All Chapters of Blood Roses : Chapter 1 - Chapter 4

The smell of smoke never left her.Even after five years, Inés still woke up coughing some nights, the phantom scent of ash curling through her dreams like a ghost refusing to rest.“Name?” the guard at the Delgado estate gate asked, his voice flat but suspicious.Inés gripped the strap of her cheap bag tighter. “Inés Montoya. I’m here for the maid position.”The man’s eyes raked over her; young, pretty, average enough not to draw attention, which was the point. He muttered something into his walkie-talkie, then motioned for her to go inside.She stepped through the iron gates, and the chill that ran down her spine had nothing to do with the morning air.This was it.She was inside.The Delgado mansion was exactly what she'd imagined; elegant, intimidating, and soulless. Black stone, endless windows, and security cameras that tracked every step. The kind of place that didn’t just keep secrets. It buried them.A tall woman in a gray uniform led her through a marble hallway. “You’ll cle

The crackle of fire whispered death.Inés staggered back from the door, the scent of burning fabric and flesh clawing at her throat. The shriek from the hallway still echoed in her ears, followed by a deafening silence that made her knees weak. Smoke slithered through the crack beneath the door like a serpent, hungry and relentless.She backed into the room, clutching the folder tight beneath her apron, the sharp corner digging into her ribs grounding her in reality. Her breath came in short gasps, but she forced herself to think. Fire meant destruction, but also distraction. If she could just find a way out….A loud click.She spun.The door behind her creaked open.Not the hallway door.The panel behind the bookcase.A man stepped through the narrow passageway, dark curls damp with sweat, a gun in one hand, blood on the other. His shirt clung to his sculpted torso, open down to the middle of his chest, smeared with soot. But it was his eyes, those ice-blue eyes that rooted her to th