ASHES BETWEEN US
1146 Words
Cassian & Selene – Dual POV
Selene froze, her heart thudding, her breath caught somewhere between her lungs and her lips.
For one terrifying second, all she heard was silence.
Then came the mechanical hum, backup generators pulsing low, filling the penthouse halls with eerie red light.
Shadows stretched across the marble floors like scars. But she didn’t move. The chandelier above her buzzed but didn’t return to life.
Because she wasn’t alone.
Footsteps echoed behind her. Slow, deliberate.
She turned.
Cassian stood there, sleeves rolled up, face half in shadow, half in warning.
“I told you not to go into my office,” he said quietly.
She met his gaze, steady. The power went out.
He took a step closer. “And you just happened to be in my private study when it happened?”
“I wasn’t spying,” she said. “I saw something. A photo of my father. With a red X over it.”
His expression didn’t flicker. But his silence was louder than anything else.
“Did you mark it?” she asked. “Was that your message to me? Or was it already there when you inherited your hatred for me?”
“No,” he said coldly. “The message came years ago, Selene. In signatures. In betrayal. That red X is history repeating itself.”
She stared at him, the air between them too heavy to breathe.
“Why did you even marry me?” she whispered. “Was this your revenge? To lock me in a penthouse and remind me of a past I barely understand?”
He moved closer until she could feel the tension vibrating off his body. “You think this is revenge?” he asked, voice low. “You haven’t even seen the beginning of what that looks like.”
Her fingers curled into fists. “Then show me. Or stop pretending.”
Cassian’s eyes flared. Then he reached out, gripping her wrist not roughly, but with purpose.
“I should hate you,” he said.
“You do.”
“No,” he growled, pulling her closer. “I hate what I feel for you. I hate that you still look at me like I'm the boy you once kissed behind a chapel, not the man you destroyed.”
She trembled. “Then stop looking at me like I'm the only thing keeping you from falling apart.”
That broke something in him.
The space between them shattered.
His lips crashed into hers hard, unforgiving, a release of every word they hadn’t said, every wound they refused to stitch.
Selene responded like she’d been waiting years—because she had.
Clothes fell to the floor in silence. He lifted her onto the desk, papers scattering, crystal pens clattering to the ground.
She gasped against his neck, nails raking down his back. His name escaped her lips like a sin she couldn’t take back.
There was no music. No slow undressing or whispered “I love yous.” Just fire. Desperation. And pain laced with something neither of them wanted to name.
They moved like two people drowning, and only the other could save them.
When it ended, they collapsed into each other, breathless, shaking.
The red light still flickered above them, casting shadows that felt too close.
Selene’s head rested on his shoulder, his skin warm beneath hers. But there was no peace in the silence.
Only questions.
“I still don’t know why you hate me more than you hate the people who built that contract,” she whispered.
Cassian didn’t answer. After a long beat, he pulled away slowly and stood, gathering the shirt he’d discarded.
Then he left the office without a word.
Cassian, Later That Night
He couldn’t sleep.
Not with her in the next room. The echo of her lips was still on his skin. The sound of her voice, “I did it for Elias,” wouldn’t leave his head.
Not with the ghosts clawing their way out of drawers and USB drives.
He went into his office and sat at his desk.
The photo was still there. The red X was still bleeding across her father’s face.
But there was something behind it now, tucked under the frame, which had shifted slightly during the earlier chaos.
An old USB. Marked: Langford Archive—private.
Cassian narrowed his eyes and plugged it in.
Three files. Two PDFs. One video.
He opened the video.
And everything changed.
Grainy surveillance footage. The Langford office. Selene, younger, shaken, clutching something—a folder. She slid it toward someone. A woman.
Vivienne.
The camera angle was poor, but the timestamp was clear.
The timestamp was from before the merger.
Vivienne had been there at Langford Corp., accepting documents, signing something, speaking too quietly for the video to catch.
Cassian paused it.
Then opened the final PDF.
PROPERTY TRANSFER – WARD HOLDINGS IP RIGHTS
Signed: Selene Langford
It wasn’t a merger agreement—it was theft buried under layers of legal misdirection.
And Selene had signed it.
But something was wrong. Her signature had been forged before the one on the merger that Cassian had discovered before. That signature was perfect. This one… shakier. Less confident. Dated before the final contract.
He clicked open the last PDF.
Buried deep in the metadata, he saw a line that made his breath catch:
MODIFIED BY V.GRANT
Vivienne had altered it.
She had edited the file.
Selene had signed something, but not this. Not this version.
The real thief… had been inside his walls all along.
Vivienne.
She had access to Ward Holdings, to Langford Corp. She had ties to both and a motive neither of them had seen.
She’d been playing them all.
He stared at the footage again, fingers clenched around the edge of his desk, jaw tight.
Selene’s signature. The contract. The date.
But now… Vivienne’s access logs. The edits. The discrepancies in the timestamps.
It didn’t add up.
His heart thundered as two versions of the truth warred in his mind; the one he’d built his revenge on, and the one unraveling before his eyes.
Had Selene signed that deal under pressure? Had she even known what she was signing?
Vivienne had been there. She had everything to gain. And she’d never once mentioned the safe hidden in his father’s office or the original unedited contract now lying on the table beside him.
Cassian dragged a hand down his face.
If Selene wasn’t the traitor…
Then, whom did he marry?
Who had he punished?
A floorboard creaked. The hallway.
He didn’t turn.
Instead, he whispered to the dark.
She didn’t kill my father’s legacy. She signed the death warrant. But Vivienne pulled the trigger. She’d been playing both sides.
And in that moment, Cassian Ward realized
He wasn’t the hunter.
He was the fool dancing in the fire.
- Writer
