Love Between Two Enemies Part Seven

The Cost of Saving Her


Ethan Ashford became a ghost overnight.

Not officially—his name was still on buildings, still whispered in financial circles—but something fundamental had shifted. The man who once walked into rooms and bent them to his will now moved through the city like someone marked.

Hunted.

He felt it in the silence of unanswered calls.
In the sudden politeness of former allies.
In the way doors that once opened without question now hesitated.

Luca DeSantis hadn’t just taken control of the narrative.

He had rewritten Ethan’s identity.


---

Isabella didn’t sleep.

Every time she closed her eyes, she felt the cold bite of chains around her wrists, smelled oil and rust, heard Luca’s calm voice echoing in the dark.

Everyone gives in.

She sat curled on the couch in Ethan’s penthouse, wrapped in a blanket she didn’t remember taking. Dawn crept through the windows slowly, painfully.

Ethan stood in the kitchen, staring at nothing, a mug of untouched coffee in his hand.

“You should rest,” he said quietly without turning around.

She laughed softly, hollow. “You first.”

He didn’t respond.

She watched him then—really watched him—and saw the cost already etched into his posture. The weight in his shoulders. The way his jaw tightened as if holding something back.

“You didn’t save me,” she said suddenly.

He turned, startled. “What?”

“You traded yourself,” she continued, her voice steady but raw. “That’s not saving.”

He set the mug down slowly. “You’re alive.”

“For now,” she replied. “And you’re ruined.”

Silence filled the space between them.

Ethan met her gaze. “I’d do it again.”

Her eyes burned. “That’s what scares me.”


---

The fallout began within hours.

Ashford Industries released a statement retracting Ethan’s accusations, citing “emotional distress” and “incomplete historical data.” The Riverside documents were labeled inconclusive. Investors relaxed.

Luca’s victory was surgical.

Richard Ashford returned to the spotlight the same afternoon, composed and victorious, flanked by legal counsel.

Ethan watched the press conference on mute.

His father looked directly into the camera and said, “My son is no longer affiliated with this company in any decision-making capacity.”

Disowned.

Publicly.

Isabella’s chest tightened painfully. “I’m so sorry.”

Ethan didn’t look away from the screen. “He chose power over blood a long time ago.”

“And Luca?” she asked quietly.

Ethan’s lips curved into something sharp. “He chose me as an example.”


---

Three days later, Isabella returned to the Moretti estate.

Not because she wanted to.

Because Luca demanded it.

The house felt different now—less like a home, more like a cage polished to perfection. Her father barely spoke to her, his eyes avoiding hers as if she were a liability he didn’t know how to manage.

Luca arrived that evening like a conqueror.

“You look well,” he said casually, pouring himself a drink.

She didn’t sit. “You got what you wanted.”

“For now,” he replied. “But control requires maintenance.”

She stared at him. “You used me.”

“Yes,” he said simply. “And you used him.”

Her breath hitched. “No.”

“You knew he would sacrifice himself,” Luca continued calmly. “You let him.”

The words struck deeper than she expected.

“I didn’t ask him to,” she said.

“But you benefited,” Luca replied. “That’s how this world works.”

He stepped closer. “You’re free now. No chains. No warehouses. All it cost was Ethan Ashford’s future.”

She looked at him with pure hatred. “You’ll never own me.”

Luca smiled faintly. “Everyone belongs to something. You just haven’t accepted what owns you yet.”


---

Ethan’s days blurred together.

He moved out of the penthouse—too visible, too vulnerable—and into a smaller apartment under a name that wasn’t his. He met quietly with contacts his father never knew about. People who didn’t care about reputations.

People who dealt in leverage.

At night, he replayed the moment he agreed to Luca’s terms.

The sound of chains unlocking.
Isabella collapsing into his arms.

He would make the same choice again.

But the cost was accumulating.

One evening, a knock came at his door.

He froze, hand instinctively reaching for the drawer beside the couch.

“Ethan,” a familiar voice called softly. “It’s me.”

Isabella.

He opened the door and she stepped inside, eyes searching his face as if to confirm he was real.

“You shouldn’t be here,” he said quietly.

“I know,” she replied. “I don’t care.”

She crossed the room and stood in front of him, close enough that he could smell her shampoo, feel the warmth she carried.

“I can’t stay away,” she whispered.

He closed his eyes briefly. “Luca is watching you.”

“I’m watching you,” she said. “And you’re disappearing.”

He opened his eyes. “That’s safer for you.”

She shook her head fiercely. “Don’t decide that for me.”

Silence stretched between them, charged and fragile.

“You’re the only thing he can’t control,” she said softly. “That’s why he’s trying to break you.”

Ethan swallowed. “And he’s succeeding.”

She stepped closer, pressing her forehead to his chest. “Then let me help you rebuild.”

He rested his chin against her hair, breathing her in like oxygen. “You don’t know what you’re asking.”

“Yes,” she replied. “I do.”


---

Luca made his next move two days later.

The photos surfaced online just before midnight.

Blurry. Strategically framed.

Ethan entering Isabella’s building.
Isabella leaving his apartment hours later.

The headline was ruthless:

MORETTI HEIRESS CONTINUES AFFAIR WITH DISGRACED ASHFORD HEIR

By morning, Isabella was summoned by her father.

“This ends now,” he said coldly, slamming his tablet onto the desk. “You will publicly denounce him.”

She stared at the screen, then at her father. “Or what?”

“Or you lose everything,” he snapped. “Your inheritance. Your name. Your protection.”

She laughed bitterly. “You already sold my protection.”

He stood abruptly. “Think carefully.”

She did.

For exactly three seconds.

“I won’t,” she said. “Not anymore.”


---

Ethan found out from the news.

ISABELLA MORETTI CUT OFF FROM FAMILY AFTER REFUSING PUBLIC STATEMENT

His heart slammed painfully.

She arrived at his apartment an hour later with one suitcase.

“I guess I’m homeless,” she said lightly.

He pulled her into his arms without a word.

They stood there for a long time, holding on to each other like survivors of the same storm.

“This is war,” Isabella said quietly.

Ethan nodded. “Not the kind our families taught us.”

She looked up at him. “Then teach me yours.”

His eyes darkened with resolve. “It won’t be clean.”

“I don’t want clean,” she replied. “I want free.”


---

That night, Luca watched the same news with interest.

He set his phone down slowly and smiled.

“Good,” he murmured to himself. “Now they have nothing left to lose.”

And that, he knew, was when people became truly dangerous.


In Part Eight: “Nothing Left to Lose”

Ethan and Isabella go underground together.
A hidden ally resurfaces with explosive evidence.
And Luca makes a mistake—underestimating love sharpened by loss…

When everything is taken,
what remains becomes a weapon.