Sin & Silk

Chapter 6: The visitor

Ashley

Morning shouldn’t taste like shame, but it does.

It coats my tongue when I wake alone in Riley’s bed, silk sheets twisted around my bare legs, a faint ache still pulsing deep inside me like a secret reminder of who I belong to now.

I shouldn’t feel this way. Not warm. Not wanting. Not… proud of the bruises blooming like dark petals on my throat.

I’m still trying to fix my hair when the door opens without warning. Of course he doesn’t knock. Of course he stands there in his tailored suit, hair still damp from the shower, watching me like he owns the air I breathe.

“Sleep well?” Riley’s voice is casual but his eyes rake over my body like a brand. He walks in, cups my jaw, tilts my head so he can admire his handiwork, the faint marks his teeth left behind. “Pretty,” he murmurs. “Maybe I’ll leave more tonight.”

I slap his hand away before I can think twice. “Get out.”

He only laughs, the sound so low it makes my knees weak. “Careful, Mrs. Carter. You’ll make me think you want another lesson right now.”

He leaves a cup of coffee on my bedside table like he owns this too then he’s gone, whistling down the hallway to whatever empire he needs to conquer today.

I drink the coffee anyway.

I shower too long, stand under scalding water until my skin is red and raw, hoping I can scrub him off me. But when I step out and catch my reflection, the marks on my throat, the softness in my eyes, I know I can’t.

By noon, I’m pacing the huge bedroom like a caged animal. The silence feels too loud. So I pull on one of his crisp white shirts, ridiculous how it hangs off my shoulders and wander downstairs barefoot, hoping the emptiness will swallow me whole.

It doesn’t.

It betrays me instead because when the knock comes at the front door, it echoes through the marble floors like a threat.

I freeze. Riley’s guards should handle this. No one should be knocking. No one should dare.

But the knock comes again, softer this time, almost polite. I don’t know why I open it. Maybe I want trouble. Maybe I want out.

The man standing there is the last ghost I ever expected.

“Hello, Ashley.”

I flinch. The voice is smooth, oily like old money left to rot. I haven’t heard it in years, but it curls around my throat now like a snake.

“Reo,” I whisper.

He smiles,all teeth, no warmth. Riley’s rival. His worst enemy. The man my father once borrowed from, the man Riley ruined when he took our debt and wrapped it around my neck instead.

He looks at me like I’m still that naïve girl in my father’s study, the one who begged him not to take everything. The one who offered herself up to protect a family that sold her anyway.

“You’re a hard girl to find,” Reo drawls, stepping over the threshold like he’s been invited. He doesn’t even glance at the guards frozen behind him, his grin daring them to drag him out. “May I come in? Or do you want Riley to know you slammed the door in my face?”

My mouth goes dry. “What do you want?”

Reo’s eyes flick down my body, the way Riley’s shirt barely covers my thighs. I tug it lower, but his grin only widens. “I see you’re settling in nicely,” he says. “Does he know you still dream about running?”

“I don’t.”

“Oh, you do. I can see it.” He steps closer, and I stumble back. The guards don’t move, they’re waiting for Riley’s orders, and he’s not here. Reo’s presence is poison, paralyzing them.

“Tell me, sweetheart.” He leans in, lips brushing my ear, a mockery of Riley’s heat. “When you finally crawl out of his bed, will you crawl into mine to pay your debt in full?”

I slap him. Hard. My palm stings but the sound is worth it.

Reo just laughs — low and cold. “Ah. There she is. The little mouse with teeth.”

He pulls something from his pocket, a folded slip of paper. He tucks it into my palm, his fingers brushing mine with mock tenderness.

“Give that to your husband. Tell him I’m done playing fair.”

I want to spit in his face. I want to scream. But my voice is gone when I look down at the paper, the neat rows of numbers, the names. Blackmail. Or worse.

When I look up, Reo is gone, the front door swings closed behind him like he was never here at all.

But he was. His scent lingers. His threat tastes like poison on my tongue.

I stand there in Riley’s too big shirt, my heart pounding, the paper burning in my hand.

Because now I have to choose, “tell Riley everything and risk his fury or hide it and pray I can keep the devil at my door from slipping into my bed.”