CHAPTER 2.
GHOSTS AND KINGS.
Ashton Bass watched her through the scope again. His finger hovered near the trigger.
Not to kill, but to protect. It was strange and at the same time, it wasn't. Because it had always been that way with Lilith Vanderwoodson.
The girl who didn’t even remember saving him was now lying in bed, tangled in silk sheets and guilt. The same sheets they’d shared only nights ago. The same room he’d left her in, after giving her a taste of the life she never knew she craved.
He didn’t leave because he regretted it.
Never. He wouldn't, not in this life nor the next.
He left because if he stayed, he would’ve told her everything and ruined her before she was even ready. And that, he didn't want to do to her. Didn't want to taint her image of what she knew about her family.
She wasn’t ready yet. At least, not to know the truth. Yet.
Not to know that her father was the reason he nearly bled to death six months ago.
Not to know that the family she so always looked up to had already signed her soul away, and were nothing but demons.
Ashton leaned back from the window and cracked his knuckles.
Kai stood in the corner, arms crossed.
“You’re spiraling, losing focus,” his second-in-command and best friend said flatly.
“I’m focused.” Ashton muttered.
“I've known you long enough to know when you're focused. And believe , right now, you're not focused. You’re obsessed.”
“Same thing.”
Kai scoffed. “You sure she’s not playing you? Her father ordered your execution not quite long ago, and she just… stumbles into your club hours after calling off a power-socialite wedding?”
“She didn’t know,” Ashton said, voice sharper than he intended it to be. Lilith was pure and innocent, he was sure of that. She knew nothing about the dealings of the underworld nor that of her family.
He cleared his throat with the aim of calming himself. “I watched the footage. She found the files, saw Alec’s secrets and... she ran.”
“You still think she’s innocent?”
“I know she is.”
Kai frowned. “And if you’re wrong?”
Ashton met his eyes coldly. “Then I will kill her, too.”
But they both knew he wouldn’t.
Because Ashton Bass, king of the underworld, killer of kings, was already claimed.
Not by a contract, not by loyalty.
But... By obsession.
By the girl who once pressed her hands against his chest and begged him not to die.
She hadn’t known his name. Hadn’t cared that he was a bloodied monster. Hadn't known anything about him.
She saw him in his worst moment, in a bloody state. She saw someone she didn't know… and still chose to save him.
Now it was his turn. He’d tracked everything since the moment she left Alec at the altar.
Lilith’s father had been scrambling. Not to save her reputation, but to cover the cracks her rebellion exposed. With Alec out of the picture, the Vanderwoodsons’ entire alliance structure was about to crumble. And Ashton had watched it all.
Because the Basses and Vanderwoodsons? They were never allies.
It was just fake smiles ,fake handshakes over champagne, silent wars fought in shadows. The kind of betrayal you smiled through… until someone’s blood stained the rug.
Ashton had paid for their feud in flesh. Now he would collect in kind.
And Lilith?
She would be his alone. He would make sure to shield her from whatever happens or whatever he has planned out.
That night, Ashton opened the encrypted files again. It contained a lot of things... Sipping routes, bribed customs agents, and a folder labeled...
Event brides.
His jaw clenched.
Of course there was a bigger picture.
Lilith’s wedding hadn’t just been for love ,it was a calculated cover. Her father had tried to marry her into Alec’s legacy to cement a trafficking pipeline. Lilith had been the leverage.
Ashton felt an urge to go over and put a bullet at Mr Vanderwoodson skull.
Clearly he doesn't know the worth of his daughter. Just like the way she doesn't know the deeds of her father.
She doesn't know, she didn’t need to know.
But soon, she would, and when she did, she would need to decide.
Ashton brought out his phone, and typed a message without thinking:
They lied to you.
Your father was never protecting you.
He sold you .
And he's watching you now.
—A.
~~~~~~~~
Across the city, in her estate’s penthouse wing, Lilith's phone buzzed softly. She sat alone, staring at the message. Her hands trembled, her lips parted.
And then ...she smiled.
To some, it may have been creepy. But to Ashton, he knew it was no ordinary smile.
He saw it through the scope.
That broken smile that said she finally understood. She didn’t know his full name.
But she knew enough to be afraid, and even more to be curious.
He closed the laptop, rolled his sleeves, and stood.
“She’s waking up,” he said.
Kai didn’t ask what that meant. Because when Ashton Bass said something like that, he knew something was going to happen.
Something terrible.
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