Chapter Two – Ghosts of the Past

Elena Montrose

Time heals everything, they say. But that’s a lie. Time only teaches you how to wear the mask better.

The wedding band felt like a shackle. I stared at the thin platinum circle on my finger, unmoving, while the city stretched below the penthouse windows. A cold breeze filtered through the cracked glass, fluttering the silk curtains, reminding me that I wasn’t free. I was tethered to a man who destroyed my life, and a past that refused to stay buried.

I had spent the entire night awake; lying beside a man who didn’t know the woman in his bed was the same woman he left to burn five years ago.

Damien had fallen asleep before I even returned from the guest room’s powder room. No words. No pretense. He didn’t want a wedding night. He wanted a pawn.

Perfect. That’s exactly what I wanted him to believe.

Now, in the gray hush of morning, I stood alone in his world - our world, technically. The penthouse was pristine and brutal, with all steel, marble, and modern edges. Everything here was designed to reflect control, power, and detachment. But power without heart was just emptiness wrapped in cashmere.

And Damien Crest was the king of the hollow throne.

I wandered into his study, needing a moment to breathe. The smell of aged leather and expensive scotch greeted me. It was just as I remembered it.

I trailed my fingers across the edge of his desk. That same desk where he once kissed me the first time we closed a deal together. The same desk where I sat beside him and believed we were building something real, love wrapped in ambition.

I was such a fool.

Five years ago, I was Elena Montrose, heiress to Montrose Holdings, the only daughter of one of the most respected legacy families in the industry. My father, Charles Montrose, was a titan. My mother, elegant and ruthless, held our name with pride.

We were royalty. Until the scandal.

I still remember the headlines.

MONTROSE EMPIRE UNDER FEDERAL INVESTIGATION: FRAUD, EMBEZZLEMENT, AND SHADY DEALS?

HEIRESS ELENA MONTROSE MISSING AFTER PRESS CONFERENCE MELTDOWN.

It started with a whisper, spread like fire, and ended with everything I loved in ash. Within weeks, my father lost everything. Assets frozen, contracts canceled, Board members turned. It was like vultures had been waiting.

And Damien… Damien stood by and watched. Silent. Cold.

He was my fiancé.

He could have defended us.

He didn’t.

I waited for him to speak in our defense, to fight for me, to show the world we weren’t guilty. Instead, he cut all ties. Broke the engagement and walked away.

The final nail?

A leaked statement from Crest Industries distancing themselves from the Montrose scandal, signed by Damien himself.

He knew. He knew what the press didn’t: We were innocent. That the audit was fabricated. That someone had forged records to look like my father had been siphoning investor funds.

But Damien said nothing.

For a long time, I thought he was the one who orchestrated it all.

I still don’t know for sure.

I ran, left the country, changed my name, my look, and everything. I spent months off-grid until a woman named ‘Vivienne’ found me.

Vivienne Bellamy. Quiet, Brilliant, and Dangerous.

She’d worked behind the scenes in corporate espionage, surveillance, and high-level digital operations. But Vivienne didn’t want money, she wanted justice. She had been following my case, intrigued by how easily someone had toppled one of the most powerful families in business. She believed it had been too clean, too convenient.

And so, she trained me.

She showed me how to rebuild myself. How to become what I needed to be to walk back into Damien’s world undetected. How to hide in plain sight.

“You want vengeance?” she’d said once, her eyes sharp. “Then stop bleeding and start hunting.”

I became a ghost with a diamond smile.

And now I’m here.

Married to the man who might have destroyed everything I once held dear.

The soft chime of a news bulletin from Damien’s TV snapped me back to the present. His screen displayed a crisp image of him and me from yesterday’s wedding, looking every bit the city’s new power couple.

“A surprise merger of two empires”, the anchor said. “Damien Crest and Elena Montrose once a cautionary tale, now a phoenix rising from the ashes?”

I laughed bitterly.

Phoenix?

Not quite. Phoenixes rise to heal. I rose to burn.

A knock interrupted my thoughts. The butler announced Damien’s approach.

He entered the study a moment later, dressed for war in a gray suit, tie loose at the collar. He looked like sin made of silk—impossibly composed.

“Enjoying your first morning as Mrs. Crest?” he asked.’

“Thrilled,” I replied. “Didn’t realize I’d be sharing my mornings with headlines and hollow smiles.”

He smirked, but his eyes studied me. “Get used to it. This isn’t a marriage, Elena. It’s a campaign.”

“Oh, I’m well aware,” I said coolly.

He crossed to the bar, poured a glass of whiskey, and turned. “But you’re good at this. Polished, Calculated, Almost as if you’ve done this before.”

My spine stiffened. “I read the manual.”

Damien’s smile didn’t quite reach his eyes. “I’m not complaining. Just surprised. You’re not like the other socialites they parade around. You have… teeth.”

He didn’t know how right he was.

He sipped his drink, never breaking eye contact. “You remind me of someone.”

A chill ran down my spine.

I turned my face away quickly. “I suppose I’m just memorable.”

He laughed softly. “No, that’s not it. You remind me of someone I knew a long time ago. Someone who disappeared.”

“People vanish every day,” I said, my voice low. “And most of the time, it’s because someone else made them.”

That made him pause. But he said nothing.

I left the room a moment later, pulse hammering. That flicker of memory in his eyes—it was dangerous. I couldn’t afford recognition. Not yet.

Down the hall, in my newly assigned office, a plain black envelope sat on the desk.

No name. No return address.

I opened it with trembling fingers.

Inside were a single flash drive… and a note.

“Look deeper. The fall of Montrose wasn’t your fiancé’s betrayal—it was a buyout masked as a scandal. Signed, V.”

My vision tunneled.

Vivienne had found something.

And if what she said was true, then Damien might not be the villain I thought he was.

But if he wasn’t?

Then someone else had used us both—and I’d just walked back into the arms of the only man who could help me destroy the real enemy.

 Elena plugs in the flash drive and uncovers the first breadcrumb—proof of a hidden meeting between her father’s rival and a Crest Industries board member. Was Damien set up too? And if he was… is she prepared to face the truth of who the real monster is?*