More Than Ashes

More Than Ashes

Gavin

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The smell of smoke woke me up, a thick, acrid scent clinging to my throat. My heart pounded as sirens pierced the night, a chilling prelude. Three missed calls from Marco, my dad's sous chef. "It' s the restaurant. It' s... there was a fire." I ran, the air growing thick with the smell of burning wood and something chemical, something awful. My world shattered when I saw it: the hollowed-out shell of "The Amber Hearth," my parents' restaurant, my entire life, consumed by flames. A police officer stopped me, but I could only stare at the wreckage, the place my parents worked, lived, and breathed. Weeks later, I was living with Chloe, my food critic girlfriend, in her pristine, minimalist apartment. She supported me, made calls, held me when nightmares struck. "We'll get through this together," she promised. But that promise felt hollow when the simple click-click-whoosh of a gas stove sent me stumbling in terror, and she quickly turned it off, her embrace distant even as she whispered, "I'll be here for you." The cracks widened when she abandoned our quiet anniversary dinner, again, for Daniel, her 'anxiety-ridden' former mentor. "He needs me, Liam," she'd always say, framing his alleged illness as a virtue, my need for her as a selfish demand. I watched her move, efficient and precise, realizing I was just an obligation, a managed crisis she was bored with. Then, a text from my friend: Chloe's rave review of Daniel's new menu just dropped, a "Triumph of a Troubled Genius." The publication date? Last night. Our anniversary. She wasn' t working; she was dining with him, relaunching his career. The anger burned clean and hot; her entire compassionate façade was a calculated deception. When she walked in, I confronted her, the ugly truth filling her perfectly curated apartment: she chose him, lied to me, used my grief as cover. Her icy response, "If that's how you feel, then maybe you should leave," was all I needed. I left. Days later, I saw him letting himself into her apartment, confirming the sickening truth: I was just a convenient cover for their secret affair, a grieving fool in their shared territory. I had defended her, pushed away friends who tried to warn me, all for a lie. My anger, humiliation, and shame fused into a chilling resolve. I wasn't just heartbroken; I was done. This wasn't a relationship; it was a fraud. And now, armed with the brutal truth, I had to build something new, far from her memory.

Introduction

The smell of smoke woke me up, a thick, acrid scent clinging to my throat.

My heart pounded as sirens pierced the night, a chilling prelude.

Three missed calls from Marco, my dad's sous chef. "It' s the restaurant. It' s... there was a fire."

I ran, the air growing thick with the smell of burning wood and something chemical, something awful.

My world shattered when I saw it: the hollowed-out shell of "The Amber Hearth," my parents' restaurant, my entire life, consumed by flames.

A police officer stopped me, but I could only stare at the wreckage, the place my parents worked, lived, and breathed.

Weeks later, I was living with Chloe, my food critic girlfriend, in her pristine, minimalist apartment.

She supported me, made calls, held me when nightmares struck. "We'll get through this together," she promised.

But that promise felt hollow when the simple click-click-whoosh of a gas stove sent me stumbling in terror, and she quickly turned it off, her embrace distant even as she whispered, "I'll be here for you."

The cracks widened when she abandoned our quiet anniversary dinner, again, for Daniel, her 'anxiety-ridden' former mentor.

"He needs me, Liam," she'd always say, framing his alleged illness as a virtue, my need for her as a selfish demand.

I watched her move, efficient and precise, realizing I was just an obligation, a managed crisis she was bored with.

Then, a text from my friend: Chloe's rave review of Daniel's new menu just dropped, a "Triumph of a Troubled Genius."

The publication date? Last night. Our anniversary. She wasn' t working; she was dining with him, relaunching his career.

The anger burned clean and hot; her entire compassionate façade was a calculated deception.

When she walked in, I confronted her, the ugly truth filling her perfectly curated apartment: she chose him, lied to me, used my grief as cover.

Her icy response, "If that's how you feel, then maybe you should leave," was all I needed. I left.

Days later, I saw him letting himself into her apartment, confirming the sickening truth: I was just a convenient cover for their secret affair, a grieving fool in their shared territory.

I had defended her, pushed away friends who tried to warn me, all for a lie.

My anger, humiliation, and shame fused into a chilling resolve. I wasn't just heartbroken; I was done.

This wasn't a relationship; it was a fraud. And now, armed with the brutal truth, I had to build something new, far from her memory.

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Contract With The Devil: Love In Shackles

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I watched my husband sign the papers that would end our marriage while he was busy texting the woman he actually loved. He didn't even glance at the header. He just scribbled the sharp, jagged signature that had signed death warrants for half of New York, tossed the file onto the passenger seat, and tapped his screen again. "Done," he said, his voice devoid of emotion. That was Dante Moretti. The Underboss. A man who could smell a lie from a mile away but couldn't see that his wife had just handed him an annulment decree disguised beneath a stack of mundane logistics reports. For three years, I scrubbed his blood out of his shirts. I saved his family's alliance when his ex, Sofia, ran off with a civilian. In return, he treated me like furniture. He left me in the rain to save Sofia from a broken nail. He left me alone on my birthday to drink champagne on a yacht with her. He even handed me a glass of whiskey—her favorite drink—forgetting that I despised the taste. I was merely a placeholder. A ghost in my own home. So, I stopped waiting. I burned our wedding portrait in the fireplace, left my platinum ring in the ashes, and boarded a one-way flight to San Francisco. I thought I was finally free. I thought I had escaped the cage. But I underestimated Dante. When he finally opened that file weeks later and realized he had signed away his wife without looking, the Reaper didn't accept defeat. He burned down the world to find me, obsessed with reclaiming the woman he had already thrown away.

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