The room froze in the echo of Ava’s confession. For a moment the city itself seemed to pause outside the walls of glass, the endless river of lights dimming beneath the weight of revelation. Damian’s gaze shifted from Lydia to Ava and back again, his face shadowed by disbelief. He had thought he understood betrayal. He had thought he knew the limits of humiliation. Yet this truth split through him like a blade, stripping away every illusion he had clung to.“You,” he growled, his voice rumbled like thunder during an heavy rain. His eyes locked on Lydia. “You were her lover?”The words cracked the silence like lightning. His voice was not merely angry. It was a roar, the sound of a man whose pride had been struck where he thought it most unassailable. The walls of the penthouse seemed to tremble under the weight of it.Lydia did not flinch. She met his starring at her with steady calm, her expression expressionless, Her calmness only infuriated him the more.His fists knotted at his sid
The room was still as stone, the silence pressed so tightly it seemed the chandeliers themselves held their breath. Damian stood in the middle of the suite, fists tight, eyes darting between Lydia and Ava, two women poised like adversaries on either side of a throne he no longer controlled. The city’s glow bled through the glass walls, indifferent to the storm brewing inside.Ava broke the silence. A laugh slipped from her throat, brittle, the kind that belonged to someone who knew her next words would detonate everything. She lifted her empty gently . “You two speak of crowns and kingdoms,” she said lightly, her tone mocking. “But the truth is battles are not always won with swords. Sometimes they are won with secrets.” Her eyes locked on Lydia, holding, challenging.Lydia’s fingers stilled against her glass. Her expression did not shift, but there was a faint tightening around her eyes. “Secrets are a currency for the weak,” she said. “I do not need them.”“Don’t you?” Ava’s voice s
Midnight wrapped Eve’s Hotel in shadows and glass. The lobby glowed faintly, chandeliers burning low, their crystals dripping light in scattered shards across polished marble. Outside, the city murmured in restless waves, but inside the corridors carried only silence, sharpened and intentional, impossible to mistake for calm.Lydia stepped through the entrance as though the space had been designed for her alone. The bellman bowed instinctively, though she did not glance his way. Every detail of her appearance was deliberate: the black silk dress that curved like a blade, the diamond at her throat that fractured light, the unhurried grace of her stride. She had not dressed to impress Ava. She had dressed as a statement.The suite Ava had chosen occupied the top floor, a penthouse with walls of glass leaning over the skyline. Lydia pushed the door open without knocking.The air carried the scent of jasmine and expensive wine. Music floated faintly from a hidden speaker, low and sultry.
The night carried a false calm, the sort that could trick a careless mind into believing nothing stirred beneath its surface. But Lydia had never been careless. She knew that stillness was never innocent. Quiet was a ledger. It revealed who held their breath, who trembled in shadows, who waited for the knife to fall. And tonight, every hushed corner whispered the same truth—her husband was splintering, piece by fragile piece.From her place upstairs she heard him leaving. His footfalls landed on the marble floor with clipped urgency, the echo betraying his desperation. The front door close so hard making it frame shivers. Not hesitation. Not explanation. Just escape.She remained still for a moment, the silk robe at her waist catching faint light from the hall. Then she descended the staircase, each step deliberate, the muted click of her heels sounding like punctuation in the silence. She walked through the foyer and into the living room, where Damian’s discarded tie lay coiled in de
The house was too quiet.Damian had been pacing for nearly an hour, his steps echoing against the polished floor, his thoughts louder than the silence around him. His shirt clung to his back with sweat, his tie long discarded on the couch. Every turn he made across the living room felt like running circles inside his own mind.Ava’s words from earlier How did Lydia know about the slush fund? echoed like a curse. He had brushed it off at the office, tried to stay stoic, but now, in the privacy of his home, the question clawed at him relentlessly.He remembered the night he had confronted Lydia.It had been late, the house bathed in shadow. He had slammed the door to her study open, waving the documents in his hand, his voice shaking with fury. “How did you know? Who told you about the fund?”Lydia had not denied it. She hadn’t even blinked. Instead, she looked up from her glass of whiskey, her expression calm, almost amused, as though she had been waiting for him to ask. “Does it matte
The room was silent when Ava woke. Too silent.Her lashes fluttered open against the soft gray of morning light, filtering weakly through half-drawn curtains. The air carried the faint scent of silk, wine, and sweat, reminders of a night that should have broken her but instead left her strangely alert.Her hand stretched across the bed, fingers brushing the cool sheets where Lydia had been only hours ago. Empty. Cold. Lydia was gone.For one fleeting heartbeat, Ava’s chest tightened. She almost let herself believe that the night had been nothing more than a fever dream, the cruel whispers, the bruising kiss, the way their bodies clashed against the glass, desperate and destructive. But then her eyes landed on the nightstand.A glass rested there, half-filled with dark wine, the rim marked with a crimson smear of lipstick. Lydia’s lipstick.There was no note, no apology, no tender gesture. Just a stain. A mark of ownership, left behind like a mocking brand.Ava sat up slowly, the sheet