From Ashes To His Embrace

The cold barrel of a gun pressed against my head. I had one last call to save my life, and I chose her: my Issy.

But the woman who answered was a stranger. When I told her they were going to kill me, that her cousin Jordan had set me up, she was impatient.

"I have no time for this," she said, her voice like ice. "Jordan and I are finalizing our engagement party invitations."

Engaged. To the very man who wanted me dead. I pleaded with her, reminding her of our life together, of the memory loss from the treatment her family forced on her.

"I don't have amnesia," she snapped. "I remember everything that matters. You're a mechanic from Ohio. I'm an heiress. We live in different worlds."

She told me she loved Jordan, that he was her equal and I was nothing. The click of the phone hanging up was louder than the gun cocking behind me. I wasn't afraid of dying anymore. The woman I loved had already killed me.

Just as I closed my eyes, the warehouse doors burst open. A dozen figures in black suits disarmed my captors in seconds. A tall woman in a power suit stepped out of the light.

She offered me a business proposal: a marriage contract. In exchange for my signature, she would provide protection, resources, and a complete escape.

It was my only way out.

Chapter 1

The cold barrel of a gun pressed against the back of Elias Jensen' s head.

Two large men held his arms, their grips tight enough to bruise. He could smell stale beer and cigarettes on them. Outside the grimy warehouse, rain hammered against the tin roof.

He had one phone call. One last chance. His thumb hovered over the contact name: Issy.

He pressed the call button.

The phone rang twice before she picked up. Her voice was cold, distant, nothing like the warmth he remembered.

"What do you want, Elias?"

"Issy, I'm in trouble," he said, his voice strained. "They're going to kill me. You have to believe me. Jordan set this all up."

There was a silence on the other end, filled only by the faint sound of classical music.

"Elias, are you drunk again? I'm tired of these games."

"It's not a game," he pleaded, his heart sinking. "Please, just listen-"

"I have no time for this," Isadora Navarro cut him off. Her tone was sharp, impatient. "I'm busy. Jordan and I just finalized our engagement party invitations."

The words hit him harder than any physical blow. Engaged. To her cousin, Jordan. The man who had systematically destroyed his life.

"Issy, no. You can't. You love me. You told me you did."

"Love you?" A dry, humorless laugh echoed through the phone. "Elias, look at yourself. You' re a mechanic from a forgotten town in Ohio. I am an heiress. We live in different worlds. Stop these pathetic delusions."

"It's not a delusion! Your memory... the treatment... you don't remember us. We had a life together. You promised we'd face your family together."

He remembered her huddled in his small apartment, terrified of her family's judgment, her hands trembling as she held his. 'You're my anchor, Elias,' she had whispered. 'With you, I can do anything.'

"I don't have amnesia," she snapped, her voice dripping with contempt. "I remember everything that matters. And you are not a part of it."

"You're lying," he whispered, a tear finally breaking free, tracing a path through the grease on his cheek.

"I am not a liar," she said, her voice turning venomous. "You are the one who has been stalking me, harassing me, using these pathetic stories to try and get close to me. Jordan warned me you were unstable."

He could hear the conviction in her voice. Jordan had poisoned her mind completely.

"I love Jordan," she declared, and each word was a nail in his coffin. "He is my equal, my partner. He understands me. You are nothing."

A muffled voice spoke in the background on her end. A secretary, maybe.

"Ms. Navarro, the caterers are on line one."

"Tell them to hold," Isadora commanded. Then, her voice returned to the phone, even colder than before. "I have to go. I'm choosing the floral arrangements for my engagement party. Don't call me again. If you do, I'll get a restraining order."

The line went dead.

The dull click echoed in the silent warehouse.

Elias lowered the phone, his hand trembling. The men holding him chuckled.

Tears streamed down his face now, hot and silent. He wasn't crying because he was going to die. He was crying because the woman he loved had just killed him.

He remembered her before all this. Before her family forced her into the experimental electroconvulsive therapy for her severe anxiety. She wasn't always this cold monster.

The Isadora he knew, his Issy, was gentle. She had found him in his small Ohio town during a cross-country trip where her vintage car had broken down. She was hiding from her suffocating East Coast life, from her elitist parents who saw her as a business asset.

He had fixed her car, and she had stayed. She loved the simplicity of his life, the grease under his fingernails, the quiet strength in his hands. He loved her vulnerability, the way she would curl up against him after a panic attack, feeling safe for the first time.

She was the one who was brave. When her family' s private investigators found her, she stood in front of Elias, shielding him with her small frame.

"He is my life," she had told them, her voice shaking but firm. "If you harm him, you kill me."

It was that fierce love that made her agree to the ECT. Her parents promised it would cure her anxiety, that it would make her strong enough to stand up to them. They promised it wouldn't affect her memory.

They had all lied.

She came back from the treatment a different person. A blank slate. Her beautiful, expressive eyes were now empty, cold. And Jordan, her jealous cousin, was right there to write his own story on that slate.

He painted Elias as a low-class stalker, a predator who had taken advantage of her during a moment of weakness. And she believed him. The whole Navarro family believed him.

They used their money and power to crush him. They got him fired from his job, spread rumors that ruined his reputation, and made sure every door was slammed in his face. Friends he'd had for years turned their backs on him.

Now, this. Jordan had hired these thugs to finish the job.

Elias closed his eyes, a sense of defeat washing over him. He had fought for so long, holding onto the hope that the real Issy was still in there somewhere.

He was wrong.

"Get it over with," he said, his voice a hollow rasp.

The man behind him cocked the gun.

Elias didn't flinch. He just waited. It was over.

Suddenly, the warehouse doors burst open, flooding the dark space with blinding headlights.

A dozen figures in sharp, black suits swarmed in, moving with disciplined precision. The two thugs holding Elias were disarmed and thrown to the ground before they could even react.

Elias blinked, disoriented.

A woman stepped out of the light. She was tall, dressed in a power suit that looked more expensive than his entire garage. Her hair was cut in a severe, practical bob, and her eyes were sharp, intelligent, and utterly devoid of emotion.

"Elias Jensen?" she asked. Her voice was calm and commanding.

Elias nodded, still trying to process what was happening.

"My name is Blake Ward," she said, extending a hand not for a handshake, but to display a document. "I have a business proposal for you. It involves a marriage contract."

She didn't wait for a response.

"My father's will stipulates I must be married by my next birthday to inherit controlling shares of his company. You fit the criteria he outlined. In exchange for your signature, I will provide you with protection, financial resources, and a complete extraction from your current circumstances."

Elias stared at her, dumbfounded.

"Why me?" he managed to ask.

"You're alive, you're single, and you have no powerful family ties that would complicate the arrangement. You are, for my purposes, perfect." Her gaze was piercing. "And judging by your situation, you have no better offers. This is your only escape."

She was right.

His life was in ruins. His love was gone. His hope was dead. This stranger, this powerful, pragmatic woman, was offering him a lifeline. A cold, transactional lifeline, but a lifeline nonetheless.

He looked at the thugs whimpering on the floor, then at the impassive face of Blake Ward.

There was nothing left for him here. Issy had made that clear.

He took a shaky breath.

"I accept."

Blake Ward gave a slight, almost imperceptible nod. "Good. My legal team will handle the details. You'll be on a private jet to New York within the hour."

She turned to leave, her work here done.

As he was escorted out into the rain, towards a sleek black car, Elias allowed himself one last look back at the warehouse, at the wreckage of his old life.

He thought of Isadora, choosing flowers for her party with Jordan. A final, bitter tear mixed with the rain on his face.

Be happy, Issy, he thought, the words a silent prayer of farewell. Be happy with the life you chose.

Then he got in the car and didn't look back.