Ghost Don't Bleed

Chapter 3 – Ghosts Don’t Bleed

---

The silence in Damon’s apartment wasn’t peaceful. It was accusatory.

Every sound he didn’t make echoed with what he hadn’t said.

What he should have said.

To Aria.

To the woman he might have buried alive.

The ice in his whiskey glass had melted hours ago. He didn’t notice.

He stared at the CCTV screenshots his team pulled from the Carlton Plaza. Ava. Ava. Ava.

The camera had caught her leaving the boardroom — face unreadable, stride smooth, eyes unbothered.

He zoomed in.

The face was newer. But the eyes...

God. It was her.

And yet it couldn’t be.

"Aria," he whispered for the first time in five years.

The sound of her name broke something loose in him. A dam. A wall. A silence.

He slammed his hand on the desk so hard the glass cracked.

His reflection — fractured.

Just like everything else.

---

Ava sat across from the Ashford Tech CEO at a private rooftop brunch. The sun was gentle. The skyline sharp.

The deal was simple: she’d offer media immunity, image cleanup, and stakeholder reassurance — in exchange for exclusive control over their PR narrative.

Ashford Tech hated scandal. They hated King Group’s brewing one even more.

They signed.

“Make sure the news leaks by Friday,” Ava told Nari over the phone. “Timing is everything.”

She ended the call and set her phone down slowly. Her fingers trembled — not from nerves.

From rage.

Damon didn’t deserve ruin.

He deserved to watch it happen.

Helpless. Obsessed. Alone.

She sipped her mimosa, savoring the taste of progress.

But underneath it all, a truth pulsed:

He had once held her heart.

Now he would feel its absence like a wound.

---

Three days later, Ava entered her private office at Kensley only to find someone sitting in her chair.

Damon.

Calm. Composed. Dangerous.

Like a storm before thunder.

“How did you get in here?” she asked coldly.

“I asked nicely,” he said. “Your staff thinks I’m charming.”

She shut the door behind her with a soft click.

“Careful,” she said. “You’re trespassing.”

“Tell me who you are.”

She arched a brow. “I already did. Ava Steele.”

“I want the truth.”

“You can’t handle it.”

“Try me.”

---

She crossed the room and stood across the desk.

“If you’re here for business, I suggest you leave. If you’re here for something else—”

“I saw you die,” he whispered. “I buried you.”

She froze.

His voice cracked. “You were wearing red that night too.”

She said nothing. Just let the silence punish him.

“You were the only thing I ever—”

He stopped himself. Swallowed. Looked away.

“I don’t know what you’re trying to do,” he continued, voice harder. “But if this is revenge—”

“It’s not revenge,” she said. “Revenge is too kind.”

She leaned closer.

“This is justice.”

The tension between them thickened, stretched across the mahogany desk like a wire ready to snap.

Damon’s jaw clenched, eyes locked on her like she was a riddle carved from every mistake he’d ever made. Ava — no, Aria — stood as if his presence didn’t shake her, though her hands curled into fists behind the desk.

He took a step closer.

“I was wrong,” he said.

Her brows twitched. The first crack in the mask.

“I know,” she replied. “But you were more than wrong. You were cruel.”

“I didn’t know—”

“You didn’t want to know!” she snapped, stepping out from behind the desk now, her voice sharp, furious. “You needed someone to blame, and I was the easiest target. Your wife. The woman who would never fight back.”

“I thought—”

“You didn’t think at all.”

She was shaking now. The words came too fast. Too hot.

“I begged you, Damon. I begged you to believe me. You looked at me like I was dirt. Like I was disposable.”

He reached for her — instinct, desperation.

She flinched away.

And that broke something in him.

“I came back,” she said quietly, voice trembling, “because I died with questions in my throat. Because silence choked me more than the lies did. I came back because you never even looked for the truth.”

His voice was gravel. “I buried you, Aria.”

Her eyes filled. Not tears. Rage and heartbreak, bruised together.

“I know,” she whispered. “You did it well.”

---

Damon stepped back. His mask cracked. For the first time in years, his composure failed him.

“How did you survive?” he asked.

Her answer was ice. “You don’t deserve that story.”

And with that, she walked past him — not broken, not bent.

Just finished.

---

Hours later, Damon sat at his desk staring at a sealed envelope delivered by private courier.

No return address.

Just his name.

He opened it slowly.

Inside: a black-and-white photo of the two of them. Their wedding day. Aria’s smile radiant. Damon holding her like the world made sense.

But across it, in thick red ink, was a single word: LIAR.

Underneath it, a document. A leaked media file.

A confidential King Group lawsuit — one he'd buried years ago.

The headline would hit in the morning.

And Damon realized with chilling clarity:

She wasn’t just haunting him.

She was hunting him.