Chapter 3 A Vow of Lies

Chapter 3 – "A Vow of Lies"

POV: Ivy

The suite Ares brought me to was far too quiet for my heartbeat.

I sat on the edge of the king-sized bed, white silk sheets beneath me, hands clenched around the hem of my dress. My cheeks were still damp from the tears I had forced out moments ago-the ones Ares didn't see. He'd left to take a call, but not before dropping a nuclear bomb.

We're getting married. Tomorrow.

The words echoed in my skull, over and over again, louder than the silence.

He had kissed me right before saying it. Hard. Like a man who didn't ask permission, like he already owned every part of me. And I let him-because Ivy Sinclair, the grieving daughter, didn't exist anymore.

My name was Ivy Laurent now. And my only vow was vengeance.

Still, I couldn't stop my fingers from trembling.

My reflection in the mirror across the room was too still-makeup perfectly intact, lips slightly parted like I'd just gasped. But inside? I was cracked glass, shards of the girl I used to be barely glued together with hatred.

I stood, slowly, walking toward the mirror. My heels tapped against the marble floor like a metronome counting down my soul's death.

Tomorrow, I'd become Ivy Valen.

One step closer to Damien. One step deeper into hell.

But first-I had a role to play tonight.

I left the bedroom and walked down the corridor until I reached the main room, where Ares stood near the bar, shirt sleeves rolled up, a crystal glass of whiskey in his hand. His jaw flexed once when he noticed me. His eyes, dark and unreadable, slid over my body with possessive precision.

"I wasn't finished with you," he said, voice low.

"Neither was I," I replied, soft, stepping into the lion's mouth.

He took a sip of his drink. "You were crying."

I smiled. "Happy tears. I've never been proposed to like that before."

"It wasn't a proposal," he said coldly. "It was a decision."

There it was again-control. Ares Valen didn't ask. He took. He didn't love. He used.

Good. That made two of us.

"Well," I said, walking closer until I stood directly in front of him, placing my hand gently on his chest, "then let me thank you for the honor."

He narrowed his eyes, but he didn't stop me. He didn't stop me when I tilted my head and kissed the underside of his jaw. Didn't stop me when my hand slid lower. He was testing me. Watching how far I'd go.

So I went far.

Because seduction wasn't just a weapon. It was my only armor.

And when he finally pulled me against him, gripping my waist like he wanted to bruise it, and kissed me with the kind of hunger that split your spine in half, I reminded myself:

This isn't love.

This is war.

Later that night, after he passed out in bed beside me, I slipped out from under the sheets and wrapped the silk robe around my body. My hands were still trembling, but this time from adrenaline.

He'd been careless. Stupid, even. The safe was inside his walk-in closet, hidden behind a panel in the wall I spotted while pretending to admire his suits.

I crept toward the closet, my bare feet silent on the floor.

The safe was fingerprint-locked.

But Ares Valen was a creature of habit. He used his right hand for everything.

Quietly, I tiptoed back to the bed, lifted his wrist while he slept, and pressed his thumb to the scanner. The safe clicked.

Too easy.

Inside: documents, a USB, stacks of money... and a black leather folder labeled Valen Legal – Personal.

But what caught my eye was a small envelope with no label.

I opened it-and the air left my lungs.

Inside was a photograph.

My brother.

Nine years old, in a school uniform I recognized, standing outside our old house. His smile stretched from ear to ear. A time before the blood. Before the sirens. Before our mother's body was found on the kitchen floor with her throat slit, and her killers vanished like smoke.

What the hell was my brother's photo doing in Ares's safe?

A thousand thoughts crashed through my head at once. Did he know? Was he involved? Did Damien give him this?

I scanned the rest of the contents quickly and slipped the USB into my robe pocket.

But before I could close the safe, I noticed something else-files marked with initials. One of them matched a name I hadn't heard in years.

My mother's maiden name.

He knows.

My breath caught, heart hammering. I deleted the safe logs from the internal panel to cover my tracks and shut it, locking it again.

Then I returned to the bed.

Laid down next to the man whose bloodline drowned my family.

And whispered to myself:

You can't fall now.

Not when you're this close.

FLASHBACK

Ten years ago

I was thirteen the last time I saw my mother alive.

She kissed my forehead and told me to go to sleep. Her voice was soft, but there was tension behind it that I didn't understand until later. That night, I woke up to screams.

The house was in flames.

Not literal-but the kind that destroys from the inside. My mother's body was sprawled on the floor, lifeless. My older brother pulled me out of the house before the cops came. Said we'd run. Said we had no choice.

He disappeared two weeks later. Vanished. Some said he died. Others said he went underground.

But I never stopped looking. Never stopped wondering.

Never stopped blaming the Valens.

They ruled the city like kings with knives behind their backs. Damien had enemies in every corner of the underworld-but my mother? She was just collateral.

I became Ivy Laurent the moment I decided I'd make them all pay.

Even if it meant marrying the Devil's son.

The next morning, I acted exactly like the woman Ares wanted me to be.

I wore white lace and smiled over breakfast like my world wasn't made of ruins. When he leaned in to touch my knee under the table, I let him. When he said the wedding would be private and happen on his family estate, I nodded.

Every yes brought me closer.

But every yes also deepened the lie.

And I knew something else now-Ares wasn't just a pawn.

He was connected to my past.

And I needed to know how deep the rot went.

Later that afternoon, while Ares was on a call, I slipped away again. This time, to his childhood bedroom. He told me the house had been kept exactly as it was since he left for boarding school.

I believed him.

And when I stepped inside, it was like walking into a tomb of frozen memories.

There were books. A punching bag. Sketches on the wall of a young boy with anger in his eyes.

But it was the desk drawer that held the next shock.

More photos. Not of me. Not of his past lovers.

But of my brother.

Older this time. Teenager. Seventeen, maybe. With bruises. A swollen lip.

One of the photos had a name scribbled on the back:

Elian Laurent.

My legs nearly buckled.

He knew.

And he never told me.

I turned around, ice in my veins-and Ares stood in the doorway.

Watching me.

Expression unreadable.

Voice sharp as steel.

"How long," he asked, "have you known who I am?"