Love in the Ashes

I woke up gasping for air, expecting the cold concrete of a prison cell, but my fingers sank into the plush leather of a luxury Lincoln. I was twenty-four again, wearing the silver silk dress from the night my life was systematically destroyed. Beside me sat my cousin Catrina, the woman whose carefully crafted lies had orchestrated my ruin and sent me to a penitentiary for five years. In my first life, this was the night the dominoes fell. Catrina stole my jewelry to paint me as mentally unstable, and by morning, I was stripped of my medical license and labeled a criminal. My mother’s family, the Montgomerys, stood by and watched as my father’s company was devoured by wolves, treating my existence like a "liability" that needed to be managed. I still felt the phantom tremors in my hands from prison fights and the stinging betrayal of being discarded by the people I called family. I had lived through five years of absolute hell, a former surgeon rotting in a cell while the people who framed me toasted to their success at galas I was no longer invited to. "Don't be selfish, Dawn," Catrina whispered, reaching for the necklace that would later be used as evidence against me. "Let the jewelry shine on someone who actually matters." She thought I was still the fragile victim she could manipulate, but she didn't realize I had returned from the grave with the cold, clinical calculation of a fixer. Instead of walking into her trap at the gala, I forced the car onto a dark service road and dragged a dying billionaire, Jennings Stafford, from the wreckage of a burning SUV. He was the only man powerful enough to destroy my enemies, and as I stitched his wounds with stolen supplies, I didn't ask for a thank you. I looked him dead in the eye and proposed a contract that would set the world on fire. "I want a strategic marriage. You get a harmless wife with a legacy name to calm your board, and I get immunity from everyone who ever touched me." The bill for my five years in prison had finally come due, and I was here to collect.

I returned to the Reeves estate after five years in exile, not as the rightful heir, but as an outcast. My father had been dead for only a month, and my uncle Julian had already claimed his mahogany desk, his face tight with a greed he no longer bothered to hide. Julian didn't even look up as he slid a check for a hundred thousand dollars across the wood. "A settlement," he sneered. "Sign the waiver, take your bastards, and disappear. We don't want you embarrassing the family name anymore." One hundred thousand dollars for a legacy worth billions—it was an insult designed to draw blood. When my five-year-old twins, Leo and Mia, ran into the room, Julian looked at them with pure disgust, calling them vermin and ordering them out. He threatened that if I didn't sign, I’d be on the street in a week, stripped of the Reeves name and every penny of protection. Even the family lawyer looked away as he helped facilitate my ruin. I tore the check to shreds and walked out into a freezing deluge, shielding my children while the doors of my childhood home slammed shut behind us. I spent years building a secret life as a high-level corporate fixer, yet when I crossed paths with Branson Reeves—the man who shared my son’s eyes—he treated me like a common gold-digger. He outbid me for the "Midnight Orchid" painting, the only piece of evidence that could bring Julian down, mocking my "thrift store" clothes while my children slept in a borrowed guest room. How could they all be so blind? How could a family be so ready to destroy its own blood for the sake of a ledger? I was done hiding in the shadows. When Julian finally launched a hostile takeover to seize the entire empire, I walked into Branson’s penthouse, dropped my "poor niece" facade, and threw a decrypted file onto his desk. "The game is over, Branson. Give me that painting, and I’ll show you exactly how to bury the man who thinks he's already won."

I was eight months pregnant with the heir to the city's most powerful crime family. My husband, Austen, told me he was hosting a private celebration to honor me and the baby. But when I walked into the warehouse, the steel doors slammed shut behind me. I wasn't in a ballroom. I was locked inside an industrial glass freezer. Through the thick glass, I saw Austen standing with his assistant, Deb. They were laughing. He told me he didn't care about his son; he only cared about the trust fund that would unlock upon my father's death. "Cool her off," he ordered. His men dumped buckets of ice water onto me. The shock was instant. I begged him to stop, screaming for the life of our child, but he just watched with cold eyes. As I collapsed into a slush of ice and my own blood, I felt the baby fade away. Austen thought he had won. He thought my father, the Don, was dead and buried. He thought I was just a helpless, spoiled princess he could dispose of to seize the throne. He was wrong. With my last ounce of strength, I looked through the glass and mouthed three words: "He is coming." Before Austen could react, the warehouse doors didn't just open—they exploded inward. And through the smoke walked the man Austen thought was worm food. My father wasn't dead. But my husband was about to wish he was.

To save her family's empire, CEO Eliana King, known as the "Ice Queen," entered an arranged marriage with the rebellious artist Garrett Wolf. She saw him as a chaotic variable to be managed, a business deal. She never expected to be a pawn in his game of love. The devastating truth was that her husband was desperately in love with his childhood friend and muse, Serena Vance. Their entire marriage was a sham, a shield to protect Serena from his family's judgment, and a tool to make her jealous. When Eliana tried to divorce him, her own family, who knew the secret all along, had her brutally punished. Later, Garrett publicly forced a kiss on Eliana to provoke his lover, an act that ended with Serena attacking Eliana in a fit of jealous rage. In the hospital, Garrett's only concern was protecting Serena, proving Eliana's pain meant nothing next to his obsession. She was a tool, utterly disposable. This final betrayal ignited a fire in the ice. After a violent retaliation, she cut ties with her past and began celebrating her freedom. But the party came to a dead stop when Garrett appeared, his eyes burning with a rage meant only for her.

I was kidnapped by the rival tribe of my Alpha. When it happened, my Alpha was watching the sunrise with his destined mate. When he got the call, he spoke to the kidnappers in a detached tone. "Keep her tied up. Let her learn her lesson and stop pestering me." In that life-or-death moment, I had no options left. I clung to the rival tribe's Alpha, my voice shaking. "Please... don't kill me. I'll do anything you say." By the time my Alpha finally remembered me, the rival tribe's Alpha looked down at my sleeping face in his arms and chuckled. "Too late. She doesn't have the strength to leave with you now."

I was a rising architect, deeply in love with Ethan Miller, my charismatic colleague who promised me a future. He called me his muse, swore he' d make me his wife. I believed him. Then came the crisis: a critical error in our biggest project, threatening the whole firm. In the packed conference room, under harsh lights, Ethan pointed directly at me. "Yes, it was her fault," he stated, clear and steady. The entire room turned. I became a pariah overnight, accused of fraud and disgrace. Colleagues whispered, mentors condemned me. The pain was unbearable, but Ethan only offered cold indifference, his attention now solely on Sarah Jenkins, his junior assistant. I collapsed in a forgotten office, suffering for days. When I finally found Ethan, he was tenderly bandaging Sarah's minor cut, just as he had in our previous life while I fended for myself. He dragged me away, his fingers digging into my arm. "Sarah' s injury is more pressing, Olivia. Why do you always have to compete with her? She' s delicate." I tried to leave the firm, but Ethan and the executives forced me to take the fall, signing a brutal severance and an NDA to protect Sarah' s career. Sarah flaunted Ethan' s mother' s watch, the one he' d given me when he proposed in our previous life, and announced their engagement. "Ethan and I are getting married. You'll wish us happiness, won't you?" Why was he doing this to me again? And why was I so readily accepting my ruin? My spirit was shattered, my body broken, yet I couldn't comprehend the depths of his betrayal, or the sinister logic behind his actions. But this time, I wouldn't just accept it. The memory of his cruelty, intertwined with the desperate kindness of a childhood friend, would soon chart a new course, away from the torment and into a fight for peace.