All Chapters of The king of Ashes : Chapter 71 - Chapter 80

(Isabella’s POV) The doctor’s final words hung in the air of the study, a death sentence with a twelve-hour timer. If he is not woken up… he will die. For real this time. I watched Alessandro. He stood perfectly still in the center of the room, his face a mask of cold, hard stone. In the blink of an eye, the broken son had vanished, and the King of Ashes was back in control. He dismissed the doctor with a curt, sharp nod. Then he turned to his remaining soldiers, his voice devoid of all emotion, a machine of pure command. “Find a way to hack that pod, Anya,” he ordered, his voice dangerously quiet. “I don’t care what it takes. I want every resource we have, every contact, every expert on the planet, focused on breaking that sequence. You have eleven hours and fifty-nine minutes.” “Lucian,” he continued, turning to his most trusted friend. “Get me everything we have on Liliana Moretti. Every old photograph, every financial record, every ghost of a rumor. I want to know where

(Isabella’s POV) I woke up slowly, feeling like I was floating up from a deep, warm, and peaceful ocean. The first thing I became aware of was the soft morning light filtering through the blinds of the massive bedroom window, painting soft, golden stripes across the room. The second thing was the incredible, deep ache in my body. It was not a painful ache. It was a pleasant, heavy soreness, a physical reminder of the wild, passionate, and desperate way Alessandro had loved me all night long. He had taken me over and over again, his desperate need for me a match for my own, and I had lost count of the number of times I had cried out his name in pleasure. A small, secret smile touched my lips. I felt deliciously, wonderfully exhausted. I was wrapped in sheets that felt like silk and smelled like him—a clean, masculine scent that was both comforting and thrilling. I was half-covered by his heavy, muscular arm, his body a warm, solid weight against mine. I turned my head slowly on

(Alessandro’s POV) The world, which had stopped spinning, came crashing back with the force of a physical blow. The words my father spoke echoed in the sudden, horrified silence of the study. “You’re late. Where is she? Where is Liliana?” Not, Where am I? Not, My son. Not even a flicker of confusion. Just a cold, hard demand for the woman who had tried to destroy me. Every theory we had, every assumption we had made, was wrong. My father was not a victim. He was not a prisoner she was using as a biological key. He was a partner. He was a willing co-conspirator. The man I had just risked everything to save from a ticking clock was part of the plot to destroy me. The betrayal was so absolute, so monumental, that for a moment, my mind simply could not process it. The man I had cried for, the man whose complex memory I had carried like a burden my whole life, was my greatest enemy. Dr. Al-Jamil rushed forward, trying to check my father’s vital signs, but Antonio swatted his

(Alessandro’s POV) Thorne’s sneering words struck me with the force of a physical blow, and the cold, sterile medical bay seemed to tilt on its axis. The ghost you already killed. “Cassian?” The name was a ghost on my own lips, a whispered sound of pure, horrified disbelief. The world around me dissolved. I was no longer in the Citadel. I was back on that rain-slicked rooftop, the cold metal of the gun in my hand, the weight of a brother’s betrayal heavy in the air. I saw his face, his eyes empty not of life, but of the brother I had once known. I felt the recoil of the gun, heard the terrible, final sound. I had done it. I had killed him. I had stood over his body. I had put my own brother in the ground. It was a memory that haunted my every waking moment and tormented my every dream. A wound on my soul that would never heal. And now, this man, this snake, was telling me it was all a lie. “Alessandro.” A voice, soft and firm, cut through the storm in my mind. I felt a g

(Isabella’s POV) The name glowed on the screen in the dark war room, a monstrous and unbelievable truth that stole the air from my lungs. The Lazarus Program. Lazarus. The man who was brought back from the dead. My mind, which had been reeling from one impossible revelation after another, finally landed on the full, horrifying scope of what we were facing. This was not a simple war of revenge. Liliana Moretti was not just a criminal mastermind. She was a monster playing God. For twenty-five years, she had been hidden away, funding a secret, unholy science, twisting the very laws of life and death to serve her quest for vengeance. Project Chimera. A monster made of different parts. Alessandro’s father, Antonio, a king brought back from a living death. And Cassian, the brother Alessandro had been forced to kill, his body stolen, his soul emptied, to be reshaped into a perfect soldier. A blank slate. A resurrected man. I looked at Alessandro. He was standing completely still,