All Chapters of Ashes Don't Bleed: Chapter 31 - Chapter 38

The café was quiet in that expensive, intentional way — muted lighting, arched windows, the faint hum of jazz floating like smoke. A place designed to look casual while hiding the fact that every cup of coffee cost enough to feed a family.Amara slipped into it like she owned it.Black coat. Hair pinned. Expression carved from marble.She spotted Daelan immediately — corner table, back to the wall, posture loose but eyes watching every entrance and exit like he was mapping escape routes.She approached without slowing, heels clicking sharp and precise across the polished floors.He stood when she reached the table — a gentleman gesture from a man who was anything but gentle — and she waved him down before he could even open his mouth.“Let’s get to the point, Daelan.” Amara slid into her seat, crossing her legs with the elegance of someone who had decided long ago that she’d never bow again. “Why exactly did you ask to meet me?”Daelan settled back into his chair, studying her with th

Ethan Cade did not drink coffee.He consumed it.Like ammunition.Shot after shot.Cup after cup.And tonight, his desk was littered with the husks—porcelain soldiers slain in battle—evidence of the war he had been fighting for hours without pause.The skyline outside his office windows bled gold into midnight, skyscrapers gleaming like polished blades. The Cade Enterprises tower stood tallest, proudest, its crown touching the sky like it owned the damn hemisphere.Tonight, though, ownership felt… negotiable.He’d been pacing for nearly three hours, one hand buried in his hair, the other holding the remnants of yet another cappuccino he didn’t remember finishing. His usually flawless shirt was wrinkled, sleeves shoved past his elbows, tie discarded entirely.His empire was bleeding.Barely.But bleeding all the same.And that was unacceptable.Completely. Absolutely. Violently unacceptable.Ethan halted mid-stride, eyes darting across the scattered reports on his desk—projections, los

The Rhys estate swallowed sound the way the ocean swallowed secrets—completely.Once the doors shut behind them, the villa’s interior felt colder, darker, almost monastic. High ceilings. Stone walls. Shadows that moved as if they had their own breath.Damien walked ahead of her without asking if she would follow.Amara followed without asking why.A strange symmetry, for two people who shared nothing but a growing ledger of silent debts.He led her into a vast study lit by low amber lamps. Books lined the walls. Old maps. A fireplace with dying embers. A room built for power—and for hiding it.Damien turned to her slowly.“Ask,” he said. Not inviting. Not warning.Just… accepting inevitability.Amara stepped closer, chin high, grief buried under iron.“Who are you, Damien?”He didn’t answer.Not with words.Not with a shift of expression.Not even with a tell-tale flicker in his eyes.He simply watched her—like a man waiting to see how much of herself she was willing to spill to get a

Damien didn’t move for a long moment after she spoke.I want to leave Italy.The words hung between them like a blade suspended by a single hair.Amara’s breathing had steadied, but only barely. Her chest still rose too fast. Her fingers still twitched from aftershocks. The kitchen still smelled faintly of cold marble, sea wind, and her fear.She hated that he’d seen her like this again. Hated that Italy had dragged her back into a nightmare she’d buried with grit and therapy and oceans of distance.But more than that—She hated how gently he still held her, as if some part of him remembered exactly how to keep her from breaking.Damien finally spoke, voice low.“Not tonight.”It wasn’t a refusal.It wasn’t acceptance.It was a delay.Amara stiffened in his arms.“Let me go,” she murmured.He did. Instantly. As if her skin had burned him.She pushed herself to sit upright, back against the cabinet. Damien stayed crouched in front of her, but now there was distance. Space for dignity.