage," he said. Then, softer: "But yes. Sometimes."
Ava nodded slowly.
But before she could speak again, Damien's phone buzzed.
Lena.
Encrypted call. Urgent.
He frowned, stepping away to take it. Ava leaned against the windows, her reflection barely recognizable in the glass.
From the other room, she heard Damien's voice shift—low, clipped, rattled.
"…How long ago?"
"…And Cameron has it?"
"…No, we control the narrative first. Get her to come to me before he does."
Ava didn't breathe.
When he returned, his face was carefully arranged in calm. Too careful.
"Everything okay?" she asked.
He kissed her temple, a practiced tenderness. "Just business."
She swallowed hard, hearing the echo of her father's old excuse. The one he used right before everything collapsed.
The next morning, Ava found the article on her doorstep — printed, not digital. A rare and deliberate choice.
The headline wasn't scandalous. Yet.
But it was laced with implication:
"Legacy or Lie? Ava Hart and the Ghosts of Her Father's Fall."
By Cameron Blake.
No accusations. Just breadcrumbs.
Just enough to stir the wolves.
She stared at the paper as if it might burn her hands. Lena had already left three voicemails, the last one sharp with panic and loyalty.
Ava, call me back. We need to get ahead of this—before it becomes something we can't put out.
But Ava didn't move. She couldn't. She was back in that courtroom again — fifteen, alone in the back row while reporters snapped photos and her mother sobbed behind tinted sunglasses.
Back when her father's name, Senator Hart, had stopped meaning ambition and started meaning scandal.
A knock pulled her out of the spiral.
It was Damien. Unannounced. Uninvited. Holding coffee and that look on his face that said he already knew.
"You saw it?" she asked, voice hoarse.
He nodded, stepping inside. He didn't touch her. Not yet. "It's not what he's printed that worries me. It's what he's holding back."
Ava stared at him. "You think he has more?"
"I know he does. And if Cameron's sitting on it, it means he's waiting for something—maybe someone."
She shook her head. "This is my past, Damien. My father's mess, not yours."
But Damien's jaw clenched. "If you think Edward isn't behind this, you're underestimating him. This is a warning shot."
Ava swallowed hard. "Then what do we do?"
He stepped closer, his voice almost a whisper. "We fight. But we do it smart. And you don't do it alone."
She wanted to believe him. She really did.
But deep down, she couldn't shake the feeling that somewhere in this game of power and perception, she was the only one playing without a full deck of truth.