Empire of Ash and Desire
Five years ago, Zara Cole lost everything she believed in-love, trust, and the man who promised her forever.
Today, she's back in his world with one mission: destroy the empire that chose power over her.
Alexander Cross is no longer the man she loved. He's a billionaire CEO with a flawless reputation and a past he buried deep-until Zara returns as the woman determined to expose him.
What begins as revenge becomes a dangerous game of truth, betrayal, and forbidden desire.
And when secrets rise to the surface, Zara must decide:
Will she take down the man who broke her heart...
or risk everything for the love that never truly died?
Chapters
Share
Chapter 5
Zara couldn't stop shaking.
Not because of the cold.
Not because of fear.
But because someone had finally said the words out loud.
Choose who you love most.
She stood in the middle of Alexander's penthouse living room, phone still pressed to her ear long after the call had ended. The city stretched beneath the windows-rich, careless, indifferent to the war that had just been declared inside her chest.
Alexander watched her like he was trying to memorize her face.
"Say it again," he said quietly. "Exactly what they told you."
She swallowed.
"They said I have forty-eight hours to decide."
Her voice cracked. "To save my future... or to save you."
Silence swallowed the room.
Not the peaceful kind.
The kind that happens before something breaks.
Alexander stepped closer.
"They're bluffing."
Zara shook her head.
"No. They're not. This isn't about money or power anymore. It's about leverage. And I'm the leverage."
He closed his eyes briefly.
"They're using you to get to me."
"And you to get to me," she whispered.
They stood there-two people who had once loved each other so fiercely that the world had burned for it.
Now the world wanted payment.
The next twenty-four hours passed in a blur of strategy meetings, security briefings, and whispered conversations behind closed doors.
Zara sat through all of it, but her mind stayed trapped in one sentence.
Choose who you love most.
She had spent five years telling herself she didn't love Alexander anymore.
But love didn't disappear just because it was wounded.
It went underground.
It learned how to survive in silence.
And now it was screaming.
That evening, Alexander found her in the library of his penthouse-sitting on the floor, back against a shelf of books she hadn't touched.
"You've barely eaten," he said.
"I'm not hungry."
"You're not invincible."
She laughed hollowly.
"Funny. That's what I used to think about you."
He sat beside her.
Not too close.
Not too far.
Just enough to remind her of everything they had been.
"You don't owe me your life," he said quietly.
"Whatever decision you make-I'll understand."
Her head snapped toward him.
"No, you won't. And that's the worst part."
She turned her face away before he could see the tears gathering in her eyes.
"They took everything from me once," she continued. "My career. My name. My dignity. I rebuilt myself from nothing. And now they want me to give it all up again."
He listened.
For once, he didn't interrupt.
"But if I choose myself," she whispered, "and you die because of it... I don't know if I'll survive that either."
He exhaled slowly.
"You shouldn't have to make this choice."
"But I am," she said. "Because loving you has always come with a price."
That night, Zara received another message.
Unknown: Twenty-four hours left.
No threats.
No drama.
Just certainty.
She stared at the screen, then locked her phone and walked into Alexander's office.
He looked up immediately.
"What is it?"
"I want the truth," she said. "No filters. No protection. Tell me exactly how dangerous this is."
His gaze hardened.
"They won't stop. If you walk away from the investigation, they'll back off. If you keep pushing... they'll kill me to make an example of you."
Her chest tightened.
"So if I choose my future-"
"You lose me."
She closed her eyes.
"And if I choose you?"
"You lose everything you fought to rebuild."
She let out a broken laugh.
"You see the problem?"
He stood and crossed the room to her.
"You choosing me doesn't mean you lose your future," he said. "I'll find another way."
"There is no other way," she replied softly. "That's why they gave me a deadline."
Later, Zara stood alone in the shower, letting hot water hide the tears she refused to cry in front of him.
Five years ago, Alexander had chosen his family over her.
Now the world was forcing her to choose herself over him.
The irony tasted bitter.
She stepped out, wrapped in a towel, and stared at her reflection.
Who had she become?
The woman who survived betrayal.
Or the woman who still loved the man who betrayed her?
The next morning, Alexander was gone.
A note waited on the kitchen counter.
Zara,
I had to take care of something. I'll be back before noon.
Don't do anything reckless while I'm gone.
A.
She folded the note carefully.
Then picked up her phone.
And made a decision that would change everything.
Across the city, Zara walked into the headquarters of Zenith Solutions for what might be the last time.
Her office greeted her with sunlight and memories-late nights, hard wins, the quiet satisfaction of rebuilding a life.
Her assistant looked up in surprise.
"Ms. Bennett? You weren't scheduled today."
"I know," Zara said gently. "I just need a moment."
She went into her office and closed the door.
Then she opened her laptop.
And began writing.
A letter.
Not a resignation.
A confession.
Every detail of the frame-up.
Every name she could prove.
Every document Alexander had shown her.
If something happened to her-or to him-this would go public.
But sending it would be her final move.
Because once the truth was out...
There would be no turning back.
Back at the penthouse, Alexander returned to find Zara gone.
Panic struck fast and hard.
"Where is she?" he demanded his head of security.
"We lost her for two hours," the man said grimly.
"She disabled her tracker."
Alexander's blood ran cold.
"She made her choice," he whispered.
And he didn't know if that terrified him more than the threats.
Zara stood on the rooftop of her office building, phone pressed to her ear.
The distorted voice answered.
"I'm ready," she said.
A pause.
"For which choice?" the voice asked.
Her hands trembled.
"I choose Alexander," she said.
Silence.
Then a low laugh.
"Brave," the voice replied. "Stupid. But brave."
"What do I have to do?" Zara asked.
"Disappear," the voice said. "Leave the city. Leave the investigation. Leave him. If you stay away... he lives."
Tears slid down her cheeks.
"And if I don't?"
"You bury him."
The line went dead.
Zara closed her eyes, pain ripping through her chest.
She loved him.
That was the truth she could no longer run from.
And loving him meant losing him.
She left the building quietly.
No goodbyes.
No explanations.
Just a note sent to Alexander's phone as she stepped into a waiting cab.
Zara: If you ever loved me, don't look for me.
The car pulled into traffic.
Her phone buzzed immediately.
Alexander calling.
She didn't answer.
You may also like
9.2
Jacqueline Blackburn, a desperate Ivy League tutor, walked into the sleazy Veridian VIP club just to save her job.
But her billionaire client, the ruthless Christian Montgomery, mistook her for a cheap escort, blowing cigar smoke in her face and treating her like trash.
When she furiously turned to leave, a drunk former client attacked her in the hallway, tearing her white dress open and pinning her by the throat.
She fought back, stabbing the man's hand with a pen, only for Christian to emerge from the shadows and brutally crush the attacker's bleeding hand under his heel.
Instead of letting her go, Christian draped his heavy suit jacket over her exposed skin, trapped her in his dark suite, and forced her to sign a suffocating contract.
"You have exactly ninety days, or I will personally ensure you cease to exist in my city."
She thought she could just keep her head down, teach his nephew, and survive.
But she didn't understand why this terrifying underground tyrant was suddenly so fixated on her.
Why did he use his immense power to isolate her, publicly claim her at a billionaire gala, and track her every move?
When she received a chilling midnight text demanding she pack her bags and move into his sprawling estate by 8:00 AM, the terrifying reality set in.
She hadn't escaped the wolf. She had just walked directly into his cage.
9.2
Blurb
When broke event planner Isabella "Izzy" Hart agrees to fake an engagement with cold, commanding tech billionaire Alexander Blackwood, she thinks it'll be simple: smile for the cameras, fake a few kisses, collect the money, and walk away.
But nothing about Alex is simple.
Not the way he looks at her.
Not the way he touches her, as she belongs to him.
And definitely not the way he says:
"If this is just business... why does it feel like you're mine?"
It was supposed to be fake.
Now neither of them knows what's real.
7.9
For ten years, I was the invisible backbone of the Silver Creek Pack.
I cooked the books to hide Alpha Ethan's gambling debts. I ghostwrote the peace treaties that kept our borders safe. I warmed his bed every night, waiting for the bite that would mark me as his Luna.
On the night of our tenth anniversary, I didn't get a ring.
I got replaced.
Ethan walked into the gala with Ashley, a wealthy heiress dripping in gold, clinging to his arm.
When I tried to speak to him, he didn't just ignore me. He used an Alpha Command—a biological weapon that hijacked my free will.
"Go to the kitchen," he ordered, forcing my knees to hit the floor in front of the entire pack. "Ashley is sensitive to the smell of stress. You're ruining her night."
He humiliated me in the house I helped build. He wore the crown I polished for him, thinking I was nothing more than a glorified housekeeper he could discard at will.
He forgot that while he held the title, I held the passwords.
I didn't go to the kitchen. I went to the office.
I initiated a permanent wipe of the cloud backups, reformatted the local servers, and deleted ten years of financial strategies.
Then, I snapped the mate bond and walked out into the rain.
Three days later, I walked back into the conference room.
Ethan laughed, thinking I was there to beg for my job back.
I threw a foreclosure contract onto the table.
"I'm not here to serve drinks, Ethan. I'm the new owner of your debt. Get out of my chair."
9.5
I returned to New York with a broken suitcase and exactly three hundred and forty-two dollars in my bank account. My mother was dying in a public hospital, and the only treatment that could save her required a fifty-thousand-dollar deposit I didn't have.
While I was pleading with the billing department, I ran into my billionaire ex, Gannon Sharpe, and his cruel fiancée, Aleta. Without a second thought, Aleta slapped me so hard my lip split, kicking my belongings across the floor and calling me a gold-digging thief in front of the entire staff.
I looked at Gannon, the man I once loved more than my own life, hoping for a shred of mercy. Instead, he looked at me with pure revulsion and told me I belonged in the gutter. He believed the lies his grandfather told him—that I had abandoned him after his car crash and vanished with millions.
He had no idea I was the one who actually pulled him from that burning wreckage, or that I was currently skipping meals in a moldy motel just so our secret son could have formula. He called me "disgusting" and walked away, leaving me to rot.
I wanted to scream that I was the genius scientist who wrote his company’s core algorithms, and that the child he didn’t know existed was shivering with a fever only blocks away. But the ironclad NDA I signed to save my family kept me silent, even as Gannon looked at me like I was something he’d stepped in.
Desperate for health insurance to save my mother and son, I took a bottom-tier data entry job in the basement of Gannon’s own tower, intending to stay invisible. But when a billion-dollar error threatened to bankrupt his empire, I couldn't stop myself from hacking the system to fix the code.
Now, the man who hates me is standing in my cubicle, demanding to know how a "dropout" knows his most guarded secrets. Gannon is finally digging into my past, and he’s about to find out exactly what—and who—I’ve been hiding for the last four years.
9.0
Carli followed an anonymous text to a dark garage, only to find her fiancé of seven years tangled with another woman in his Porsche.
She smashed his window, threw her engagement ring at his face, and walked away.
But the betrayal didn't stop there. Her own family sided with the cheater. Her father slapped her across the face so hard she bled, demanding she hand over her late aunt's trust fund.
"If you don't do exactly as you're told tonight, I will freeze every credit card in your name," her father roared.
Forced to attend the exclusive Gutierrez family gala, Carli watched her ex-fiancé parade his cheap mistress to humiliate her, while her stepsister tried to publicly ruin her.
Suddenly, a violent screech echoed as the massive crystal chandelier above them snapped from the ceiling.
In a split second of pure instinct, Vaughn shoved his mistress to safety and threw himself to the ground, completely abandoning Carli to be crushed.
Staring up at the plummeting glass, Carli felt the crushing reality that her entire life had been surrounded by monsters.
But the fatal impact never came.
A massive force yanked her into a hard chest, shielding her body entirely from the explosive shrapnel.
Carli opened her eyes to find Fletcher Gutierrez—the ruthless billionaire king of Wall Street and the masked stranger from her reckless one-night stand—bleeding heavily over her.
Feeling his warm blood on her hands, Carli knew the game had just changed.
7.6
For three years, I played the perfect, docile wife to Brendon Jimenez, desperate for the real family I never had as an orphan.
But during a high-society gala, I peeked through a cracked door and caught him sleeping with my best friend.
When I packed my cheap canvas bag to leave the penthouse, my mother-in-law blocked the door.
She dumped my clothes on the marble floor, called me a stray dog, and slapped me so hard my mouth bled.
Brendon just stood there, watching his mother humiliate me.
To keep me trapped as his perfect public prop, he even faked his mother's heart attack in a VIP hospital suite.
"Get on your knees. Kneel down right now and beg my mother for forgiveness until she decides to accept it."
I gave them my youth and unconditional loyalty, only to realize this prestigious old-money family was nothing but a rotting corpse built on dirty secrets.
I didn't cry, and I certainly didn't drop to my knees.
Instead, I pulled out my phone right in front of him and called my lawyer.
"File for an at-fault divorce. I have proof of his infidelity with Kaelynn Hudson. I want him ruined."
Then, I touched the matte black card hidden deep in my clutch.
It belonged to Kile Barrett, the ruthless billionaire shark my husband feared most, and I was going to use him to tear the Jimenez family apart.