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A Taste Of Ruin
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2025-07-13 04:57:24Damon didn’t sleep.
Again. The sheets still smelled like her. Or maybe it was a memory. Either way, it strangled him. That kiss… It was nothing like before. It wasn’t love. It was punishment. And God help him—he wanted more of it. His lips still burned with the weight of her mouth. Her breath. Her words. “This kiss isn’t forgiveness. It’s evidence.” He replayed it a thousand times. And every time it ended the same — with her pulling away. And him… standing in the middle of everything he broke. At 5:43 a.m., his phone buzzed. PR HEADLINES UPDATE: KING GROUP STOCK DOWN 7% #CancelKing trending worldwide Ex-employee speaks anonymously: “It was all covered up.” He slammed the phone against the table. The screen cracked. Didn’t matter. What mattered was: the empire he built was bleeding. And she was the one holding the knife. --- In her penthouse, Ava sat in the dark, barefoot, wrapped in a silk robe. The lights were off. The glass of wine untouched. She wasn’t angry. Not tonight. She was tired. Exhaustion had found its way past her spine, into her bones, into her breath. She had kissed him. Her lips still remembered it — the hunger, the guilt, the need. She hadn’t planned to. She hadn’t meant to. It was a moment of weakness. And it terrified her more than any headline. She had become a ghost for five years. But when his lips touched hers… She felt alive again. And she hated it. Nari entered quietly, a file in hand. “They’re folding,” she said. “Two of King Group’s smaller subsidiaries are declaring bankruptcy next quarter. You’ve struck hard, Ava.” She nodded slowly. But her mind wasn’t in the room. It was still in his mouth. His hands. His voice, whispering her name like it still meant something. She took the file. “Keep going,” she said softly. “Don’t stop now.” --- Later that week, Damon received a letter. Not an email. Not a threat. A handwritten letter. From a name he hadn’t heard in years: Lena Trask. His ex-legal counsel. The one who mysteriously resigned two weeks before the Aria scandal exploded. He opened the envelope with shaking hands. > Damon, I know what you think happened. You were wrong. We all were. They forged the leak. They wanted Aria gone. She was the shield for someone else’s sin. I left because I was paid to stay silent. I’m done being silent now. Meet me. Tonight. One chance. —Lena Damon dropped the letter like it was on fire. --- They met in a quiet café in Harlem, far from the glossy towers of his empire. Lena looked older. Sadder. Like secrets had aged her faster than time. “I tried to tell you,” she said. “But you wouldn’t listen.” “Tell me now,” he rasped. She slid a USB drive across the table. “The emails. The bank records. The setup. Aria was framed. And you… you handed her to the wolves.” Damon didn’t speak. Couldn’t. The weight of guilt was no longer emotional. It was physical. It pressed against his lungs. His bones. He left without a word. And drove. Fast. Reckless. Nowhere. --- Ava was brushing her hair when the knock came. It was nearly midnight. She knew it was him. She opened the door slowly. Damon stood there, wet from rain, jaw tight, eyes shattered. “You were innocent,” he said. She froze. “I have proof. From Lena. From the people who ruined you.” Her eyes filled. Slowly. But she didn’t speak. “I need you to know something.” “No,” she said, voice cold. “Ava—” “No,” she said louder, stepping forward. “You don’t get to unload this guilt at my feet like it makes us even. You don’t get to cry now that the truth hurts you.” “I want to make it right.” She looked at him, eyes burning. “You can’t.” Silence. She stepped back. But then, for just one second, her voice softened. “Why did you kiss me like that, Damon?” His reply was instant. “Because it felt like the only thing that made sense.” She exhaled. Shaky. “You’re five years too late.” Then she shut the door. But behind it — both of them were crying.
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Her kiss,His Downfall The Trap Is Set
Ava sat cross-legged on her couch, the folder Damon had left her lying open across the coffee table. She’d gone over every page three times, her notes scattered beside it in uneven, frustrated scribbles.It didn’t make sense.Most of it was financial fluff—shareholder reports, transaction breakdowns, things that looked important at first glance but revealed nothing after hours of staring. She dug deeper, running her finger along the pages like the texture itself might give her answers.Then her eyes snagged on one sheet near the back. A single memo. Different paper stock, slightly off-white, as if it hadn’t come from the same stack.Her chest tightened.The memo was dated six months after her father’s “accident.” It referenced a transfer of assets between Blackwood subsidiaries, and scribbled in the margin—one word, handwritten in thick black ink: “Collateral.”Collateral.Ava’s pulse climbed. Was this the crack she’d been looking for? Or…Or had Damon put it there on purpose?She lea
Her kiss,His Downfall The Tightening Leash
The morning felt wrong before Ava even reached Damon’s office. His schedule was usually a fortress of precision—calls blocked to the minute, meetings stacked like dominoes. But when she laid the folder on his desk, he didn’t even glance at it.“Cancel the morning brief,” he said, flipping casually through a sheet of paper.Ava blinked. “Cancel—? Damon, that’s with—”“I know who it’s with.” He didn’t look up. “Push it. This instead.”He slid a different folder toward her. Lighter. Thin. A simple courier request, by the looks of it—deliver sealed documents to an associate uptown.It was the kind of task an intern would handle. Not his executive assistant. Not her.Ava hesitated, her hand hovering over the folder. “You want me to… personally?”“Yes.” This time his eyes lifted, catching hers. His face was neutral, but there was a flicker—something measured, deliberate. “I want you to make sure it gets there. No one else.”The weight of his gaze lingered just long enough to make her throat
Her kiss,His Downfall Fracture In The Armor
Ava lay on her bed, staring at the ceiling, the glow of the city leaking through her blinds. Sleep wouldn’t come.She could still hear Damon’s voice in the lobby. “Do you enjoy that?” The way it slipped out of him—like something he’d been holding back for too long and lost control of.She should’ve felt triumphant. This was what she wanted, wasn’t it? To crawl under his skin, to make him unravel piece by piece until he was weak enough to crush.But instead of triumph, there was this strange knot in her chest.She pressed her palms against her eyes, groaning quietly. “Get it together, Ava…”Every time she tried to push it away, it came back stronger. The look on his face when Mr. Keane had smiled at her. That flicker of something raw—something not cold, not calculated. Something Damon Blackwood would rather die than show.Her heart gave a stupid, traitorous flutter, and she rolled over, burying her face in the pillow.She hated this. Hated that it felt like she was losing control of he
Her kiss,His Downfall The Thin Ice
The bed was empty when Ava woke. The sheets beside her were cool, smooth, like Damon hadn’t even touched them after she’d fallen asleep.Her chest pinched. He hadn’t stayed.Dragging herself up, she slipped into a robe and padded downstairs. The house was still, too quiet. No clink of glass, no low rumble of his voice on a phone call. Just silence.On the counter, the coffee pot sat clean. Not even a trace of grounds in the filter. Damon always made coffee, even if he never drank much. Always.Her hand brushed the handle, hesitating.Movement caught her eye—by the door. His jacket was gone from the hook. But his watch lay on the table, the one he never forgot.She picked it up. Heavy. Cold. It still held the faint warmth of his wrist.Footsteps came from the back hallway. Damon appeared, crisp in a suit, tie knotted tight. He froze a beat when he saw her holding the watch.“Forgot something?” she asked, her voice softer than she meant.His jaw ticked, unreadable. He walked over, pluck
Her kiss,His Downfall The Quiet Punishment
The bed was cold when she rolled over.Ava blinked into the pale light spilling through the curtains, her hand searching for him out of habit. Nothing. Just sheets pulled tight, like he hadn’t even bothered lying down on his side.She sat up slowly, head foggy, the hollow ache in her chest worse than any hangover. Her bare feet hit the floor, and for a second she just sat there, staring at the space he hadn’t touched.Downstairs, the house was quiet. Too quiet.She found the coffee pot still clean, no fresh coffee waiting like it usually was when he left early. His jacket wasn’t on the chair by the door. The faint hum of his office—always alive with noise—was gone.She poured herself a cup, the silence swallowing even the sound of the pour. Sitting at the counter, she wrapped both hands around the mug just to feel something warm.Every empty space seemed to scream his absence.The house had never felt this big, or this cold.The clock ticked past nine before she heard the garage door.
Her kiss,His Downfall Shadows In The Glass
The door clicked shut, and Damon just stood there. His hand still on the handle, fingers stiff, like if he let go, everything inside him might spill out.The hallway was empty, quiet, but his chest felt too loud—heart slamming against bone, breath uneven. He backed up until his shoulders hit the wall. He pressed his palms to it like he needed something solid to keep from falling apart.“Fuck,” he muttered under his breath, dragging a hand through his hair. He hadn’t meant to say it. Not out loud. Not to her.I trust you too much.The words replayed in his head like a loop he couldn’t cut. It made his stomach turn. Trust was the one thing he never gave freely, not since he was old enough to understand how people used it against him. And yet, with her—it slipped. It fell out of him like a truth he couldn’t cage.Footsteps. Damon’s head snapped up. Marcus, one of his men, was walking down the hall, holding a file. He slowed when he saw Damon.“You good, boss?” Marcus asked, voice careful
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