005- Veins of ink

Ashley’s POV

The mansion felt colder after midnight. My heels clicked across the foyer marble like accusations no one else could hear. Richard, my dad was upstairs, lost to sleep and whatever pill he took to keep the world quiet. Ethan had come in late again, shirt collar open, bourbon already settling into his bloodstream. He thought the night was over.

I knew better.

He was in the study, standing at the window like some tragic king surveying his kingdom. The city lights painted long gold streaks across his face. I let the USB dangle from my fingers so he would see it before I spoke.

“You really believed I’d just hand this over and disappear?” My voice stayed soft, almost conversational. “Plug it in. Let me see what you’ve been building with my money.”

He turned. For one heartbeat his expression flickered—something close to surprise—then smoothed into that familiar, lazy confidence. He took the drive, slotted it home. The screen bloomed.

Folders I wasn’t supposed to recognize so easily:

Affairs_Ash

Network_Assets

Kingsley_Legacy

AK_Init_Funding

My initials stared back at me. Transfers I’d signed years ago when I still believed his pretty stories about “securing our future” and “neutralizing threats.” Grainy stills loaded next—hotel suites, expensive lingerie, faces artfully blurred. Leverage dressed up as pleasure. An empire of secrets.

And I’d helped pay the contractors.

“You used me,” I said quietly. The words didn’t shake. They simply landed.

He stepped closer. “I protected us, Ash. You wanted the life. The power. You still do.”

Heat crawled under my skin—anger, yes, but also that old, dangerous current that always lived between us. I moved before I could think better of it. My palms met his chest; I pushed until the backs of his thighs hit the desk.

“You don’t get to decide what I want anymore.”

I kissed him then—not sweetly. Deeply. Hungrily. Like I could drink the truth out of his mouth. His hands found my waist, pulling me flush against him even as I bit his lower lip hard enough to make him hiss. I tasted copper and bourbon and the lie he kept trying to sell me.

I broke the kiss long enough to drag his belt open, shove fabric aside. He was already hard—had probably been half-hard the second he saw me holding the drive. I didn’t wait for permission. I pushed him down into the wide leather chair, hiked my skirt, and straddled him.

Slow at first.

I guided him inside me inch by careful inch, letting us both feel it—the stretch, the heat, the way my body still remembered exactly how he fit. A low sound slipped out of me despite myself. His hands flexed on my hips, trying to take control.

I caught his wrists and pinned them to the armrests.

“Not tonight,” I whispered against his ear. “Tonight you watch me take what’s mine.”

Then I moved.

Deliberate rolls of my hips, deep and unhurried, grinding down until he groaned beneath me. Every time he tried to thrust up I stilled, clenching around him until his head fell back and his breathing turned ragged.

“Tell me,” I murmured, lips brushing the shell of his ear. “Who’s really behind it? You keep saying it’s you… but your eyes say something else when you’re this close to coming.”

He laughed—short, breathless. “Always so fucking suspicious.”

I rolled again, slower this time, dragging every thick inch along the most sensitive parts of me. “Suspicious keeps me alive.”

Sweat gathered at the base of my throat. His shirt was open now; my nails left faint red trails across his chest. The chair creaked softly under us. I leaned in until our foreheads touched.

“Come inside me,” I said, voice velvet and steel. “Show me how much you still think you own this.”

His control snapped on the next downward stroke. He bucked up hard, once, twice—then locked, pulsing deep, spilling with a broken groan that vibrated through both of us. The feel of him losing it triggered mine—sharp and bright, rolling through me in long, liquid waves. I buried my face against his neck so he wouldn’t see my expression.

When the aftershocks faded I lifted off him carefully, letting him slip free. Warmth followed, slick against my thigh. I didn’t wipe it away. Let him look at the evidence of what we’d just done.

I smoothed my skirt, stepped back. “This changes nothing.”

I walked out, purse still heavy with the drive, his phone’s most recent files quietly copied to mine while he was still dazed and breathing hard.

He thought he was playing me.

He had no idea how long I’d been paying attention.

Vina’s POV

My apartment felt like it was holding its breath. Curtains drawn. Phone dark since Ashley cornered me at lunch. Every small sound made my pulse jump.

Tessa kicked the door open just past one. “You disappeared. I’ve been losing my mind.”

I stayed curled on the couch. “He proposed.”

She stopped dead. “Ethan proposed?”

“Said he’s finished with Ashley. That he’s taking everything—the accounts, the properties, the Kingsley name. All of it.”

Tessa dragged both hands through her hair. “This isn’t love, Vina. This is a heist. He’s dangerous.”

My phone lit up on the table.

Ashley: We need to talk. Family first. I know more than you think.

The words sat there like wet concrete.

Outside the window, through the narrow gap in the curtains, a black sedan idled across the street. No headlights. Just… waiting.

My heart slammed once, hard.

What exactly did she know?

And how deep did this really run?

A