The first sign that Asher had lost control wasn’t the headline.
It wasn’t the whispers.
It was the silence.
The kind that filled the spaces where his rage should have been. The kind that meant something worse was coming.
And when it did, it came in fire.
⸻
I smelled the smoke before I saw it.
Thick and acrid, curling through the wind as I stood at the window of the safe house.
Ronan was on his feet in an instant, his golden eyes flashing. “Fuck.”
I turned, my pulse hammering. “What?”
But I already knew.
Because Asher had never been one to sit and lick his wounds.
No.
He burned everything in his way.
⸻
By the time we reached the bar, it was already too late.
Flames devoured the walls, licking at the sky like a beast unchained. The sign above the door—Demi’s sign—had already
