Ashes of Us

Prison broke the fight right out of me, just like Silas wanted. When he paraded his precious first love through our front door, I didn’t scream. I didn’t throw things.

I just slid a box of ultrathin Durex across the kitchen counter. The smugness instantly drained from Silas's face. Panic flared in his dark eyes.

He pinned me against the cold marble, his heavy frame trapping mine, his breath ragged against my neck. "Harper," he gritted out, his voice thick and desperate. "Let's have another baby.

A baby changes everything. We can start over." A bitter, hollow laugh scraped up my throat. Hot moisture spilled over my lashes, tracking down my cheeks before I could stop it.

Never. He forced me to abort our first baby just to keep her smiling. He threw me behind bars just to soothe her ego. Every bridge between us was already ash.

Chapter 1 "Did you see the TMZ leak? Mr.

Silas took Vivienne skiing in Aspen yesterday." Gladys leaned over the kitchen island, scrolling frantically on her phone. "She wiped out, and he dove to catch her.

The footage of them tumbling in the snow is going viral. He even cradled the back of her head so she wouldn't get hurt.

Total red flag for his marriage, but God, the obsession is real!" "Harper is pathetic, though," the other maid whispered, polishing a wine glass. "It was her birthday yesterday.

Instead of taking his wife out, he’s in the mountains with his childhood sweetheart.

Bet she cried herself to sleep." Gladys snorted, tossing the phone aside. "Why feel sorry for her? Put Vivienne and Harper side by side, and any guy with eyes knows who to pick.

Right? An Ivy League darling versus some trailer park trash. A worldclass cellist versus a literal attempted murderer. There’s zero competition. Mark my words.

Silas is going to drop Harper and put a ring on Vivienne's finger. Just watch." The gossip died instantly.

They spun around, the color draining from their faces as they spotted me hovering at the base of the staircase.

They stumbled over their words, throwing out breathless apologies, eyes wide with the terror that I might actually snap. A heavy, bonedeep exhaustion settled in my chest.

I didn't have the energy to care. I just waved a hand, dismissing them toward the laundry room. They weren't wrong, anyway.

I already knew exactly where Vivienne stood in Silas’s world. Nine months ago, a scuffle had ended with Vivienne getting hurt. It had been an accident.

But Silas had still locked me in a sixmonth nightmare behind bars. I begged him.

I sobbed until my voice went hoarse, swearing it was selfdefense, swearing Vivienne threw the first punch. I clung to his tailored suit, pleading with him not to destroy me.

He just peeled my fingers off his lapel. His jaw locked into a hard, merciless line. "Because of you, Vivienne's wrist is shattered.

She can never play the cello again," he stated, his voice icecold. "She's battling severe depression now. She nearly jumped off the roof yesterday.

I will not stand by and let her die." He looked down at me like I was garbage. "Harper, adults face the consequences of their actions." Then came the gavel.

Six months in a concrete cell. The scandal ripped through Manhattan's elite. Everyone placed their bets. Silas loved Vivienne too much.

The second I walked out of those prison gates, the divorce papers would be waiting. But three months had passed since my release, and he hadn't brought it up once.

If he wasn't going to pull the trigger, I certainly wouldn't. I couldn't afford to. Two years ago, my brother Rhys was in a massive car wreck. He was still in a coma.

Gary passed away years ago, and my mom's health was too fragile to hold down a job. Rhys's medical bills were pushing fifteen grand a month.

If I walked away from the Silas fortune, they would pull the plug on my brother. Later that evening, a velvet box slid across the dining table. I popped it open.

A diamond necklace caught the chandelier's light. "Sorry," Silas murmured, loosening his silk tie. "Things got complicated.

I couldn't make it back for your birthday." I snapped the box shut and forced a bright, hollow smile. "Thank you. It's totally fine." His brows snapped together.

A muscle ticked in his jaw. "You're not going to ask what kept me?" The old Harper would have blown up his phone.

I would have demanded answers, screaming until my lungs burned if he ghosted me on my birthday. But the new me? The me that survived a concrete cell?

I had already swallowed the jagged truth that he didn't love me.

His whereabouts didn't matter anymore. "You have your reasons," I said softly, the perfect, placid wife. "I really don't mind." My obedience didn't soothe him.

The air in the room suddenly dropped ten degrees.

His dark gaze pinned me to my chair. "And if I told you I missed your birthday to take Vivienne on a getaway?" His voice dropped, dangerously low. "You wouldn't mind that either?" One agonizing lesson was enough.

I couldn't win against Vivienne. I surrendered.

All I wanted was to keep my head down, breathe, and pray for the day Rhys finally woke up. "Vivienne is battling depression," I replied smoothly, meeting his intense stare without a flinch. "It makes sense that you take care of her.

Don't worry, Silas. I'm not jealous." Silas let out a harsh, mocking scoff. "Is that right?

How incredibly generous of you." Chapter 2 His words weren't a compliment; they were a thinly veiled insult. But the dark anger radiating from him made zero sense.

I had played my part perfectly since walking out of that cell. No frantic phone calls demanding his location. No jealous fits over his obsession with Vivienne.

No tantrums over trivial bullshit. What the hell else did he want from me? That night, the shadows in our bedroom turned suffocating. Silas didn't make love to me; he weaponized it.

He drove into me with punishing force, a raw, bruising rhythm that tore the breath from my lungs. My hands flew up, pushing against his chest to get him off me.

He caught my wrists in a vice grip. In one fluid, brutal motion, he stripped his silk tie and lashed my hands to the mahogany headboard above me. His massive frame blanketed mine.

The heat of his skin scorched me. His chest heaved, muscles cording under the sweat slicking his torso. He leaned in dangerously close. The rough scrape of his jaw brushed my cheek.

His pupils blew wide, eclipsing the dark irises, burning with a predatory intensity. "Harper," he growled, the vibration rumbling harsh against my collarbone. "Say you love me." A twisted, sick demand.

He held zero love for me, yet he demanded mine like a starving man. The lethal edge in his stare promised violence.

If I denied him, he would tear me apart right here on these sheets.

I swallowed the bile rising in my throat. "Yes," I choked out, a perfect, desperate lie. "I love you." The violent storm in his eyes evaporated. The suffocating tension snapped.

He dipped his head, pressing a soft, lingering kiss against my bruised lips. Once, that gentleness possessed me. Now, the phantom weight of his affection suffocated me.

Every thrust, every slide of his skin against mine, churned my stomach.

I endured the nausea until he finally spilled into me, his heavy breathing slowing as sleep dragged him under. My phone vibrated against the nightstand, fracturing the silence.

I dragged my aching arm over and tapped the glowing screen. Three texts. From Vivienne. "Did you like the necklace?

I picked it out from the rejects." "Harper, you will never hold a candle to me in his eyes." "Do yourself a favor and pack your bags.

You don't deserve the Silas name." Pure, unadulterated entitlement. The kind of toxic confidence only Silas's blind devotion could buy her. He loved her.

He loved her enough to orchestrate a massive, twisted scam just to use me. When he first chased me, I didn't see the strings attached.

I drowned in his manufactured affection, marrying him after a whirlwind sixmonth romance. Victoria, his mother, despised my bluecollar roots.

She practically shoved the ironclad prenup down my throat, terrified the trailerpark girl wanted their generational wealth. A divorce would leave me with absolutely nothing.

Silas wrapped his arms around me back then, pressing his lips to my hair. "I'm so sorry, Harper. You don't deserve this disrespect." Naivety blinded me.

I just smiled up at him. "It doesn't matter. I don't care about the money. I just want you." He played the perfect husband.

He murmured sweet nothings against my neck, tangled our legs together for Netflix binges, carried my shopping bags down Fifth Avenue, and showered me with surprises every holiday.

I swallowed the illusion. I thought we were endgame. Then, year three hit. Vivienne moved back to New York. Everything shattered. Vivienne was the ultimate childhood sweetheart.

The untouchable golden girl. Years ago, a house fire nearly claimed Silas's life. Ruby, Vivienne's mother, dragged him from the flames. It cost Ruby her life.

Silas carried that survivor's guilt like a religion. Vivienne became his sacred duty. He was a relentless workaholic, closing multimillion dollar deals without blinking.

But the second Vivienne twisted her ankle at a Pilates class, he abandoned a boardroom full of investors to rush her to the ER. When I sprained mine on icy pavement months prior?

He claimed his schedule remained booked and dispatched Hector, the driver, to scoop me up.

Silas willingly stood in line at crowded food trucks just to buy Vivienne greasy street tacos. Yet, the man possessed severe germaphobia.

He refused to eat anything I cooked unless I used a clean serving spoon just to put the food on his plate. I practically begged him to take me to the night markets in Brooklyn.

He shot it down every time—too loud, too filthy. We never stepped foot in one. I fought him on it once. I screamed until my throat turned raw.

He just stared at me with dead eyes. "I owe her mother my life, Harper. It's my burden. Stop acting like a paranoid, gaslighting child." I couldn't win against a ghost.

I forced the resentment down my throat and learned to choke on it. Chapter 3 One night, the air in the bedroom was thick, heavy with the frantic friction of skin against skin.

Silas had me pinned. His breathing came in ragged, heavy pants, the harsh scrape of his jaw dragging down my neck, his pulse hammering against my collarbone.

Then, his phone shattered the dark. He snatched it off the nightstand. The name flashing on the screen froze the blood in his veins. Vivienne.

She claimed a stalker was following her. She was terrified. The suffocating heat vanished.

Silas ripped himself away from me, the sudden rush of cold air sending a sharp shiver down my bare skin.

He shoved his legs into his slacks, snatching his keys off the mahogany dresser. The bedroom door slammed shut, abandoning me in the tangled, cooling sheets.

A sickening feeling settled in my stomach as the reality finally clicked. Gratitude didn't make a man abandon his wife midthrust. This was pure obsession.

The reality was infinitely more toxic than I ever imagined.

Vivienne made sure I knew it the day she cornered me. "Silas is in love with me," Vivienne purred, her manicured nails tapping her iced matcha. "Your little marriage?

I gave that to you as a charity case." She let her gaze rake over me, dripping with disdain. "Without my permission, do you honestly think a man like Silas would look twice at some bluecollar trash?" My nails bit hard into my palms. "Stop messing with my head," I forced out, my voice trembling. "I don't believe a word of your bullshit." Vivienne just arched a perfect brow. "Do you remember Spencer?" Spencer.

The golden boy from high school. He had chased me relentlessly. Even after he had left for Stanford, he had flown back every holiday just to see me.

I never crossed that line, keeping him firmly in the friend zone. "What does Spencer have to do with anything?" I demanded. Vivienne scoffed. "Everything.

Spencer was completely blind. He was obsessed with you. I threw myself at him for two solid years, and he still only had eyes for you.

So, I had to eliminate the root of the problem." She leaned in, her voice dropping to a lethal whisper. "Silas married you to clear my path.

He locked you down so I could have Spencer. Do you understand now?" The air ripped out of my lungs. A deafening ringing echoed in my skull. My knees buckled.

I gripped the edge of the table, my knuckles turning white as uncontrollable tremors shook my body. I couldn't breathe.

Vivienne fed on my collapse, driving the knife deeper. "Oh, and that ironclad prenup? Victoria didn't demand it. That was all Silas.

The plan was always to divorce you the second I secured Spencer.

Silas wasn't about to let a gold digger walk away with his family's trust fund." My stomach churned. "Last year, when you got pregnant?" Vivienne tilted her head, a cruel smile stretching her lips. "Silas telling you he wanted 'just the two of us' for a few more years?

A complete lie. I told Silas he wasn't allowed to be a father until I became a mother. So, he took care of it." She watched the blood drain from my face.

Her smugness radiated off her in waves. "I finally got Spencer earlier this year. But honestly? The thrill of the chase faded. He's boring. So, Harper.

It's time to hand back my title. I want to be Mrs. Silas now." Every syllable shredded my insides. I dragged my hollowedout shell of a body back to the penthouse.

When I stood before Silas, my voice cracked, spitting out every dirty secret Vivienne had just forcefed me. He didn't flinch.

A flicker of mild surprise crossed his features, quickly replaced by a lazy, detached smirk. "So you know." He casually buttoned his platinum cuffs. "I guess I don't need to hide it anymore." Hot, blinding tears instantly scalded my cheeks.

Three years. Every touch, every whisper, every promise. A meticulously crafted lie. Silas let out a soft, impatient tsk. "Why are you crying?" He stepped into my space.

The heat of his massive body, once my sanctuary, now felt like a suffocating trap. His rough thumb brushed beneath my eye, catching a tear. The physical contact was gentle.

His words were pure ice. "Be a good girl, Harper. Vivienne will always be my number one.

But as long as you stop throwing jealous fits and keep your hands off her, you get to keep the title." His thumb dragged down my jawline, a veiled threat wrapped in a caress. "I will continue to treat you well, within reason.

And I will keep paying Rhys's medical bills. Are we clear?" Chapter 4 An agonizing pain ripped through my chest. My ribs locked.

Every breath dragged like crushed glass down my throat. Black spots danced at the edges of my vision. I suffocated under the weight of his cruelty. I played the perfect wife.

He worshipped Vivienne, and she finally wanted him back. He should have just signed the divorce papers. But Rhys's medical bills anchored me to this hell.

I swallowed the bile and bowed my head to the reality. Vivienne couldn't wait. She cornered me in the hallway, her manicured finger jabbing into my sternum.

She shrieked about stolen lives and gold diggers. Then, her palm cracked across my cheek. The stinging heat snapped my last thread of control. I shoved her back.

She lost her footing. She crashed backward into the massive floortoceiling mirror. Glass exploded into a million shards.

A jagged spike sliced straight through her right wrist, and blood poured over the hardwood. That was the exact moment Vivienne's cello career died—and my descent into hell began.

A text lit up my screen at midnight. Silas demanding I pick him up from his exclusive SoHo club. The old Harper would have grabbed her keys and sprinted out the door.

Tonight, I just sank deeper into the plush velvet sofa. I hit end on the call and texted Hector to handle it. He came through the front door an hour later.

He smelled of expensive bourbon and cold fury, but he wasn't blackout drunk. He dropped onto the sofa beside me.

The air instantly turned suffocating. "Why didn't you come?" he demanded, his voice a low, dangerous rumble.

I forced a pathetic sneeze and pulled my cashmere throw tighter around my shoulders. "I wanted to. I'm coming down with a cold. It's freezing outside." He didn't buy it.

His dark eyes narrowed, piercing right through my lie. "Gladys has been cooking my lunches," he stated flatly. "I can taste the difference.

Why did you stop?" He used to demand a fresh, multicourse homecooked lunch delivered straight to his corner office. I was done bleeding myself dry for him.

I held up my hand, flashing a heavily bandaged index finger. "I burned myself. I can't chop anything." Silas didn't blink.

He reached out, his large hand capturing mine, and swiftly unspooled the white gauze. Smooth, unblemished skin stared back at him.

The temperature in the room plummeted. "Explain," he gritted out, the single word dripping with lethal intent. Panic hitched in my throat.

My brain shortcircuited. "I… I was just exhausted. I needed a break." A pathetic excuse. I knew he didn't buy it. That night, he dragged me into the bedroom and locked the door.

He didn't say a single word. He just dismantled me. He pinned my hips down, his jaw tight, his breathing ragged and harsh in the dark room. The friction was bruising, relentless.

He flipped me, contorting my body, driving into me for two agonizing hours until my lower back throbbed with ache. The silence stretched for days after that.

A freezing, toxic cold war. Until he got wasted again. This time, Vivienne dragged him through the front door.

She shot me a triumphant, venomous glare before hauling his heavy frame toward our master bedroom.

Five minutes later, she strutted back into the hallway. "Harper," she barked, flicking her hair over her shoulder. "We're out of condoms.

Run to the bodega and grab a box." She spun on her designer heels and vanished back into my bedroom. I scoffed. I wasn't stepping out into the freezing New York wind for her.

I reached for my phone to open DoorDash, then remembered a stash in Silas's home office. I grabbed the small metallic box from his desk drawer. I pushed the bedroom door open.

Silas was flat on his back. Vivienne was straddling him, her manicured fingers undoing the third button of his dress shirt. They moved fast.

I froze in the doorway, the oxygen leaving the room. "Um…" Silas's eyes snapped open. The drunken haze instantly vanished.

His dark gaze locked onto the box pinched between my fingers. He sat up sharply from the mattress.

The veins in his neck bulged, his voice tight with undeniable fury. "Harper, what the hell are you doing?" Chapter 5 I figured he was just pissed I ruined the mood.

I held up the metallic box. "I was just dropping these off." Silas's jaw locked.

The cords in his neck strained against his collar. "Who the hell told you I wanted to use these?" he gritted out. I froze for a second before the ugly truth sank in.

He forced me to abort my baby. But Vivienne? Vivienne was the undisputed love of his life. Of course he wanted to get her pregnant.

I shoved the foil packets deep into the pocket of my silk robe. "Right. I'll leave you to it, then." I spun on my heel and walked out.

Heavy, hurried footsteps pounded against the hardwood right behind me. A massive hand clamped violently around my bicep. Silas jerked me around. His chest heaved.

A dark, lethal storm raged in his eyes. "Harper," he barked, his voice vibrating with absolute fury. "You are literally sending your husband to sleep with another woman?" The audacity almost made me laugh.

He was the one parading Vivienne around. But he paid Rhys's medical bills. He owned my life.

I swallowed the toxic resentment and plastered on a placid, understanding smile. "Vivienne isn't just 'another woman,' Silas. She's your number one.

It's completely normal that you want to be intimate with her. I get it. I really do. You don't have to worry about me throwing a jealous fit. And I swear I won't touch her.

If my being here kills the vibe, I can pack a bag and get a room at The Plaza tonight." It was a flawless performance. The ultimate, accommodating trophy wife. Silas didn't buy it.

The shadows in his eyes darkened into pure pitch.

A cold, cruel smirk twisted his lips. "You really know exactly how to push my buttons, Harper." He released his punishing grip on my arm and shoved me away.

He stormed back down the hall. The bedroom door slammed shut with enough force to rattle the floorboards.

I rubbed the red marks blooming on my skin, utterly exhausted by his psychotic mood swings. I dragged myself to the guest room and collapsed onto the mattress.

Just as my eyes drifted shut, a muffled thud echoed through the drywall. Then a rhythmic, breathless moan. I didn't need a diagram to figure out what was happening next door.

A year ago, just seeing Vivienne touch his sleeve would have shattered me. Now? A dead, hollow emptiness anchored my chest.

I just stared at the ceiling, annoyed the multimillion dollar penthouse had such garbage soundproofing.

I yanked open the nightstand drawer, jammed a pair of foam earplugs into my ears, and let the darkness pull me under. A crushing weight suffocated my lungs. Oxygen stopped flowing.

The rough slide of a calloused thumb pressed into my jaw. His mouth crashed down on mine. My eyes flew open in the pitchblack room.

Silas's heavy, muscular torso trapped me completely against the mattress. His harsh, ragged pants ghosted across my cheek. The metallic tang of expensive bourbon flooded my senses.

My stomach churned. He just had his mouth all over Vivienne. I pulled back, turning my head to escape his taste.

His fingers instantly clamped around my chin, a brutal steel vise locking me in place. "Don't you dare pull away," he growled, the vibration rough and grating against my collarbone.

The whites of his eyes were violently bloodshot.

A desperate, involuntary tremor shook his massive frame. "Why aren't you jealous?" The words tore out of him, raw and completely unhinged. "I am in there with another woman, Harper.

How the fuck are you so calm?

How do you just put in earplugs and sleep?" I stared up at his erratic, heavy breathing, my brain stalling. "You explicitly ordered me to stop being jealous of Vivienne." My lungs burned.

A heavy exhaustion settled over me. I let out a jagged, hollow breath. "Silas, I am executing your exact orders.

What else do you want from me?" I went entirely limp beneath him. "Just give me the damn script. Tell me what you want, and I'll do it." His hands shook against my skin.

The muscles in his jaw locked. "I want you to keep loving me!" he roared, the sheer volume of his voice rattling the room.

Chapter 6 I lied without a shred of guilt. "Of course I love you." "But I don't feel it." Silas's massive hands clamped down on my shoulders, his grip bruising.

His dark eyes burned into mine. "You're different. Harper, I want you to love me exactly the way you used to!" Did it even matter?

I was just a pawn in his twisted game with Vivienne. But Silas wrote the checks keeping Rhys alive. I had to play the part.

For the next few weeks, I forced myself to play the part of his perfectly devoted wife.

But walking on eggshells around him was a complete disaster. "Wrong," he would snap over dinner. "You used to look at me with so much more emotion." "Wrong.

The ribeye you seared tonight is tough. It used to melt in my mouth." "Wrong. If I stayed late at the firm, you used to blow up my phone. Tonight, you only called twice." "Wrong.

You used to wrap yourself around me all night.

Now I wake up to a freezing bed because you're hugging the far edge of the mattress." How the hell was I supposed to control my unconscious body? Nothing I did hit the mark.

The constant surveillance drained me. It suffocated me. I swallowed my frustration, terrified of triggering his explosive temper, and just murmured endless apologies.

The second another "I'm sorry" slipped past my lips, the muscle in his jaw ticked violently. "You never used to grovel like this!" Silas snapped, his voice rough with bitter frustration. "You used to tease me.

You used to throw tantrums and actually get mad at me! I want the fire back, Harper! I don't want a pathetic, submissive maid!" It was almost laughable.

He personally smothered that vibrant, fiery girl. He crushed her throat beneath his designer Italian loafers. Now he begged for her ghost to come back to life? Impossible.

I wasn't suicidal enough to bet my freedom on his psychotic mood swings. One wrong move, one jealous slip with Vivienne, and he could easily lock me behind bars again.

The concrete walls and the violence of that cell permanently broke me. I absolutely refused to go back. We ended the night in a suffocating, freezing silence.

The penthouse felt like a beautifully gilded coffin. My lungs burned. I was drowning. Then, a lifeline dropped.

Megan, my director, needed someone on the ground in Chicago for a massive monthlong project. I practically begged for the assignment.

I packed a single suitcase and caught a redeye flight out of JFK that exact night. I swiped my keycard at the downtown Marriott and finally shot Silas a text.

His reply dropped thirty minutes later. A single, freezing letter. "K." Two weeks melted away.

I wrapped up a pitch with Gordon, a major client, and walked straight into a ghost from my past in the hotel lobby. Grant. My old college classmate froze.

A genuine, brilliant smile spread across his face. "Harper? I never expected to see you in Chicago.

How have you been?" I offered a tired, polite smile. "Surviving." Since the workday was dead, we grabbed a table at a nearby steakhouse.

Grant was just as magnetic as he used to be, his effortless charm actually pulling a few genuine laughs out of my chest. He offered to drop me back at the Marriott.

I had practically inhaled two glasses of Cabernet during dinner. The alcohol spun heavily through my bloodstream.

The second my heel hit the icy pavement outside the hotel, my ankle gave out.

Grant's hands instantly shot out, catching my waist. "Careful, I got you." "Thanks—" The word didn't even leave my lips. A massive blur exploded from the shadows.

A brutal, sickening crunch of bone echoed in the frigid air. Grant flew backward, crashing hard against the asphalt. My vision locked onto the attacker. Brock.

Silas's personal attack dog. The oxygen violently ripped from my lungs. I whipped my head around. A glowing cherryred ember pierced the dark alleyway.

Silas stepped into the harsh glare of the streetlamp. He radiated pure, suffocating violence. His bespoke suit completely at odds with the feral, murderous rage twisting his jaw.

He took a slow drag of his cigarette, his voice dropping to a lethal, arctic rumble. "Grant. All these years, and you're still coveting my wife. Do you have a death wish?" Chapter 7