A Crown of Ashes

Rain smashed into the earth like it wanted to bury the whole damn city, turning the graveyard into a sopping mess of mud and hunched figures clutching black umbrellas.

Sienna Calder stood off to the side, her boots sinking into the muck, her old jacket—splattered with paint from a dozen late-night rants—sticking out like a middle finger among the somber suits. She wasn’t here to weep. She’d come to see the bastard in the ground for herself.

Dorian Ashford’s coffin sat there, slick and shiny, all polished mahogany that hollered wealth even as it sank toward the dirt. The priest mumbled some nonsense about peace everlasting, his voice half-drowned by the storm, but Sienna didn’t hear a word.

Her eyes were glued to that box, her jaw locked tight. Twenty-seven years of bile churned inside her. He’d left her mom to waste away in a rusted trailer, coughing up her last breaths, while he piled up his shipping billions—money built on the wreckage of the only person who’d ever given a damn about him.

Now he was dead, and Sienna was here to spit on the fresh earth. One final jab. Maybe then she’d sleep without dreaming of his smug face.

“Hey, Calder?” A voice sliced through the downpour, crisp and too sure of itself. She swung around, squinting through wet bangs, and saw him—a guy in a fancy overcoat, dark hair plastered to his skull, eyes sharp like they could cut steel. Too good-looking for a funeral, with a jawline that belonged in a magazine.

“Who wants to know?” she barked, flicking water off her face. She didn’t trust guys like him—pressed and polished, knowing her name like it was theirs to toss around.

“Roman Valtieri,” he said, edging nearer. His voice was velvet, low and slick, the kind that could sweet-talk trouble into bed. “I was your dad’s right hand. We gotta talk.”

“He’s dead,” she shot back, turning to glare at the coffin again. “And I don’t chat with his errand boys.”

He didn’t even blink. “It’s about the will. You’ll care.”

She snorted, a harsh, bitter sound that hurt her throat. “What, he leave me a stale cookie? Keep his scraps.” She started trudging off, boots slurping in the mud, but Roman kept pace, his umbrella suddenly over her head. It pissed her off, him crowding her like that, like he thought she’d melt.

“It ain’t scraps,” he said, calm as hell. “It’s half his empire. Fifty billion, rough guess.”

She froze, rain trickling down her neck, her heart thumping loud enough to drown out the storm.

“Bullshit.”

“I don’t mess around with cash,” he said, locking eyes with her, steady and hard. “Problem is, you’re not alone in it.”

The crowd was breaking up now, people shuffling to their fancy cars, but Sienna’s head was spinning too fast to care. Half the empire? Dorian had acted like she was a ghost her whole life—why this now? And who was the other half stuck with?

“Who’s the other idiot?” she asked, her voice tight, like it might snap.

Roman’s mouth quirked, not quite grinning.

“That’d be me.”

It landed like a fist to her gut. She stared at him—this smooth-talking climber who’d kissed Dorian’s boots while she’d scraped by on cheap noodles and cheaper dreams. Fury flared, hot and ugly, but before she could tell him to choke on it, a black Rolls-Royce purred up the path, sleek as sin. The window rolled down, and there she was—Vivienne Ashford, Dorian’s widow, Sienna’s stepmother, blonde hair piled up like royalty, wrapped in fur despite the wet.

“Get in,” Vivienne said, her voice slicing through the rain. “Both of you. Hurry up.”

Sienna’s hands balled into fists. She didn’t take orders, especially not from the woman who’d shoved her mom out of the picture. But Roman was already at the door, swinging it open like he owned the damn thing. “Listen to this,” he muttered, close enough she caught a whiff of him—woodsy, expensive, too much.

Every nerve screamed to bolt, but her legs betrayed her, sliding her into the backseat. Roman climbed in next to her, Vivienne perched opposite. The car stank of leather and lies, thick enough to gag on. Vivienne leaned in, her eyes glinting cold and blue, like broken ice.

“Dorian’s will’s got rules,” she said, every word clipped tight. “You two work it together, or it’s ashes. But that’s not all.” She fished a crumpled letter from her bag, old and yellow, Dorian’s messy handwriting scratched across it. “This is for you, Sienna. He said it’s yours when you’re ready for what’s real.”

Sienna’s pulse roared, loud in her ears. She grabbed it, hands shaking as she ripped it open.

The ink was smeared, scratched out in a rush, three lines staring up at her like a slap:

“Wasn’t a heart attack. They took me out. Roman knows.”

Her head jerked up, eyes burning into Roman. He stared back, cool as ever, but something twitched in his face—guilt, maybe, or a secret itching to spill. The car hummed beneath them, rain pounding the roof, and Sienna felt the world tip sideways.