Ashes and Embers

Ash Montgomery was the lie.Ember is the woman left standing in the ashes.I wore softness like a disguise, slipped into Sebastian Cole's life, and made him believe I was something worth trusting. I touched the daughter he would burn the world to protect. I learned his secrets. I found the cracks in his empire.Then I used every one of them against him.But betrayal has a cost, and the truth waiting beneath Sebastian's darkness is more brutal than anything I prepared myself to face. He is not the monster I thought he was. Not innocent. Never clean. But not the man who took my sister.The real monster is still out there.A ghost with blood on his hands, women buried in his silence, and a debt that can only be paid in violence.Now the man I destroyed may be the only one who can help me finish what I started. And Sebastian Cole does not forgive easily. His hate is cold. His touch is cruel. His love, if any of it survived, may be the most dangerous thing left between us.In a world built on power, obsession, and betrayal, I have already lost the safety of my lies.To find the truth, I may have to trust the man I ruined.To survive him, I may have to become worse.