The morning after the Aurelius Club felt like waking after a fever dream.
Ava lay in bed, staring up at the coffered ceiling, her lips still swollen from Damien's kiss. Her robe had slipped open sometime during the night, and the heat of his mouth still lingered across her collarbone — but he hadn't stayed.
Again.
The space beside her was cold.
Just like him.
And yet, something had shifted. She knew it. Felt it. The kiss hadn't been for power, or pretense, or control.
It had been a warning.
And a surrender.
She rose, showered, and wrapped herself in one of the silken robes Lisette had folded on the dresser. Then padded barefoot down the hall, intent on finding coffee—and maybe answers.
She found neither.
But she found Lucien.
He stood in the hall, mid-call, voice low and urgent. "No, I don't care who gave the order. If that name resurfaces, the Blackwood family is finished."
He caught sight of her, ended the call, and straightened.
"Ava."
Her brows rose. "Something I'm not supposed to hear?"
Lucien's lips twitched. "Everything in this house is something you're not supposed to hear."
"Does that include who Helena really is?"
He exhaled slowly. "She was… involved with Damien's father. And later, with Damien himself. She moves through powerful men like smoke through a locked room. You'll find her in every scandal that never made the news."
"So she's dangerous."
"She's bored." He gave her a pointed look. "Which makes her worse."
Before she could ask more, Lisette appeared in the hall with a tray. A thick envelope lay beside the tea.
Lisette offered it to Ava. "This just arrived for you. Hand-delivered."
Ava took it warily and stepped back into the sitting room.
Inside the envelope were two things:
A handwritten note in precise, unfamiliar script.
And a faded photo—of Damien, younger, bloody, kneeling in front of a body.
Her breath caught.
The woman in the photo was beautiful, lying still on a marble floor. Blonde. Pale. Wearing a torn red dress.
The same red as Helena's from the night before.
The note read:
> Ask your husband what happened to Cecilia Blackwood.
Ask him why the inheritance was sealed.
Ask him why she called him "the final cut."
Ava gripped the photo, knuckles white.
Cecilia. Damien's mother.
She didn't know much—only whispers in old articles about her untimely death, and Damien inheriting the empire after his father's mysterious "retirement."
But this… this wasn't the story the media sold.
This was a weapon.
---
She didn't wait.
She stormed into Damien's office like a woman on fire.
He was alone, shirt half-unbuttoned, sleeves rolled, reading a folder thick with confidential files.
"Ava," he said, eyes lifting. "What—"
She slapped the photo down on his desk.
Silence.
Then he rose slowly from his chair, his face unreadable.
"Where did you get that?"
"Answer me," she said coldly. "Who is she?"
He stared at the photo, then looked up at her. "My mother."
"And the note?" She held it up. "Final cut? Inheritance sealed? What the hell does that mean?"
His eyes went dark.
"You weren't supposed to see this," he said.
"No, I wasn't," she snapped. "Because God forbid your wife know what kind of legacy she's being dragged into. I married a cold-blooded CEO, Damien—not a murderer."
"I didn't kill her," he said, voice low and firm. "But I watched her die."
That silenced her.
His hands clenched at his sides. "My father… was not the kind of man people mourned. And my mother was not weak. She tried to take the company from him. She had proof of his crimes. She was going to burn him down."
He looked away.
"She died in front of me."
Ava swallowed.
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"Because you already look at me like I'm something to be handled. If you knew what I've done—what I've lost—you'd run."
She took a shaky breath. "Try me."
Damien moved around the desk, stopping only inches away.
"She called me the final cut because I made a choice," he said. "I buried the evidence. I sealed the inheritance. I silenced the story. I protected the empire she wanted to destroy."
Ava's voice broke. "Why?"
"Because I thought I could fix it from the inside."
"And now?"
He lifted his eyes to hers—raw, unguarded.
"Now I realize the rot's in me too."
Ava stared at him, heart thudding.
Damien took her hand gently, his voice quieter now. "You want the truth? Here it is—I didn't marry you just to use you. I married you because if anyone could burn this place down and survive it, it's you."
A pause.
"And maybe… because I didn't want to die alone in the ashes."
Ava's throat tightened.
"I don't know what we are," she whispered.
"We're already past pretending," he said, his thumb brushing over her knuckles. "Aren't we?"
And just like that, the hate cracked.
She leaned into him, and this time—he didn't pull away.
He kissed her like a man finally breaking, not bending. And she kissed him back like a woman who might just take him down with her.
---