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Chapter 8 - The family who likes to scam

Author: FioreSelvatico
last update Huling Na-update: 2025-07-07 05:17:26

"Derek, honey. Aren't you going to introduce us to your..." Derek's mother says as she looks me up from head to bottom, "...friend?" she finishes, with a tone so saccharine it might as well be poison. Her smile is all teeth, no warmth, and her eyes land on me like a gavel, judgment passed before the trial has even begun.

"Actually, Camila... this is our new architect lead consultant, the one I told you about, Isabella Sterling." Lucas introduces me to his wife, and I walk up to her, offering her my hand, which she takes.

She was an ice queen. People respected her, but more than anything else, they feared her. I you wanted to join the society, she needed to let you in first, and that was no easy task. It wasn't for nothing that I chose to infiltrate their lives through the company.

“Sterling,” Camila repeats, as if trying to decide whether the name is something she should recognize or something she should dismiss. She doesn’t release my hand right away, though. She holds it just a seco
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  • Ashes Of Sterling - A Tale Of Revenge   Chapter 18 - Gatekeeper

    I thought that the office and its buzz would help me distract myself from the haunting memory of last night's kiss, but it was of no use. It clung to me like the scent of last night’s wine, sweet, slow burning, and entirely inconvenient. He had tasted like warmth, like rain soaked linen and red wine and something dangerously close to real. For a moment…half a moment…it had almost felt like giving in. But I was stronger. I managed to pull out and stand strong. Derek spent the rest of the night thinking he was convincing me to give this a try, and I made him believe that I was willing to try as long as we acted professionally in the office and kept it a secret from his mother for a while. “A chance to get to know the real us,” I said. “To see what we could become together.” He looked at me like I’d handed him oxygen in the middle of drowning. And he accepted it. Of course he did.But now it was time to shift focus.Mark had already tumbled and was being buried by the Ashfords. The only t

  • Ashes Of Sterling - A Tale Of Revenge   Chapter 17 - Mr. Sentimental

    I didn’t move. Didn’t blink. His words hung in the air like the moment before lightning strikes, silent, electric, inevitable leaving panic. My stomach twisted, but I forced my body to stay still. Calm. Isabella still had the reins.“Oh?” I asked, tilting my head just slightly, inviting him to finish while buying myself seconds to recalibrate. “And where’s that?” Derek set the glass down gently on the coffee table, the sound barely audible, but in the quiet, it sounded like a gunshot. His hands didn’t return to his lap. They stayed on his knees, fingers twitching once before curling into loose fists and gelntly, with a smile relaxed into the couch.“My dreams.” I had to fight the urge to roll my eyes. Of course. Of all the answers, he went with the most convenient fiction. But as he smiled, half-apology, half-invitation,I saw it for what it was a shield. A softer lie to protect him from whatever truth was clawing at the edges of his mind. My panic floated away, carried off like smoke t

  • Ashes Of Sterling - A Tale Of Revenge   Chapter 16 - The lure

    I had to get out of here. The walls were too thin. The air too stale with boardroom lies and glassy smiles. Every hallway echoed with the ghosts of who they made him be, Derek Ashford, heir to the dynasty, shaped like a weapon, polished like a statue. But that wasn’t the man I needed. I needed the version unraveling at the seams. The version who wanted to be seen instead of managed. Who questioned instead of performed. And that man wouldn’t find himself here. Not under Camila’s hawk-eyes or Lucas’s fake fatherly nods. No. I needed him far away from this place.So I disappeared. No warning, no dramatic exits. Just an empty desk and my house key I foolesly left behind. It was a breadcrumb, subtle but deliberate. Something only he would notice. A quiet invitation. Come find me. Because I knew he would.Derek needed me now. Not for press releases or spin strategies but for something raw. He was falling apart, and looking for confort. Good. Let him fall. Let him crumble. And when he does, I

  • Ashes Of Sterling - A Tale Of Revenge   Chapter 15 - A choice

    The cursor blinked on my screen like a heartbeat, steady and expectant. I stared at the code, the pitch deck, the mock-ups I was supposedly refining for Derek’s next clean project. But my focus was elsewhere, pulled like a magnet toward the shadows that lived between truth and legacy. I wasn’t here for the future Ashford Global wanted to build. I was here for the one they buried.The message from Levy came in ten minutes later.“You’re in. Audio’s patchy, but I’ve got the feed. Want it live or recorded?”“Live. Patch it into my screen. And don’t drop signal, not even for a second.” Suddenly the mouse on my computer screen started moving on its own, folders begin to open up and a picture popped up. I quickly connected my earphones and started listening Lucas, Camila and Derek speaking. “This is getting out of hand. The board’s nervous. If Mark’s mess spreads any deeper, it’s not just shareholders we lose, it’s control.” Camila said as she paced around the room while Lucas and Derek s

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  • Ashes Of Sterling - A Tale Of Revenge   Chapter 13 - Collapse

    Today is going to be a good day.Today, the first one is going to fall.Mark Duke.It just so happened that someone leaked the evidence of him selling confidential information about the Ashford Global to not only several competitors but also leaking companies' tips for winning contracts. Perhaps whatever punishment falls on his back will not be as severe as I'd like, but after Levy went over all of his digital work and hasn't found anything worse, I was ready to settle for this. Someone needed to start paying for what happened to Jackson, and it's easy enough not to be traced back to me.So I walked into the company as if it were any ordinary day, it was early, and me not seeing the news wouldn't be suspicious. But people were buzzing, and walking fast, and I acted confused."What is happening?" I ask as I stop at the assistant desk.The assistant, Rebecca, a young woman with sharp eyeliner and sharper instincts, looked up from her phone, wide-eyed. Her fingers twitched nervously like

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