Chapter Thirteen
ASH
Istared at myself in the mirror.
The suit worked perfectly—dark burgundy with smooth silk lapels, tailored to fit like it had been sculpted onto my body. One of a kind. Striking. The kind of thing that should have sparked something—vanity, satisfaction, or a flicker of pride.
Nothing.
Just a flat, hollow quiet.
I lifted my glass of whiskey—my third in less than an hour—and let it burn on the way down before setting it on the table beside me.
Thirty-nine.
Thirty-fucking-nine.
And what did I have to show for it?
I had walked away from my title in my father’s empire—a father I was no longer speaking to—to build something of my own, and now I was getting to watch it implode in slow motion.
My relationships with both of my brothers felt strained, and the fault sat squarely with me. One I couldn’t face after my professional disaster. The other I’d hurt by doing the exact opposite of what he’d asked of me—which had been so simple. Don’t hurt his best friend.
And my love life—god. It had always been a mess, but right now it was collapsing in spectacular fashion, entirely of my own making.
Nothing was the way it was supposed to be.
And adding another year to my age only made the humiliation harder to ignore.
My reflection looked the same, but I felt older.
Brittle around the edges. Exhausted in a way sleep never fixed—the kind that came from endless hours staring at spreadsheets and contracts, from late-night calls and emergency meetings, from trying and failing to find a way to stop everything from falling apart.
I picked up the glass again and drained it.
A tap sounded on the doorframe. “Jesus, Ash. Pace yourself.” Henry leaned against it, dressed in sleek black from head to toe, the crisp white collar of a very stylish priest costume giving him a holier-than-thou edge he absolutely did not deserve. “It’s your party, not your funeral.”
I kept my eyes on the mirror. “Feels like both.”
“You’re being dramatic. Forty is not that bad.”
“You know I’m turning thirty-nine,” I snapped.
“And apparently that comes with a loss of humor.” He sighed. “And here I was, ready to come in and give you a hard time. But you seem to be managing that well enough on your own.”
I let out a slow breath and poured myself another drink—one for Henry too. “Are you going to give me shit about Ethan again?”
Henry pushed off the doorway and came to lean against the mirror’s edge, hand outstretched for his glass. “That was the plan.” His eyes flicked over my face, and for once he wasn’t wearing a smirk. “You look sad, Ash. Are you okay?”
“You know I’m not a fan of birthdays. It gets worse with each one.”
Another drink gone. I adjusted my tie, fingers a little too precise. “Is Ethan coming?” My voice dropped before I could stop it.
Henry shrugged and took a sip, eyebrows lifting in appreciation. I’d pulled out the good stuff. Getting older and all that.
“He didn’t say. I haven’t seen him all day.” He stepped beside me, checking his reflection. “How about Luca?”
I turned from the mirror and crossed to the vanity, grabbing my cologne and giving myself a couple of sprays.
The familiar scent settled in the air as I rolled my lips, debating how much to disclose.
I didn’t want to lie to my brother—but I had a feeling he wouldn’t keep the information to himself.
Just like my lovely assistant, who had recently decided that Ethan was the best thing to happen to the office.
And she really had trouble keeping things to herself.
I settled on a very vague “Who knows.”
“Are you still fighting over the party?”
My lips pulled into a frown.
Henry cocked his head. “Does he know you kissed E?”
“Are you trying to make this day even more miserable?”
His eyebrows lifted. “No. You seem to be doing fine on your own.”
Another fucking pang of guilt.
“Let’s just get this over with,” I mumbled.
“Gee, thanks, little brother, for putting together this amazing party in my name. Oh no, Ash, it’s my pleasure. Anything for my big brother. It wasn’t a problem at all.” He walked in front of me, miming the whole conversation.
“Thank you, Henny.”
He turned back to me, sheepish. “It’s not fun if you’re actually in a bad mood.”
I shook my head. “I’ll get over it.”
We rode to the venue, not too far away, while Henry kept chatting beside me.
He had a habit of doing that—filling the silence when he was uncomfortable or when he knew someone else was having a hard time.
Normally, I’d let him distract me. Tonight, I didn’t have it in me to play along.
I just needed to get through the evening so I could spend tomorrow at home wallowing in dignified self-pity.
The venue was… a lot.
Red drapery hung from the ceiling in long, dramatic swaths, pooling into the shadows like spilled silk.
Chandeliers glittered overhead—massive, obsidian-dark structures dripping gold and throwing warm light across the room, so everything glowed in shades of crimson and candlelight.
Every surface gleamed. Every corner flickered.
It was decadent in that curated, slightly sinful way Henry adored: a room built to blur the line between indulgence and excess.
Roses—deep red, almost black—sat in narrow vases, looking more like props than flowers, their shadows long and theatrical against the walls.
Servers moved as if they’d rehearsed it, slipping through the room with trays of champagne and lowball glasses.
Somewhere above, an aerialist swung lazily on a ring, her body carving slow arcs of shadow across the draped ceiling.
It smelled like wine, roses, expensive perfume, and melted wax. Saints and Sinners, Henry had said. More like a cathedral built for sin.
“This is amazing, Henny,” I said, readily accepting the glass a server offered. I took a sip. Perfect.
Henry paced in front of me with his arms spread wide, the picture of smug delight. “A night to remember, right?” Then he held something out—an ornate mask.
I lifted a brow. “Really?”
“Fit for the devil,” he said, grinning as he slipped a rosary over his neck like it was an accessory instead of sacrilege.
I turned the mask over in my hand. Red leather, deep ridges carved into the brow, sweeping upward into stylized horns. Silk ties, of course. Henry wouldn’t allow elastic anywhere near his aesthetic. I sighed, resigned, placing my drink on a nearby table, and donned the mask.
“Well,” Henry said, stepping back to admire his work. “Terrifying. Exactly what we were going for.”
He drifted toward someone across the room, already pulled into conversation, leaving me alone just as Elena appeared at my side, immaculate as ever, a glass of champagne poised between her fingers.
“Happy birthday, Ash.” She brushed a kiss against my cheek.
“Thank you.”
Her gaze moved once around the room before settling back on me. “I was under the impression we agreed to stop pursuing the state follow-up.”
My stomach tightened. I took a measured sip of my drink. “We did.”
“Oscar seems to think otherwise.” Her tone remained even. “He mentioned revisions. Calls.”
Heat climbed the back of my neck.
“We are under review,” she continued. “This is not the moment to test boundaries.”
I held her gaze, jaw set.
She held it longer. “We agreed to pivot,” she said. “Not to push.”
The music swelled behind us. Laughter broke out somewhere near the bar.
“I want you in Seville on Monday,” she added. “Private consortium. Infrastructure and energy. Be useful there.”
Be useful. Not fix this. Not lead. Not solve. Had I lost her trust already?
I nodded once. “Send me the details.”
“Try to enjoy your party, Ash.” Her expression softened just enough to remain human. “Life is so much more than this. Don’t lose sight of that.”
The words landed somewhere deep and unwelcome. For a split second, I saw what she meant—a life not measured in balance sheets and crisis calls, in victories wrestled from collapse. A life where tonight could simply be a birthday, not a ledger of failures.
I shut the thought down before it could take root.
This was the job. This was the cost.
Seville would mean distance, not surrender. If I couldn’t push here, I would push there. Quietly. Away from the microscope.
I nodded once.
She gave me one uncertain smile before she moved back into the crowd.
I finished my drink in one swallow.
“Hey, look at that—ran out already,” Henry said, eyeing my empty glass before guiding me deeper into the room, his hand warm at my back as he steered me through the press of bodies.
We slid up to the bar. Henry leaned over the counter with practiced ease, and I followed, setting my glass down.
The bartender—masked, shirt half-open, fully on theme—inclined his head toward it. “Another?”
I lifted a brow in answer, and he reached for the bottle.
Beside me, Henry said, “You know, if you keep drinking like that, you’ll hit forty before midnight.”
“Perfect,” I said into the fresh glass. “Maybe then the rest of my life will catch up.”
Henry’s smile pulled a little tight as he looked me over. “You’re really going through it, huh?”
I lifted a shoulder—nothing else to give him.
He tapped the toe of his shoe against the bar. “You know who’s getting older too?”
I shot him a look, waiting for the pitch.
“Dad,” he said, hopeful in that annoyingly Henry way.
My eyes went up before I could stop them, rolling back. “Henny, come on. Right now? Really?”
“I mean…” He shrugged. “As long as life is feeling all vulnerable and shit. Just a call, Ash. You know you’re the bigger person. And what if you regret this?”
I dragged a hand down my face, turning my back to the bar. Absolutely not. “Not tonight.”
“But, Ash—”
That was as far as he got, because in that exact instant the world stopped.
It wasn’t gradual. Not subtle. It was a full, visceral halt—like my brain short-circuited and my body forgot its basic functions.