“That necklace belongs to the Ashford bloodline.”
The roar thundered through the main hall, slicing through every conversation like a blade. Damen Blackwood—the most feared mafia boss in all of Blackwood City—shot up from his private table, his face twisted with barely contained fury as he pointed straight at the chest of a young cleaning girl.
Ivy froze in the middle of the hall, a dirty rag still clutched in her hand, the blood in her veins turning to ice. Instinctively, she dropped the rag and brought both hands to her throat, shielding the golden locket that hung there.
“Sir, I didn’t steal anything,” she stammered, backing up a step. “I swear.”
Damen didn’t listen. He kicked aside the chair blocking his path and surged toward her like a gathering storm. Diners at nearby tables scrambled away, terrified by the rage radiating from the man whose name alone made criminals tremble.
“Don’t lie to me,” Damen growled, cornering her against a marble pillar. “I’ve been searching for that piece since I was a boy. Where did you get it? Speak.”
The restaurant manager, Harrison, came running, his face flushed with panic. “Mr. Blackwood, please calm down.”
Harrison wedged himself between them, hands waving frantically. “A thousand apologies, sir. This girl just started—clearly an incompetent little thief.” He turned to Ivy, voice cold as steel. “You’re fired. Get out before I call the police.”
Harrison grabbed Ivy’s arm and roughly dragged her toward the kitchen. Ivy cried out in pain, but before she could resist, a powerful hand seized the manager’s wrist and squeezed until his knuckles went white.
It was Damen.
“Let her go,” he said, his voice low and dangerous. “Touch her again, and I swear I’ll bury this restaurant. And you with it.”
Harrison released her immediately, trembling as he backed away, hands raised in surrender.
“But, Mr. Blackwood… she has the token—”
“Shut up and disappear.”
Damen didn’t spare him another glance. He turned back to Ivy, and they stood so close she could smell the expensive whiskey on his breath and see the raw anguish burning in his dark eyes.
“Give me the necklace.”
He extended his hand, palm up.
“No.”
Ivy shook her head, still clutching the jewelry in desperation. “This is mine. This is the only thing my mother left me. I’ve had it since I was a baby.”
“Lies.”
Damen slammed his fist into the pillar, the impact echoing through the hall. “Catherine Ashford was wearing it the night she died. No one survived that crash. No one.”
Ivy trembled, but something—perhaps the last shred of dignity belonging to someone with nothing left to lose—drove her to act. With shaking fingers, she unclasped the locket, removed it, and held it up before the most powerful man in the city.
But she didn’t hand it over.
“If you believe I stole it,” her voice quivered but didn’t break, “then tell me what’s engraved on the back. If it belongs to your family, you must know.”
Damen went rigid. His breath caught in his throat, and when he spoke his voice suddenly softened, heavy with infinite sorrow.
“The inscription,” he said. “It reads V and C. Forever. Victor and Catherine. Forever.”
Ivy slowly turned the locket over. The hall’s light illuminated the worn letters etched into the faded gold.
V and C. Forever.
Damen exhaled a strangled gasp. He snatched the jewelry from her hand, his fingers trembling as they traced each letter over and over, as if afraid it might all be an illusion.
“This is impossible.”
He looked up, his gaze drilling into her.
“How old are you?”
“Twenty-six.”
“When is your birthday?”
“I don’t know exactly,” Ivy replied, unconsciously rubbing her bare neck. “I was found abandoned on November fifteenth.”
Damen’s world stopped.
November fifteenth—the date of the ambush, the night he watched as an eleven-year-old boy as Catherine Ashford’s car plunged off Raven’s Peak. The night they buried her, and the unborn child everyone believed died with her.
But if no one survived, why was this girl standing before him wearing the sacred token that could only be passed through blood?
This golden pendant hid a truth that had been buried for more than two decades. If you want to uncover the dark secret behind the massacre with us, hit that like button to fuel this story. Subscribe and ring the bell so you never miss a chapter.
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Damen didn’t say another word. He seized Ivy by the wrist and dragged her straight through the main hall, leaving the diners’ curious stares behind them. Ivy tried to wrench her hand free, but this man’s strength was like an iron vice—impossible to escape.
They passed a long corridor and stopped in front of a heavy oak door. Damen shoved it open, pushed her inside, then locked it tight.
The luxurious VIP room—with its black leather sofa and crystal chandelier—suddenly became a cage.
Damen turned to the two bodyguards standing in the hallway and gave an order in a voice that allowed no argument.
“No one comes in. No one goes out. Do you understand?”
The two men nodded stiffly. The door slammed shut.
Ivy backed into a corner, her spine against the wall, her heart pounding like a war drum. She watched Damen pull out his phone and dial, his voice ice-cold as he spoke into it.
“Dr. Hammond, bring the DNA testing kit to Skyline Restaurant right now. VIP room number three. This is an order.”
He ended the call without waiting for an answer.
“I’m not your prisoner,” Ivy said, her voice shaking but forcing itself to stand firm. “You don’t have the right to keep me here.”
Damen turned to look at her. His black eyes were like two bottomless pits.
“You’ll stay here until I get an answer.”
“An answer to what?” Ivy asked.
Damen was silent for a long beat. Then he spoke, his voice dropping like the sigh of a man exhausted beyond measure.
“For all the years I’ve been waiting.”
Ivy didn’t understand what he meant, but she could feel the pain in that voice—a pain that had lasted too long, that had sunk deep into bone and marrow.
Damen stepped closer.
“Tell me about your past. Everything you know.”
Ivy swallowed. “I grew up at St. Mary Orphanage. I don’t know who my parents are. The sisters said I was left at the orphanage door on a stormy, rainy night.”
“What else?” Damen pressed.
Ivy hesitated for a second. “I was wrapped in an old leather jacket. Sister Agatha said it smelled like engine oil and cigarettes. She kept it for me, but it rotted away with the years. Only the necklace remained intact.”
Damen stopped short.
A leather jacket. The smell of engine oil.
He locked that detail inside his mind. It mattered. He didn’t know yet how it mattered, but the instinct of a man who had survived the underworld for half his life told him this was a piece he couldn’t afford to ignore.
Forty minutes later, the door opened. A middle-aged man with gold-rimmed glasses stepped in, carrying a black leather case.
Dr. Hammond—the private physician of the Ashford family.
He didn’t ask questions. He quietly took a blood sample from Ivy and then began working with the device inside his case.
The room sank into a suffocating silence. Ivy sat on the sofa, her hands clenched tightly together, while Damen stood by the window with his back to her, staring into the night as if searching for something he’d lost long ago.
Twenty minutes passed like twenty years. Then Dr. Hammond spoke, his voice trembling slightly.
“The results are in.”
Damen whirled around. “Say it.”
Dr. Hammond looked down at the screen, then lifted his gaze to Ivy with an expression that couldn’t believe what it was seeing.
“Her DNA matches 99.97% with the stored DNA sample of Catherine Ashford.”
The world seemed to stop turning. Ivy felt the ground vanish beneath her feet, and when she tried to speak her throat locked shut.
Damen stood motionless as stone.
“All these years,” his voice rasped, almost a whisper. “You stayed alive all this time. While we thought you were dead… while Victor cried himself dry every night… while I turned the whole world upside down, looking for a ghost.”
Ivy spoke, trembling. “Who am I?”
Damen came to stand before her. This time there was no anger in his eyes—only something deeper, more ferocious, like a fire that had smoldered for twenty-six years and now erupted at last.
“You are Rosalie Ashford,” he said slowly, each word measured as if afraid she wouldn’t hear it. “The only daughter of Victor and Catherine Ashford. The lost princess of our family.”
Ivy shook her head. “No. That can’t be. I’m just an orphan. I scrub floors to survive. I’m not anyone’s princess.”
Damen didn’t answer. He turned to Dr. Hammond.
“Prepare the car.”
Then he looked back at Ivy with an expression that gave her no room to refuse.
“She’s going home tonight.”
A motorcade of three gleaming black Rolls-Royce cars glided through the empty streets of Blackwood City. Ivy sat in the back seat beside Damen, staring through the window without truly seeing anything.
Her mind was still spinning with everything that had just happened.
Rosalie Ashford.
The name kept echoing in her head like a bell tolling from a distant world that had never belonged to her.
Twenty minutes later, the motorcade stopped before a gigantic wrought-iron gate. It opened slowly, and Ivy had to hold her breath as the Ashford estate came into view.
It wasn’t a house.
It was a palace.
Towering white stone columns. Wide windows blazing with light. An immense garden with a marble fountain at its heart.
All her life, Ivy had lived in damp rented rooms, and now she was stepping into this place.
Damen opened the car door for her. Ivy stepped out, her legs slightly unsteady, and tried to look calm even as her heart beat wildly.
Damen guided her through the main entrance—an oak door carved with intricate detail—into a grand hall with a soaring ceiling and a crystal chandelier glittering overhead.
“This is your home,” Damen said. “It always has been.”
Ivy hadn’t even found her voice when a frail sound rose from the far end of the hall.
“Damen, is that you? Bring her to me.”
They walked down a long corridor, then stopped before a large room. Damen pushed the door open.
Inside, an old man sat in a wheelchair beside the fireplace.
Victor Ashford.
Sixty-eight years old, yet he looked as if he were eighty. His hair was pure white, his eyes clouded by age and perhaps by far too many tears, his face gaunt and sharp-boned like someone who had lived too long inside suffering.
But when his gaze landed on the token at Ivy’s throat, everything changed.
Victor Ashford began to tremble. His bony hands gripped the arms of the wheelchair, tears welling in his dim eyes and streaming down his wrinkled cheeks.
He tried to stand, but his legs had no strength left. Damen quickly supported him, and Victor moved toward Ivy slowly, step by step, as if afraid she would vanish if he came too fast.
He lifted a trembling hand and touched Ivy’s face. His skin was cold and dry, yet that touch carried a tenderness she had never felt from anyone in her life.
“My daughter,” Victor whispered, his voice choking. “My Rosalie. You have your mother’s eyes—Catherine’s eyes.”
Ivy stood there, not knowing what to do. All her life, she had dreamed of having a family, of hearing someone call her daughter, and now it was happening and she didn’t know how to respond.
“I don’t know what to say,” she stammered.
“You don’t need to say anything,” Victor said, tears still falling. “You only need to be here. Since that fateful night, I’ve waited for this day. I thought you were dead. I thought I’d never see you again.”
Then he embraced her.
His arms were weak, yet they held her tight as if letting go would make her disappear. His shoulders shook with sobs.
“Catherine,” Victor called his wife’s name through the broken sound of his crying. “Catherine, our daughter has come back. Do you see? She’s come home.”
And Ivy—a girl who for her entire life had never been held by anyone, never been called someone’s daughter, a girl who had learned not to cry since she was very small—suddenly felt something crack open in her chest.
Her tears spilled out, unstoppable.
She cried for the mother whose face she had never known. She cried for the father who had waited for her through a quarter of a century.
A long time later, when they had both finally calmed, Victor sat back down, still gripping Ivy’s hand as if afraid she might vanish.
His face grew solemn.
“You need to know the truth,” he said, his voice dropping. “Your mother’s crash… it wasn’t an accident.”
Ivy looked at him, not understanding. “What do you mean, sir?”
Damen stepped closer, standing beside Victor.
“It was a deliberate assassination,” he said. “Catherine’s car was forced off the cliff. Someone wanted her dead.”
Victor tightened his hold on Ivy’s hand.
“The enemies of this family are still hidden somewhere. For twenty-six years I searched, but I never found them. And now you’ve appeared with the token around your neck—and they’ll know. They’ll know you’re alive.”
Ivy felt the blood in her body turn cold.
“So that means…”
Victor nodded, his voice both pained and unyielding. “You’re in danger. But this time I won’t lose you. Even if I have to trade my life, I’ll protect you.”
On her first night in the Ashford estate, Ivy couldn’t sleep. The room they’d given her was larger than any apartment she had ever rented, with a four-poster bed dressed in white silk sheets and deep red velvet curtains.
But luxury didn’t bring peace.
She tossed and turned for hours, her mind spinning with everything that had happened. In the end, she gave up, slipped on a thin robe, and stepped out onto the balcony.
Blackwood City stretched below like a carpet of light. The night wind—cold and unforgiving—brushed through her hair as she stood there with both hands gripping the railing, looking down without truly seeing anything.
“You can’t sleep.”
A low, warm voice came from behind her.
Ivy turned. Damen stood leaning against the doorframe, arms folded across his chest, his face half lit and half lost in shadow under the moon.
“Neither can you,” Ivy replied.
Damen didn’t answer right away. He walked out onto the balcony and stood beside her, facing the city with her, and a long time passed before he spoke.
“Since that fateful night… I was eleven,” he said, his voice roughening. “I lived on the streets, stealing to survive, sleeping in filthy alleys. Then Victor found me. He gave me a roof, a family, a reason to live.”
Ivy stayed silent, listening. She could feel the weight carried inside each word.
“That night—the night of the crash—I was in the car behind Victor,” Damen went on, his voice dropping lower. “We were escorting Catherine home from the hospital. She was eight months pregnant with you.”
He stopped, his jaw tightening as if he were forcing something back down.
“I saw everything,” he said. “The cars came out of the darkness. They forced Catherine’s car off the road. I watched it plunge down the cliff. I watched it catch fire.”
Ivy felt her heart constrict.
Damen turned to her, his black eyes like two abysses filled with darkness.
“Victor’s screams that night… I’ll never forget them. He screamed Catherine’s name. He screamed the name of the unborn child. He wanted to throw himself off that cliff after her, and I—an eleven-year-old boy—had to hold him back.”
“And then what?” Ivy asked, her voice barely more than a whisper.
“That night, when it was all over, I knelt before Victor,” Damen said. “I swore.”
“Swore what?”
Damen looked straight into her eyes. Moonlight fell across his face, sharpening the hard lines of his features and the fierce determination burning in his gaze.
“I swore I’d find who did it and make them pay. I swore I’d find the child if she was still alive. I swore I’d protect the Ashford family with my life.”
He turned back to the city, his voice drifting farther away.
“That long-held oath has been the only reason I’ve existed. Victor collapsed after the crash. He didn’t have the strength to lead anymore. He adopted me—handed the entire empire to me when I was eighteen. I became the boss not because I wanted power, but because I needed it to keep my vow.”
Ivy looked at him and suddenly understood so much—his coldness, the cruelty people whispered about. It all began on that stormy night long ago.
“Have you found the one behind it yet?” she asked.
Damen was silent for a long time. Then he turned away, his back tall and solitary in the moonlight.
“Not yet,” he said. “They’ve hidden themselves too well. I’ve turned the whole underworld upside down for decades, and still I haven’t found them.”
He looked back at her, the blade-edge of his gaze returning.
“But now that you’ve appeared, everything will be different.”
“Different how?” Ivy asked.
Damen’s voice stayed sharp as a cut. “The enemy will show themselves. Because you, Rosalie Ashford, are the perfect bait.”
The days that followed passed like a dream Ivy wasn’t sure she wanted to wake from—or escape. She was treated like a true princess, surrounded by servants who brought dozens of expensive dresses, shoes, and jewelry.
Her room was refreshed with fresh flowers every day. A private chef asked what she wanted to eat, and everyone in the estate bowed their heads when she walked by.
But instead of feeling happy, Ivy felt smothered.
She was used to taking care of herself, used to simple meals and scrubbing floors for a living. This luxury felt like clothing that was far too large—something she wore without knowing how to stand inside it.
On the morning of the third day, as Ivy sat alone in the grand sitting room, a man walked in. He looked about fifty-five, his dark hair neatly combed, his gray suit perfectly tailored, and a warm smile resting on his lips.
“Welcome home, Miss Ashford,” he said, his voice gentle and polished. “I’m Marcus Cain—Damen’s closest adviser. I have served this family since before you were born.”
Ivy stood, not sure how to respond. “Hello.”
Marcus stepped closer, holding a bouquet of pure white roses. He set it on the table in front of her.
“I brought a small gift to welcome you,” he said. “You know, Damen may seem cold, but he spent his entire adult life searching for you. A quarter of a century. Not a single day he stopped. You’re the only reason he still believes in anything.”
Ivy looked at the flowers, then at Marcus. He seemed sincere—his smile warm, his eyes kind.
“Thank you,” she said. “I’m still trying to get used to all of this.”
Marcus nodded with understanding.
“I get it. It’s a huge change, but you don’t need to worry. We’re all here to protect you.”
He spent that entire morning guiding her through the estate, introducing each room, telling her stories about the Ashford family. His voice stayed gentle and patient, like a kind uncle.
That afternoon, another visitor arrived.
Preston Cole—fifty-five years old, a longtime business partner of the family. He had salt-and-pepper hair, a square face, and an expensive black suit.
When he entered the sitting room and saw Ivy, he broke into a radiant smile.
“A miracle,” he exclaimed. “Victor’s daughter is alive. The Ashford family is truly blessed.”
Preston stepped forward to shake her hand, but in the brief moment their hands touched, Ivy felt something was wrong. His smile was wide, but his eyes were cold—cold as ice.
Just for an instant.
Then it vanished.
“Thank you,” Ivy replied, keeping her voice steady.
Preston didn’t stay long. He spoke with Victor for a while, then excused himself to go see Damen.
When the two men stood in the corridor, Ivy happened to pass by and caught part of their conversation.
“Are you sure she’s the real thing?” Preston’s voice was low. “This isn’t some setup. DNA results can be faked. You should be careful.”
“She’s Victor’s daughter,” Damen’s voice was icy. “The token doesn’t lie.”
“I only want to protect the family,” Preston said. “You know how many people want to use Catherine’s death to seize Ashford assets?”
Ivy hurried away before they noticed she was listening, her heart beating fast. She didn’t know what to think about Preston Cole.
But what truly unsettled her happened that evening.
As she walked down the east corridor toward her room, she saw Marcus and Preston speaking privately in a shadowed corner. They stood close, heads lowered, voices whispered.
Ivy couldn’t hear what they were saying, but both of their faces looked grave.
Then Marcus lifted his head and saw her.
Instantly, he put on that familiar smile.
“Miss Ashford,” he said, bright and cheerful as if nothing had happened. “You’re still awake.”
Preston turned as well, gave her a brief nod, then quickly walked away.
“Just business,” Marcus said when he noticed Ivy’s curious look. “Nothing you need to worry about. Sleep well.”
Ivy nodded and went back to her room. But when she lay in bed, she couldn’t sleep, because something wasn’t right and she could feel it in her bones.
Marcus’s smile was too perfect. Preston’s gaze was too cold.
And that whispered conversation in the darkness.
She didn’t know the answer yet, but she knew one thing: in this estate, not everyone was a friend.
In the days that followed, Ivy realized something else. No matter where she went in the estate, Damen was always there.
Not by chance.
Not at random.
He tracked her like a shadow bound to its shape. When she went down for breakfast, he was already seated at the table.
When she walked in the garden, he stood on a balcony looking down. When she stepped into the library to read, he appeared ten minutes later with the excuse that he needed to find documents.
And it wasn’t only that.
Ivy noticed the male servants in the estate gradually vanished. In their place, it was all women.
When she asked one of the maids, the girl lowered her head and whispered that Mr. Blackwood had ordered every male staff member transferred to another area. The reason wasn’t made clear, but everyone understood.
A week later, Ivy couldn’t take it anymore.
She found Damen in his office and pushed the door open without knocking.
Damen lifted his gaze from the pile of papers, his dark eyes on her without the slightest surprise, as if he’d known she was coming.
“You’re watching me twenty-four seven,” Ivy said bluntly, her voice trembling with anger. “I can’t breathe. I can’t go anywhere without someone behind me. I can’t talk to anyone without being monitored. Is this protection, or is it imprisonment?”
Damen stood, came around the desk, and walked toward her.
“I’m protecting you,” he said.
“Protecting me?” Ivy gave a bitter laugh. “You drove every man out of the area where I am. You control who I see, what I say, where I go. That isn’t protection. That’s obsession.”
Damen stopped in front of her, close enough that she could feel the warmth coming off his body.
“You don’t understand,” he said.
His voice sank lower, no longer cold, carrying something deeper and fiercer.
“For twenty-six years, I’ve lived with that oath. All these years, I searched for you in hopelessness. I turned over every stone, walked through every dark street, questioned hundreds of people, and there was nothing—no trace.”
He lifted his hand, almost touching her face, his finger stopping only millimeters from her cheek. Then he halted, as if afraid that if he touched her she would dissolve.
“Now you’re here,” he said, voice raw. “Flesh and blood. Real. And I won’t let anyone lay a hand on you. No one.”
“Even me deciding my own life?” Ivy asked, softer but still unwavering.
Damen looked straight into her eyes.
“Even that.”
They faced each other in silence. Neither gave way.
In the end, Ivy was the one who turned first. She walked out of the room, her heart full of conflict.
She hated being controlled, but deep down she understood why he did it, and that understanding made it impossible for her to hate him completely.
That night, Ivy fell into a sleep full of nightmares.
She dreamed of a car plunging off a cliff on a stormy, rain-soaked night—metal colliding, glass shattering, a woman’s scream.
Then fire.
Fire everywhere.
She jolted awake drenched in sweat, her heart pounding as if it might burst through her ribs. She sat on the bed for a while, trying to steady herself, then rose and walked to the door.
She needed air.
She needed to get out of this room, even for a minute.
But when she opened the door, she froze.
Damen was there, right outside her door. He stood leaning against the wall opposite, arms folded across his chest, eyes closed, but his body wasn’t relaxed.
Every muscle was taut, ready to move at any moment.
When the door opened, his eyes opened. Those dark eyes looked at her in the hallway’s darkness—sharp, but not frightening.
“What are you doing here?” Ivy asked, her voice a whisper.
“Standing guard,” Damen answered, short and flat.
“You’ve got dozens of bodyguards. Why do you have to do this yourself?”
“Because I don’t trust anyone else,” he said without hesitation.
Ivy swallowed. “Do you do this every night?”
Damen didn’t answer.
But that silence was the answer.
“Don’t you sleep?” she asked, her voice gentling.
Damen looked at her for a long time. Then he spoke, his voice low like a weary exhale.
“I haven’t slept peacefully a single night since I was eleven. Every night I close my eyes and I see the car go over the cliff. Every night I hear Victor screaming. At least now when I’m awake, I’ve got a reason. I’ve got someone to protect.”
Ivy stood there looking at him.
The most powerful man in the city. The mafia boss who made the entire underworld tremble—and he stood outside her door every night, sleepless, only to make sure she was safe.
For the first time, she didn’t feel afraid of him.
She felt sorry.
Sorry for the eleven-year-old boy who witnessed the tragedy. Sorry for the man who had carried over two decades of weight on his shoulders.
She didn’t say anything else. She turned back into her room, but when she closed the door she didn’t close it all the way.
She left a small crack—a thin sliver of light cutting through the hallway darkness like an invitation, or like a promise that she wouldn’t disappear.
After that night, Ivy couldn’t stop thinking about Damen standing outside her door, about Preston Cole’s icy gaze, about Marcus Cain’s smile that was a little too perfect.
And she couldn’t stop thinking about her mother’s assassination twenty-six years ago—and the mastermind who still hadn’t been found.
She couldn’t just sit and wait for other people to protect her.
She needed the truth.
She needed to find it herself.
Three nights later, when the clock struck two in the morning, Ivy slipped out of her room. She knew Damen usually stood guard outside her door, but tonight he had an urgent meeting with his men and still hadn’t returned.
This was her only chance.
Barefoot on the freezing marble floor, she moved through the dark hallway, avoiding the security cameras whose positions she had quietly memorized over the past days.
The records archive was in the basement—a room she’d happened to discover when Marcus had taken her on a tour of the estate.
The archive door wasn’t locked.
Ivy eased inside and switched on the small flashlight on her phone. Tall metal shelves were packed with file boxes lined up like silent soldiers.
She began to search, her fingers sliding across label after label—business contracts, financial reports, staff lists.
Then she found it.
An old metal box, dusty, with a faded handwritten line on the front.
The incident on November fifteenth.
Her hands trembled as she opened it. Inside was a thick file, the paper yellowed with age.
She flipped through page after page, reading hungrily under the beam of the flashlight.
Scene report. Photos of a burned-out car at the bottom of the cliff. List of victims.
Catherine Ashford—thirty-two years old, eight months pregnant—deceased at the scene.
Driver—deceased.
Fetus—body not found, presumed deceased.
Ivy swallowed hard and kept reading.
Then she stopped at a typed page with a heading: internal security analysis.
Her eyes widened as she took in the lines.
Catherine Ashford’s travel schedule on the night of November fifteenth was classified top secret. Only a small number of people in the organization knew the exact time and route.
Below it was a list.
Victor Ashford.
Damen Blackwood—eleven years old.
The private driver—deceased.
And one more name… but it had been erased. Not crossed out with ink—scraped away on purpose, leaving a pale white streak on the page like a scar.
Ivy’s heart began to pound harder.
Someone had removed their name from the list. Someone didn’t want to be discovered as a person who knew Catherine’s schedule that night.
Who was it?
And was that person the one who sold out her mother?
She turned the page.
An additional investigative report.
Unidentified witness.
Description as follows: male, middle-aged, wearing an old leather jacket, riding an old motorcycle. Seen near the scene roughly thirty minutes after the crash. Appeared to be carrying something when leaving.
Identity unknown.
No further investigation.
Ivy went still.
The leather jacket.
Sister Agatha had said Ivy was wrapped in an old leather jacket when she was abandoned at the orphanage door—the smell of engine oil and cigarettes.
An old motorcycle.
It all fit.
This man had been at the scene. This man had taken something away.
That something was her.
This man had saved her.
She had to find him.
He was the only living witness.
He knew what happened that night.
And in that exact moment, the archive door swung open.
Ivy jerked around, hiding the file behind her back. Light from the hallway spilled in, and a figure appeared in the doorway.
Marcus Cain.
He wore a suit despite the late hour, his hair still neatly combed, that familiar smile on his lips.
But his eyes weren’t smiling.
Those eyes were sharp as a blade in the dark.
“It’s late, miss,” Marcus said, his voice gentle but carrying something that made Ivy’s skin prickle. “What are you looking for down here?”
“I just wanted to know more about my family,” Ivy replied, forcing her voice to sound normal. “About my mother.”
Marcus stepped into the room and closed the door behind him. The sound of it shutting rang out like a trap snapping.
“Curiosity is good,” he said, moving closer. “But there are things you shouldn’t know, miss. Some secrets are buried for a reason.”
“Like the secret of who killed my mother?” Ivy asked bluntly, refusing to back away.
Marcus stopped, silent for a beat.
The smile on his lips didn’t change, but something in his gaze darkened.
“Careful, miss,” he said. “Digging into the past sometimes wakes things that shouldn’t wake. There are monsters sleeping in the dark. Don’t wake them.”
They faced each other in the narrow, dusty room.
Then Marcus tilted his head as if remembering something.
“Ah… have you found anything about the leather jacket?”
Ivy went rigid.
“The leather jacket?”
She had only told that detail to Damen in the VIP room of the restaurant on the first night they met. No one else should have known.
How did Marcus know?
Marcus seemed to realize his mistake. His smile widened—smoother, more natural—as if it were covering something.
“Damen told me,” he said quickly. “We don’t hide anything from each other. You know, I’m his closest adviser.”
“Yes,” Ivy said, forcing herself to smile. “I understand.”
But inside her, alarms were screaming.
Damen wouldn’t have shared that detail with anyone. He was too protective of her to reveal anything about her to another person.
Marcus knew about the leather jacket. Marcus asked whether she’d found anything.
Marcus had shown up at the exact moment she was investigating.
This wasn’t a coincidence.
“You should go back to your room and rest,” Marcus said, opening the archive door. “It’s late. It isn’t good for your health.”
Ivy stepped out, feeling Marcus’s gaze burning into her back the entire way down the hallway.
When she reached her room, she shut the door and leaned against the wall, her heart pounding like a drum.
She knew one thing for certain.
Marcus Cain wasn’t a good man.
He was hiding something.
And he was watching her.
She had to find the man in the leather jacket before Marcus did.
She had to move.
The next night, Ivy acted.
She waited until the clock struck one in the morning, when the entire estate sank into silence. She changed out of her nightgown into black jeans and a dark hoodie she’d hidden at the bottom of the wardrobe.
She slipped her phone into her pocket, laced up sneakers, and went to the window.
Her room was on the second floor, but outside an ancient climbing trellis clung tightly to the stone wall. She’d studied it for days, judging it sturdy enough to hold her weight.
She opened the window, drew a deep breath, then climbed out.
The night wind cut into her skin. Her hands gripped dry branches.
Her feet searched for purchase on rough knobs of wood.
Her heart hammered as if it might explode.
If she fell, she’d break bones.
If she was discovered… she didn’t dare imagine what Damen would do.
But she had no choice.
She had to find the truth.
She lowered herself inch by inch, carefully avoiding brittle branches that might snap and make noise. At last, her feet met the ground.
She pressed into the shadows and watched.
A security camera swept slowly at the corner of the yard.
She waited for it to turn away, then ran hard for the fence.
The guards patrolled on a fixed schedule she’d silently tracked all week. She knew they would pass the side gate in five minutes.
She had enough time.
She climbed over the fence at the edge of the garden where dense trees blocked the view. Her clothes snagged and tore on branches, but she didn’t care.
She ran along the narrow path behind the estate, reached the main road, and called a taxi through an app on her phone.
The ten-minute wait stretched like an entire century.
When the yellow car pulled up in front of her, she jumped in as if she were fleeing hell.
“The South Industrial District,” she told the driver.
Thirty minutes later, Damen finished his meeting and returned to the estate. As usual, he headed for Ivy’s room to check on her.
But when he arrived, the door was ajar and the room was empty.
The bed was untouched.
The window stood wide open, the curtains whipping in the night wind.
He stood there for one second.
Two seconds.
Then his fury detonated.
Damen turned and drove his fist straight into the large mirror on the wall. Glass shattered. Blood ran over his knuckles, but he didn’t feel pain.
He felt only one thing.
Fear.
Fear that he would lose her—lose her again, like he had twenty-six years ago.
“Find her!” he roared at the bodyguards who came running when they heard the mirror break. “Turn the whole city upside down. Right now.”
Marcus Cain appeared in the doorway, his face anxious.
“What happened?”
“She left,” Damen said, his voice grinding through clenched teeth.
Marcus nodded, grave. “Let me help. I’ve got people everywhere in the city. We’ll find her.”
Damen nodded, too worried to notice the strange, cold glint in Marcus’s eyes.
Marcus pulled out his phone, pressed a few buttons, and a fleeting smile crossed his mouth when Ivy’s GPS location appeared on the screen.
Meanwhile, Ivy was feeling her way through the old industrial district in the south of the city—abandoned factories, rusted garages, grimy bars.
She asked everyone she met, “Do you know an old mechanic who wears a leather jacket? An old motorcycle? Maybe he worked around here about twenty-six years ago?”
Most people shook their heads or waved her away. A few looked at her like she was crazy.
She nearly gave up when a drunken man sitting outside the door of a cheap bar grabbed her hand.
“Leather jacket,” he muttered, his breath reeking of alcohol. “Old mechanic… you looking for old Walt?”
Ivy dropped to her knees in front of him.
“Do you know where he is?”
The drunk man cackled. “Who doesn’t know? That crazy old man lives under the East Bridge. Crazy as hell—babbling all day about the little girl on the rainy night.”
He shook his head.
“More than twenty years, and he still won’t stop talking about it. Completely nuts.”
The little girl on the rainy night.
Ivy’s heart stopped.
That was her.
She was that little girl.
She sprang up and ran toward the East Bridge, her feet flying over the pavement, her heart pounding like it would burst.
She was about to find the truth.
She was about to learn what happened on that night twenty-six years ago.
She didn’t know that in the darkness behind her, a line of black cars was moving silently—following the GPS signal from the phone in her pocket.
And the one leading that motorcade wasn’t Damen.
Under the East Bridge was a different world—dark, wet, the stink of rotting trash and sewer water braided together until it felt like it coated the back of her throat.
The streetlights were so weak they could only reach a few yards. Everything beyond that fell into a thick, swallowing black.
Ivy stepped in, her shoes splashing through filthy puddles, her eyes fighting to adjust. She saw makeshift shelters built from cardboard and torn tarps, shadowed figures huddled in corners—sleeping or watching her with weary eyes.
Then she saw him.
A shape curled into himself in the farthest corner beneath a cracked concrete overhang. Hair white as ash, long to his shoulders, a thick beard swallowing half his face, clothes torn and grimy.
But when Ivy drew closer, she saw his eyes.
Those eyes were still bright—still alive—still carrying something that hadn’t gone quiet even after all these years.
“Are you Walter Morris?” Ivy asked, her voice shaking with nerves. “The one with the old motorcycle and the leather jacket?”
The old man flinched and retreated deeper into the darkness.
“Someone,” he stammered, his voice rough like it hadn’t spoken to another human in a long time. “What do you want? I’ve got nothing. Go away.”
Ivy took another step.
“I didn’t come to take anything,” she said. “I came to know the truth about that night on Raven’s Peak.”
“About the car that went over the cliff on Raven’s Peak?” the old man rasped. “About the pregnant woman inside that car?”
Old Walt went still.
“What are you saying?”
Ivy moved one more step, and the weak streetlight caught her chest, lighting the golden token at her throat. The pendant glimmered in the darkness like a small star.
Old Walt saw it.
His eyes widened, and his whole body began to shake.
Then he cried.
Tears ran down his wrinkled cheeks, disappearing into his silver beard.
“My little girl,” he whispered, his voice breaking. “You’re alive. All this time I’ve spent a lifetime wondering if you were alive or dead—and you’re here. You’re alive.”
Ivy felt her heart tighten.
“So it was you,” she said. “You’re the one who saved me that night.”
Old Walt nodded, tears still falling.
He pulled Ivy down to sit beside him, his trembling, weathered hand closing around hers. Then he began to tell it, his voice dull and heavy like an echo dragged up from the past.
“That night, I was riding up Raven’s Peak. Rain came down like a waterfall. I could barely see the road. Then I saw it—black cars tore past me at a mad speed.
“They forced another car off the road. I heard metal smash, glass break, screaming… and then the car went over the edge.”
He stopped, taking a shaky breath.
“The black car sped away. They didn’t stop. I was the only one left there.
“I went down the cliff, sliding along the slope. The car was upside down, smoking, and I saw her—Catherine. She was still breathing, blood everywhere, but she was still breathing.
“And she was holding her belly, shielding the baby inside.”
“My mother,” Ivy whispered, tears spilling over.
Old Walt nodded. “She looked at me—her eyes. I’ll never forget them. Pain… but determination, too.
“She grabbed my hand and said, ‘Save my child. Please save my child.’”
He wiped at his tears with the sleeve of his torn jacket.
“Then she gave birth,” he said. “Right there in the wreckage with her last strength. I delivered the baby.
“You… you were so small, red and new, crying out into the rainy night.
“She looked at you once—just once—then she took off the necklace and tied it around your neck with a knot so tight I had to fight to get it secured.
“She whispered into your ear. I heard it.”
“What did she say?” Ivy asked, her voice choking.
Old Walt looked at her, his eyes raw and red.
“She said, ‘Find your father. This token will lead you home. Live. Live for your mother.’”
Ivy cried like she’d never been allowed to cry.
A lifetime not knowing who her mother was. Nearly three decades believing she’d been abandoned.
But no.
Her mother had fought for her to live.
Her mother had used her last breath to protect her.
“Then she died,” Old Walt went on, his voice like a weary exhale. “In my hands. I held you and watched her go.”
“Why didn’t you call the police?” Ivy asked. “Why did you leave me at the orphanage?”
Old Walt bowed his head in shame.
“I’ve got a record,” he admitted. “I was scared they’d blame me. And I knew this was tied to the mafia.
“Those cars had a symbol. I recognized it. If I spoke up, I’d die.
“I took you to the orphanage, left you at the door, then I disappeared. I lived in guilt and fear for so long. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
Ivy wrapped her arms around the old man.
“My mother fought so I could live,” she said, her voice breaking. “And you saved me. You don’t need to be sorry.”
At that moment, the sound of tires screeching broke the air outside the bridge.
Ivy looked up and saw Damen rush in, his eyes fierce, his body pulled taut like a wire. But when he saw her crying, he stopped.
He looked at Old Walt, then back at Ivy, and he understood.
“You’re the one who saved her,” Damen said.
Old Walt rose, trembling. “I’m sorry. I should have spoken up long ago.”
Damen didn’t have time to answer.
Another set of headlights flared into the space beneath the bridge, blinding.
Not his cars.
A line of black vehicles rolled to a stop, and a figure stepped out of the darkness.
Marcus Cain.
A cold smile on his lips.
“Found you at last,” he said. “All three of you.”
Damen moved instantly, stepping in front of Ivy as his hand drew his gun in a single breath.
Marcus’s men had already surrounded the space beneath the bridge, sealing every exit. Headlights from the black cars flooded the cramped underpass, throwing long, twisted shadows across the concrete.
“Marcus!” Damen snarled. “What are you doing here?”
Marcus smiled—that familiar smile Ivy had seen in her first days at the estate. But now it looked different.
Cold.
Cruel.
“Just like you,” Marcus replied, his voice gentle. “Looking for our young lady.”
“I didn’t call you,” Damen said, the gun still leveled at Marcus.
“You didn’t need to.” Marcus shrugged. “I always know everything. It’s my job.
“Remember—closest adviser. Having served the family for more than half my life. I know your every step, every decision, every weakness.”
The air turned thick with tension.
Ivy stood behind Damen, her hand clenched around Old Walt’s trembling arm.
Then Marcus sighed.
The smile vanished.
The friendly mask dropped away, revealing the face beneath it—cold, greedy, full of hatred.
“What a shame,” Marcus said, his voice no longer warm. “I was hoping the girl wouldn’t find this old man. It would have been so much simpler.
“She would have been nothing but the family’s little princess—knowing nothing, doing nothing. I would have kept waiting.
“But now she knows too much.”
Damen aimed the gun straight at Marcus’s head.
“What did you say?”
Marcus stared at Damen with contempt.
“Twenty-six years, Damen. A lifetime of waiting. Twenty-six years.
“I thought the girl died with her mother—a perfect plan. Catherine dies. The baby dies. Victor collapses. The family needs a new leader.
“And that leader should have been me.”
“You’re a traitor,” Ivy burst out, her voice shaking with fury and horror.
Marcus turned to her.
“Traitor?” He gave a cold laugh. “No, miss. I’m only taking back what belongs to me.
“Victor promised me—power, position, a future. I’m the one who built this empire with him from the early days.
“Then he adopted a street boy.”
Marcus turned back to Damen, hatred blazing in his eyes.
“Twenty-six years of loyalty, twenty-six years of service, and I was still only an adviser.
“While you—a gutter child, picked up from the streets—became the boss.
“Do you know how that feels?”
Damen stood frozen. He looked at the man he’d trusted for twenty-five years—the man who taught him how to run the organization, who stood beside him through every decision.
“You sold Catherine’s schedule,” Damen said, his voice catching.
Marcus nodded, not the least bit ashamed.
“You finally understand. Yes.
“I gave them the information—the time she left the hospital, the route, the number of guards, everything.
“Preston Cole paid very well for it.”
“Preston Cole,” Damen ground out.
“Oh, you didn’t know?” Marcus laughed. “Preston was the mastermind. I was only the one feeding the details.
“A perfect plan. Catherine dies. The baby dies. Victor collapses. The family falls into chaos. Preston takes over.
“And I get rewarded like I deserve.”
Marcus exhaled, bitter.
“But then you appeared—an eleven-year-old boy kneeling before Victor, swearing your oath.
“Victor looked at you like you were a savior. He handed everything to you, and I had to keep waiting.
“Twenty-six years, Damen. I waited for you to make a mistake. I waited for you to die. I waited for my moment.”
Then Marcus looked at Ivy.
“And now this girl shows up with the token, with the inheritance, ruining everything I’ve built.”
Marcus drew his gun.
“This time I’ll do it myself. No mistakes.”
He pointed the gun at Old Walt.
“Kill the old man.”
He swung it to Ivy.
“Kill the girl.”
Then he looked at Damen.
“And you? You’ll die like a traitor. I’ll tell everyone you worked with the enemy to seize Ashford property.
“You killed Victor’s daughter, and I—the loyal adviser—eliminated you to avenge her.”
Old Walt stumbled back, trembling.
“Please, sir,” he stammered. “I’m just a harmless old man.”
But Ivy stepped forward.
She placed herself in front of Old Walt, chin lifted, eyes fixed on Marcus.
“If you want to kill him, you’ll have to go through me.”
Marcus looked at her, surprised for a second, then laughed.
“Brave,” he said. “Just like your mother.
“Catherine was brave like that, too. She stared straight into the headlights of the cars coming for her and didn’t scream.”
He leveled the gun at Ivy.
“As you wish, miss.”
“Marcus!” Damen shouted.
The gunshot ripped through the night.
Damen lunged toward Ivy like a bolt of lightning. In a fraction of a second, he shoved her down to the ground and used his own body as a shield.
The bullet tore through his left shoulder instead of her head.
Blood burst out—hot and shocking—splattering onto Ivy’s face.
She screamed in terror, but Damen didn’t stop. He clenched his teeth against the pain, twisted around, and fired back at Marcus.
At that same moment, the roar of engines surged into the space under the bridge. Three more black cars barreled in.
Damen’s men—the ones who had secretly followed him from the estate.
They leapt out with their guns already loaded, and the firefight erupted.
The underpass turned into hell.
Gunshots cracked like thunder. Muzzle flashes lit the darkness in harsh, violent bursts.
The smell of gunpowder and blood mixed together until it felt like it coated the air.
Marcus’s men fired back like madmen, but Damen’s people were more numerous and better trained.
One by one, they went down.
Damen rose to his feet, his left shoulder still bleeding, but he fought as if he couldn’t feel pain at all.
He moved fast as a ghost, dropped a man who was trying to reach Ivy, then turned to face Marcus.
The fury burning in his eyes was hotter than any flame.
Old Walt dragged Ivy behind a concrete pillar and used his own body to shield her. A stray bullet grazed his leg, leaving a bleeding wound, but he didn’t let go.
“Get down!” he shouted into Ivy’s ear. “Don’t lift your head!”
Marcus crouched behind a car and fired back at Damen.
“You’ve always been Victor’s loyal dog!” he screamed over the gunfire. “But a dog never becomes the master. You’ll always be nothing but the street kid he picked up!”
Damen dropped another man who was trying to protect Marcus.
“You’re wrong,” he answered, his voice cold as ice. “I’m not loyal to Victor.
“I’m loyal to the Ashford family.”
He vaulted over a metal barrel and closed the distance.
Another shot snapped from his gun and the last of Marcus’s men went down.
Damen looked toward Ivy.
“She’s the last Ashford left.”
Marcus ran out of bullets. He threw his gun aside, pulled a knife, and charged.
The two men crashed into each other like wild animals.
Marcus slashed.
Damen shifted away, but the wound in his shoulder slowed him more than it should have. The blade carved a long line across Damen’s arm.
More blood poured out, but Damen didn’t back down.
He drove a fist into Marcus’s face, knocking him off balance. Then he kicked Marcus’s knee, forcing him down.
Finally, he slammed a sledgehammer punch into Marcus’s temple.
Marcus hit the ground. The knife skittered away.
Damen pinned him there, pressed the gun to his head, his finger set on the trigger.
Marcus lay with blood spilling from his nose and mouth, and still he laughed.
The crazed sound echoed beneath the bridge now that the gunfire had fallen silent.
“Kill me,” he said. “Kill me, Damen, but you’ll never know who the real mastermind is.
“Preston Cole—do you know where he is? Do you know what he’s doing right now?”
Damen froze.
His finger stayed on the trigger, but he didn’t squeeze.
“Kill me and you lose your only witness,” Marcus sneered. “Keep me alive and you’ve got a chance to find out everything.”
Damen ground his teeth. He wanted to pull the trigger.
He wanted to end this traitor right here.
But reason held him back.
He needed Marcus.
He needed information.
“Tie him up,” Damen ordered his men. “If he moves, shoot him in the leg.”
Ivy ran to Damen as he stood. Her face was smeared with his blood, her eyes red from crying in fear.
She saw the wound in his shoulder, the cut across his arm, and she felt like she might collapse.
“You got shot because of me,” she said, her voice breaking.
But Damen didn’t look at his own injuries.
He lifted a hand to her face, checking her—making sure she wasn’t hurt.
“Are you all right?”
Ivy stared at him, stunned.
“You’re bleeding,” she said. “You just took a bullet, and you’re asking if I’m all right.”
Damen looked at her, and something in those black eyes softened just a little.
“I told you,” he said, his voice rough with pain but firm as stone. “No one touches you. No one.”
Just then, the phone in Damen’s pocket vibrated.
He pulled it out, glanced at the screen, and his face went pale.
“What is it?” Ivy asked.
Damen looked at her, then at Marcus bound on the ground.
“Victor is dying,” he said, his voice catching. “And Preston Cole just called an emergency family council.”
Damen dropped to one knee in front of Marcus, grabbed him by the collar, and yanked him up.
“Who’s the mastermind?” he roared. “Who paid you to sell Catherine out?”
Marcus spat a mouthful of blood onto the ground, then laughed—the laugh of a man who’d lost everything and still held one last card.
“Preston Cole,” he said. “He’s behind it all.
“He paid. He planned it. He wanted to swallow the Ashford family whole from twenty-six years ago.”
“What else?” Damen tightened his grip on Marcus’s collar. “Tell me everything.”
But Marcus only laughed and went silent.
He stared at Damen with open defiance.
“You want details?” he said at last. “Then you have to keep me alive. I’m your only witness.
“Without me, you’ve got no evidence against Preston.”
Damen wanted to punch him, but he knew Marcus was right.
He stood and turned to his men.
“Tie him up. Bring him with us. If he tries to run, shoot him in the knees.”
The motorcade tore through the night, ripping open the darkness of Blackwood City. Damen sat in the back seat while one of his men wrapped a rough bandage over the wound in his shoulder.
Blood soaked through the cloth.
His face was pale from blood loss, but his eyes still burned with determination.
Ivy sat beside him, gripping his hand.
“You need the hospital,” she said, her voice tight with worry.
“Later,” Damen answered, not looking at her. “Victor first. And Preston.
“Preston will pay for what he’s done.”
Meanwhile, back at the Ashford estate, the family council chamber blazed with light in the middle of the night. The ten highest-ranking members of the family sat around the long oak table, every face strained with tension and fear.
And standing at the head of the table—where Damen should have been—was Preston Cole.
“This is extremely serious,” Preston said, his voice low and heavy with false concern. “Victor is dying. The doctors say he won’t make it through tonight.
“And Damen—our current leader—has vanished into the night. No one knows where he is. No one can reach him.”
He looked around the table, making sure they were listening.
“The Ashford family has no blood,” Preston continued. “Catherine died twenty-six years ago along with her unborn child.
“Damen is only an adopted son with no legal right of inheritance under the family’s laws.
“And now he disappears at the exact moment Victor is about to die.”
“What do you think that means?”
Murmurs rose around the table. A few members began to nod.
“The family needs stability,” Preston said, his voice firm. “We need a leader with experience—someone who stood beside Victor from the earliest days.
“I propose the council vote to remove Damen Blackwood and appoint interim leadership until the situation stabilizes.”
In the separate car following Damen’s motorcade, Old Walt was being helped into clean clothes by an aide.
The wound on his leg had been bandaged. He looked down at the new clothes, then up at Ivy, facing him through the video call screen on the phone.
“I’ll testify,” Old Walt said, his voice trembling but resolute. “In front of all of them, I’ll tell them what I saw that night.
“I owe Catherine that.”
“Aren’t you afraid?” Ivy asked. “They’re mafia. If you testify against Preston, you could be in danger.”
Old Walt looked at her through the screen, his old eyes catching a spark of resolve he’d lost over twenty-six years.
“I’ve been afraid for twenty-six years, little girl,” he said. “The decades of waiting—I lived like a rat, hiding, flinching at shadows.
“Enough. It’s time I do the right thing.”
The motorcade stopped at the gates of the Ashford estate. The light in the council chamber still blazed.
Damen stared out through the car window, then turned to Ivy.
His face was pale, but his gaze was on fire.
“Ready?” Ivy asked.
Damen squeezed her hand one last time, then opened the car door.
“Let’s go,” he said. “Let’s end this.”
The council chamber doors flew open with a thunderous bang.
The ten highest-ranking members of the Ashford family all turned at once.
Preston Cole went rigid at the head of the table, the smug smile on his mouth vanishing in an instant.
Damen Blackwood stepped in, his left shoulder still bandaged, blood seeping through the white cloth into a terrifying red stain.
His face was pale from blood loss, but his black eyes burned like two coals.
But he didn’t come alone.
Ivy entered beside him.
She was no longer the trembling cleaning girl in the Skyline Restaurant.
In a sleek black dress she’d hurriedly changed into in the car, with her hair pinned into a neat twist and her chin lifted high, she looked like someone else entirely.
At her throat, the golden token glimmered beneath the chandelier light like a bright star in the dark.
“You want a blood heir,” Damen said, his voice carrying through the room. “Here she is—Rosalie Ashford, the only daughter of Victor and Catherine Ashford.
“And she’s wearing the family’s sacred token.”
The room erupted into restless noise.
Whispers rose like waves.
Council members stared at Ivy, at the token, then at one another, shock plain on their faces.
Preston recovered quickly.
“Absurd,” he said loudly, forcing his voice over the murmurs. “This is an impostor—a cleaning girl who came from nowhere with a fake necklace.
“You’re going to believe a con artist?”
Ivy stepped forward.
She looked Preston straight in the eyes—steady, unafraid.
“Twenty-six years ago,” she said, her voice cold as ice, “you murdered my mother.”
The room went dead silent.
Preston’s eyes widened.
“You dare accuse me without evidence?”
“You thought I was dead,” Ivy continued. “You thought the baby in my mother’s womb died with her at the bottom of that cliff.
“But I’m alive—and I’ve got a witness.”
The door opened again.
Old Walt walked in, limping slightly from the wound in his leg, but his back was straight and his head held high.
He was no longer the ragged old man under the bridge.
In clean clothes, with his eyes lit by determination, he looked like a witness ready to face the past.
“I’m Walter Morris,” he said, his voice clear and strong. “Twenty-six years ago, I was on Raven’s Peak.
“I saw Catherine Ashford’s car forced off the road and down the cliff. I went down to save her.
“I took the baby from her arms before she died.
“And I saw the ones who caused it—black cars with a symbol on the doors.”
Old Walt lifted his hand and pointed straight at Preston.
“Your symbol.”
Preston took a step back, his face draining.
“This is the testimony of a crazy old man,” he said, his voice beginning to shake. “It means nothing.”
Then Marcus Cain was marched in by two bodyguards, his hands cuffed behind his back.
He looked around the chamber at the faces waiting for him and understood he had nowhere left to go.
“Speak,” Damen ordered. “In front of the council.
“Say everything you said to me.”
Marcus drew a deep breath.
“Preston Cole paid me to give him Catherine’s schedule that night—the time she left the hospital, the route, the number of guards, all of it.
“Preston hired men to force her car off the cliff.
“Preston wanted Victor to collapse so he could seize control of the Ashford family.
“Twenty-six years ago, Preston Cole killed Catherine Ashford.”
Preston snapped.
“Marcus!” he shouted, his face purple with rage. “You promised you’d keep it secret. You promised you’d never say a word—you—”
He stopped.
Realizing what he’d just said.
Realizing he’d confessed in front of the entire council.
The room held absolute silence.
Not a breath.
Not a sound.
Damen stepped up to Preston, his black eyes like two abysses.
“Twenty-six years,” he said, his voice low like distant thunder. “You stood beside Victor and pretended to mourn.
“You watched him collapse after losing his wife, losing his child.
“You waited for him to die so you could take everything.
“But you forgot one thing.”
He leaned in.
“An Ashford never dies out.”
The council didn’t need long to deliberate.
The vote was swift and unanimous.
Preston Cole and Marcus Cain were expelled from the family and would be judged under the family’s law—an unofficial death sentence.
Then every gaze turned to Ivy.
She stepped forward, taking the place where Preston had stood.
She looked at the unfamiliar faces waiting for her to speak.
“I didn’t grow up in this world,” Ivy said, her voice gentle but steady. “I don’t know your rules. I don’t know how to run a family.
“But I know what justice is, and I know what family is.”
She looked at Damen—the man leaning against the wall from exhaustion, yet never taking his eyes off her.
“Damen Blackwood has protected this family for nineteen years. He kept his oath to my father when he was only an eleven-year-old boy.
“He’ll continue to lead.
“As for me—I’ll learn. I’ll learn how to become an Ashford worthy of the name.
“And I won’t let anyone harm my family again. Never.”
For a moment there was only silence.
Then one by one, the council members rose.
They bowed their heads to Ivy.
To Rosalie Ashford.
To the lost princess who had come home after twenty-six years.
Right after the council ended, Ivy ran toward Victor’s room. Her heart was hammering, her steps unsteady on the long corridor.
She knew he was dying.
She knew there wasn’t much time left.
She shoved the bedroom door open and rushed inside.
Victor lay on the large bed dressed in white sheets, his body so thin it looked as if it might dissolve into the fabric.
A heart monitor beside him beeped slowly, steadily.
The doctor and nurses stood back in a corner, shaking their heads with grim faces.
But when Ivy reached the bedside, Victor opened his eyes.
Eyes clouded by age and sickness suddenly brightened.
And he smiled—the most peaceful smile Ivy had ever seen on anyone’s face.
“You did it,” Victor whispered, his voice so weak it was like a breath of wind.
Ivy dropped to her knees beside the bed and took his wrinkled hand. Tears wouldn’t stop falling.
“Father,” she said, calling someone that for the first time in her life and meaning it. “Preston and Marcus have been caught. It’s over. Justice has been done.”
“Good,” Victor nodded faintly, his eyes still fixed on her. “Good.”
He lifted his other hand, trembling, and touched her face.
“You look like your mother,” he said. “Strong. Beautiful.
“Catherine had eyes like that, too—determined, unbroken.”
“Father,” Ivy sobbed.
“Twenty-six years,” Victor went on, his voice like a sigh. “I spent every day since the crash not knowing you were alive.
“All these years I lived in regret. I thought I’d lost you, lost my wife, lost everything.
“I thought I would die in loneliness and guilt.”
He paused, pulling in a hard breath.
“But now I can go to Catherine,” he said, a smile returning to his lips. “I can tell her.”
“Tell her what?” Ivy asked, her voice strangled.
“That our daughter grew into someone wonderful,” Victor answered. “That she didn’t sacrifice herself for nothing.
“That our Rosalie came home.”
Damen entered the room and stopped at the foot of the bed. He’d changed the bandage on his wound, but his face was still pale.
He stood there in silence, looking at the adoptive father who was slipping away.
And Damen’s black eyes slowly reddened.
Victor saw him.
“My son,” he called.
Damen came to the bedside, standing next to Ivy.
“Father,” he answered, his voice rough.
Victor looked at him with love.
“I took you off the streets twenty-six years ago,” he said. “A skinny boy—filthy—eyes full of hatred for the world.
“I thought I was saving you, but the truth is you saved me.”
Damen choked.
“You saved me from the dark,” Victor continued. “After Catherine died, I wanted to die, too.
“I had no reason to live, but then you appeared. You knelt before me and swore your oath.
“You gave me a reason to go on. You kept this family from collapsing when I had no strength left.
“You found Rosalie when I had already given up hope.”
He reached out, and Damen took his hand.
Now Victor lay there with one hand holding Ivy’s and one hand holding Damen’s.
“You’re my son,” Victor said, his voice certain even in weakness. “You always have been—not because of blood, but because of your heart.”
Damen bowed his head, his voice trembling.
“I’ll protect her,” he said. “With my life. I swear it.”
Victor nodded, that peaceful smile still on his lips.
“I know. I always knew. Since you were a boy, I knew you would keep your promise.”
He looked at both of them—his two children, one by blood, one by heart, both family.
“Live,” Victor said, his voice growing softer as if it were dissolving into the air. “Live for each other. Live for the family.
“And be happy. Happy for me. For Catherine.”
“Father,” Ivy cried out.
Victor closed his eyes, the smile still there.
“Catherine,” he whispered as if speaking to someone only he could see. “I’m coming. Wait for me.”
Then the heart monitor turned into one long, even tone.
A flatline on the screen.
Victor Ashford was gone—peaceful, calm.
After over two decades of agonizing weight, he had finally met his daughter.
Finally, he had reunited with his wife.
Ivy collapsed against the side of the bed, sobbing. Her crying filled the silent room, raw and desperate.
She had just found her father—and she had already lost him.
Damen stood beside her, looking down at Victor’s peaceful face.
And for the first time in twenty-six years, he cried.
Tears slid silently down his cheeks and fell onto the white sheets. He didn’t cry when he saw Catherine die.
He didn’t cry through twenty-six years of pain and responsibility.
But now he cried.
He reached out and gently wiped the tears from Ivy’s face.
“He waited for you,” Damen said, his voice low. “And in the end, he met his daughter. He went peacefully.”
Ivy looked up at him, eyes red and swollen.
“You lost your father, too.”
Damen shook his head slightly.
“He isn’t gone,” he said. “He lives in you, in me—in everything we’ll do from today on.”
The Ashford family cemetery sat on a hill overlooking Blackwood City. Sunset painted the sky red, the last light of day falling across rows of white marble headstones.
Victor Ashford’s funeral unfolded in silence—solemn and restrained.
Only the family’s closest circle was allowed to attend.
No reporters. No outsiders.
Only family.
Victor was laid to rest beside Catherine.
A quarter of a century, and they could finally be together again—two graves side by side, stone markers carved with names and dates, and a small line beneath them.
Forever together.
Ivy stood before her parents’ graves with Damen at her side. The evening breeze moved softly through the white rose petals she had placed on Catherine’s grave.
She looked down at the stone bearing the name of the woman who had given her life—who had died so her child could live.
“Mother,” Ivy whispered, her voice as light as breath. “I’m home.
“I found Father. I know the truth.
“And I’ll live in a way that’s worthy of what you sacrificed. I promise.”
They stood in silence for a long time.
Then Damen spoke.
“What do you want now?” he asked. “You’ve got everything—power, money, a family. You can do anything you want.”
Ivy turned to him.
“I want to start a foundation,” she said. “For orphans—for children like the one I used to be.
“Children who grow up not knowing who their parents are. Children who wait for someone to come and bring them home.”
She looked back at Catherine’s grave.
“So no child has to wait nearly three decades to find a family,” she continued. “So no one has to be as alone as I was.”
Damen watched her, his gaze softening.
“The Catherine Foundation,” he said.
Ivy smiled—the first smile since Victor died.
“The Catherine Foundation,” she repeated.
Old Walt stood a few steps away in the clean new clothes Damen had arranged for him. The wound in his leg had been treated properly.
He was no longer the ragged old man under the bridge.
His dignity had been returned.
“I kept my promise to Catherine,” Old Walt said when Ivy came to him. “She asked me to save her child.
“And now you’re home.”
Ivy hugged him—hugged the stranger who had saved her twice.
Once from the wreckage twenty-six years ago.
Once again when he found the courage to testify.
“Thank you,” she said. “For everything.”
Old Walt patted her back.
“I’m going now,” he said. “There’s a small house outside the city. Mr. Blackwood arranged it for me.
“I’ll live the rest of my days there in peace.”
“You deserve rest,” Ivy said.
Old Walt nodded, smiled, then turned away.
His figure faded behind the cemetery’s rows of trees.
Now only Damen and Ivy stood before the two graves. The sunset had died, the sky deepening into dark purple.
The first stars began to appear.
“So what now?” Ivy asked.
Damen looked at her.
“Now we live,” he answered. “For Victor, for Catherine, and for ourselves.
“The long distance of time couldn’t erase family.”
Then Ivy asked, her voice gentle, “Will you keep standing guard outside my door every night?”
Damen looked at her, and for the first time his eyes held no coldness, no control, no obsession—only something softer, warmer.
“No,” he said.
Ivy stared at him, surprised.
“No?”
Damen stepped closer.
“I won’t stand outside your door anymore,” he said, his voice low and warm. “I’ll be beside you always—if you’ll allow it.”
Ivy looked at him.
The man who had spent all these years searching for her.
The man who had bled for her.
The man who had kept his oath to her father since he was an eleven-year-old boy.
And she nodded.
Damen lifted his hand and set it on her shoulder—strong, protective, and for the first time gentle.
Ivy touched the token at her throat, the golden pendant her mother had given her with her last breath.
“Mother,” she whispered. “I’m home.”
Damen stood behind her, his hand still on her shoulder. Together they looked out at Blackwood City, its lights rising into the night.
The darkness had passed.
The traitors had been punished.
The truth had been dragged into the open.
But in this world, darkness never disappears completely.
There would be more trials ahead—new enemies, secrets still undiscovered.
Only now, Ivy wouldn’t have to face it alone.
The story of the lost princess and the mafia boss ends here, but the lesson it leaves behind remains.
It’s a lesson about love that crosses the distance of time—over two decades apart can’t erase family.
It’s a lesson about loyalty and sacrifice—Damen gave his whole life to keep a vow, and Catherine used her last breath to protect her child.
It’s also a lesson about courage in facing the past—Old Walt lived in fear for twenty-six years, but in the end he stood up and told the truth.
And above all, it’s a lesson about hope.
No matter how life pushes you into darkness, no matter how alone and lost you feel, there’s always a path that leads you home.
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