All Chapters of A Crown of Ashes: Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

The Rolls-Royce carved through the rain, a beast of a car cutting the night in half. Water streaked the blacked-out windows, looking like tears Sienna wouldn’t let fall. She sat stiff, spine like a steel rod, the folded letter from Dorian clenched in her fist till her knuckles ached. You’re not safe. Neither is he. Find the truth before they do. The lines scratched at her brain, a puzzle she didn’t want, a trap she couldn’t shake. Across from her, Vivienne gazed out at the city’s smeared lights, her perfect nails clicking a slow beat on the armrest—tap, tap, tap—like she was counting down to something. Roman sat next to Sienna, too damn still, like a coiled snake sizing up its next bite.“Where are we hauling ass to?” Sienna finally barked, her voice hacking through the heavy quiet. She wasn’t some doll they could drag wherever they pleased.Vivienne didn’t bother looking at her. “The estate,” she said, crisp and cold, like she was spitting out a fact everybody should know. “Your fa

The scarred guy’s claps rang through the study, slow and nasty, each one hitting the walls like a slap in the face. Sienna’s arm burned where the knife had cut her, blood trickling down to the floor, but she barely noticed. Her eyes were stuck on him—tall, lean, that ugly scar twisting under his eye like a claw mark. His grin was sharp, wrong, holding her still even as Roman’s hand tightened on her shoulder, too damn tight. “Who are you?” she rasped, voice scraped raw, jerking free of Roman’s grip. She wasn’t about to shrink, not with a dead guy leaking foam at her boots and the silver key shining on the floor like a challenge. He tipped his head, looking her over like she was meat. “Ezra,” he said, smooth and slick, stepping past the busted doorframe. “Ezra Locke. And you’re Sienna Calder, the lost kid who’s in way over her head.” His eyes slid to Roman, still hunched by the body, gun in his fist. “Valtieri, you I figured I’d see. Always sniffing around the old man’s scraps.” Ro

Water slammed into Sienna’s chest, cold and black, clawing her down like it had teeth. She choked, lungs burning, kicking against the flood swallowing the basement. Roman’s hand locked around her arm, fingers digging in hard, dragging her through the mess toward where the stairs used to be. Her pocket sagged with the vial’s weight, that damn glass nagging her, and Ezra’s laugh still rang in her head—his smug ass waving the key like a prize.“Grab something!” Roman shouted, voice torn over the rush, his other hand scrabbling at the wall’s edge, now just a crumbled lip of concrete. The water was winning, surging up her ribs, tugging at her soaked jacket. She gagged on it, tasting mud and salt, her arm screaming where the knife had cut—blood swirling red in the dark churn.“Grab what?” she yelled back, thrashing, boots slipping for any hold. His face was right there—wet hair plastered flat, eyes blazing dark and fierce, pinning hers like she was all that mattered. It hit her, that look,

The drizzle had faded, leaving the woods damp and quiet, the air thick with pine and the faint rot of wet earth. Sienna leaned against the shack’s warped wall, her breath fogging in the chill, the vial a cold lump in her pocket. Roman stood by the busted window, peering out, his silhouette sharp against the faint moonlight—broad shoulders, torn coat, too damn still for the mess they were in. The radio’s threat—“Bring the vial, or he pays”—still gnawed at her, but her mind was stuck somewhere else, pulled by the way he moved, the way he filled the space.“Anything out there?” she asked, voice low, rough from the cold, trying to shake the itch crawling up her spine. She rubbed her arms, the cut on her forearm stinging under crusted blood, but it wasn’t the pain nagging her—it was him, standing there like he owned the dark.He turned, slow, his eyes catching hers—dark, steady, cutting through the dim. “Nothing yet,” he said, voice low, gravelly, like he’d smoked too much or shouted too l

Sienna’s boots crunched on dry pine needles, the shack a fading speck behind them as she and Roman cut deeper into the woods. The truck’s bloody mess was miles back, that scream still ringing in her skull, but the air here was still—too still—thick with the tang of sap and something sharper, like metal or smoke. Her fingers flexed around the vial in her pocket, its cold glass a tether to whatever hell Dorian had left her, and Roman walked ahead, his stride long and sure, gun tucked close, his silence loud enough to grate on her nerves.“Say something,” she snapped, voice low, cutting through the quiet. Her breath puffed in the chill, her jacket stiff with dried mud, and she hated how exposed she felt—out here, with him, no walls to lean on.He glanced back, eyes catching the faint starlight—dark, steady, peeling her open in a way that made her skin itch. “What’s to say?” he said, voice rough, low, like he’d swallowed gravel. “We’re moving. That’s it.” But there was a hitch in it, a c