Ashes And echoes
832 Words
Chapter 12: Ashes and Echoes
Zoya hadn’t slept.
The slap she delivered to Burak echoed in her mind as loudly as it had in the silence of that night. She sat near the window now, staring at the moonlight dancing over the Bosphorus. Her wrist still throbbed from his grip, her heart from the betrayal she couldn’t yet name.
When morning came, the room was quiet, but heavy.
Burak hadn’t returned after storming out. No guard dared speak to her. Even the caretaker, who brought breakfast, simply placed the tray on the table without a word.
Zoya didn’t eat. Her appetite was lost to confusion, anger, and pain.
She looked down at her phone — no signal, no Wi-Fi. It was as if she’d been cut off from the world.
Again.
---
Burak Aslan, meanwhile, was on the other side of the estate.
His hand traced the edge of an old wooden frame.
Inside it — a picture of a man. Ahmet Aslan.
The late Ahmet. His adoptive father. His murderer.
Burak’s fingers curled into a fist.
He remembered that night.
He had been just sixteen, hiding behind the door of Eda’s chamber, the room filled with cigar smoke and whispered threats. Ahmet wanted to use Eda to gain access to a European mafia cartel. He had traded her. Promised her. Sold her.
And she had begged.
That was the moment Burak changed.
He couldn’t allow it.
In the dark of night, Burak had pulled the trigger.
One shot to Ahmet’s chest.
No one ever spoke of it again.
Eda cleaned the scene. Disposed of the weapon. Lied to the world. Burak never forgave her silence. Nor did he forgive himself.
Now, sitting in the shadow of the same mansion, he whispered, “You built me to be a monster. Congratulations.”
His cigarette ash crumbled to the floor.
---
In another corner of the estate, Cemil Aslan stood in the small gym room, punching a leather bag until his knuckles bled.
The echo of Zoya’s laugh from the night before — with him — haunted him.
He didn’t like her. He shouldn’t have.
She was everything he hated: beautiful, pure, hopeful. Unscarred.
And yet, he was drawn. Not because he loved her. But because Burak had her.
Burak had always gotten everything.
The throne.
The loyalty.
The name.
The girl.
Cemil threw another punch, this one more violent than the rest.
In the mirror, he saw his face — twisted, dark, obsessed.
"Let’s see how long you keep her," he muttered.
---
Meanwhile, Zoya finally ventured out of her room. She needed answers.
She didn’t know where she was going, but her feet carried her to the mansion library — the only place that seemed untouched by darkness.
Rows of old books. Dusty records.
And then, tucked inside a leather folder on a side shelf… a file.
One marked “Sania Mirza” — her mother’s name.
Her hands shook as she opened it.
There — a birth certificate. Hers.
Father: Ahmet Aslan.
Her vision blurred.
Her knees gave way, and she sank into the leather armchair.
"No…"
She flipped the page. Legal papers. A marriage certificate. A divorce.
Ahmet had married Sania when she was eighteen. Zoya was born less than a year later.
Then… silence. Then abandonment.
Another document.
Transfer of custody: Eda Aslan.
But Zoya had never known this. Her mother never told her.
So much made sense now. The mansion. The way she was brought here. The way Burak looked at her. The warning Cemil had given her.
She was not a stranger here.
She was blood.
And this was never about love.
It was about legacy.
---
That night, Burak returned to her room. No anger in his face — just tiredness. The look of someone who carried too many secrets for too long.
He didn’t knock.
He stepped inside and found her sitting on the floor, file open beside her, papers strewn.
She looked up at him, red-eyed.
“You knew?” she asked.
He didn’t answer.
Her voice broke. “You knew I was his daughter? My stepfather sold me to you? This whole thing… it was a trade?”
Burak sat on the edge of the bed, hands in his lap.
“I didn’t want it this way.”
“But you let it happen.”
Burak stared at the floor. “He sold you like he sold Eda. I killed him for it. But… it was too late for you.”
Zoya got to her feet, eyes wide.
“You killed him?”
He nodded.
“I was sixteen. Eda covered for me. Then she disappeared. And now… you’re here. And I don’t know how to fix this.”
Zoya backed away.
“You don’t fix it, Burak. You leave me the hell alone.”
And she left the room, her footsteps echoing down the hallway.
Burak sat alone.
Haunted by blood, betrayal, and the woman who was never supposed to matter.
- Writer
