Chapter 8: The Spotlight Always Lies

(They cheer her name. They worship her face. But in the dark, she's nothing but a pawn bleeding secrets she doesn't even know she holds.)

Los Angeles. Later That Night.

Ava sat under a thousand flashing lights, draped in scarlet Versace, sipping champagne like poison on the red carpet of the Lucent Awards. Cameras clicked, fans screamed, interviewers begged for her attention.

Her lipstick was flawless.

Her smile—lethal.

But her eyes… were somewhere else.

Somewhere colder.

Somewhere darker.

Somewhere where he still lived in her veins.

"Over here, Ava!"

"What's it like to be the most desirable woman alive?"

She tilted her chin and said smoothly, "It's exhausting. And very, very lonely."

The crowd laughed.

But Damien watched from behind the velvet ropes, anonymous in black, the devil watching his goddess dance for the world, knowing she'd return to him tonight.

Like always.

Meanwhile. A Shadowed Office.

That man again. The one Ava still hadn't seen.

He watched her live on a muted TV screen, her laugh frozen mid-glow.

"She doesn't know, does she?" he said into a burner phone.

Damien's voice came through the line, ragged. "No."

"She believes she's in control."

"She never was," Damien replied.

The man chuckled. "That's why she'll crawl back again. They always do. Especially when they've already sold their soul."

The man's finger hovered over a photo. It was Ava—age 9. With her mother. Standing outside a building with boarded windows and a painted halo symbol.

"Tell me, Damien. When will you tell her she was never the real star of the show?"

Silence.

Then Damien:

"Never."

Midnight. Ava's Apartment.

She returned home in stilettos and exhaustion, peeling off the gown, the jewelry, the fake smile. She was back to bare skin and bruised ego, trying to piece together what was happening.

Because something was happening.

The dreams were louder.

The melody she once thought was just haunting now felt like… a trigger.

She'd seen the photo.

She knew Damien knew more.

But every time she touched that truth, she bled.

And yet—

She still wanted him.

1:47 AM. His hotel suite.

She didn't knock.

She never had to.

Damien was shirtless, eyes like winter storms, sitting in the dark with a half-smoked cigarette between his lips.

He looked at her like he already knew why she came.

"You shouldn't be here," he said.

"Then why does it feel like I belong only here?" she whispered.

He stood slowly. Walked to her. Pressed her back to the wall with one brutal kiss and no apology.

His hand went to her throat, not in violence—but in claim.

"You keep crawling back," he murmured against her mouth.

"Because I can't breathe anywhere else," she whispered back.

And then there was no air left.

He ruined her on the hotel desk.

On the floor.

Against the glass where the city watched and no one knew the world's goddess was breaking for a man with a scar across his heart.

His mouth marked every inch of her—

As if he was signing a death sentence she didn't even know she'd agreed to.

He leaned in as she trembled beneath him, breathless and wrecked.

"You still think you're the star of this story?" he whispered in her ear.

She blinked up at him, dazed.

"What…?"

He smiled cruelly.

And said nothing more.

After.

She slept in his arms, the only place she ever truly shut her eyes.

And far away, the man from the shadows watched a security feed—grainy footage of Ava crying Damien's name while the broken halo symbol pulsed on the monitor corner.

"She doesn't know she's the last piece," the man said to a woman standing beside him, face hidden.

"She will," the woman replied. "The minute we light the next fire."

Cliffhanger:

The next morning, Ava woke alone again.

But this time—her face was everywhere.

Every channel.

Every news app.

Every headline:

AVA SINCLAIR SEX TAPE LEAKED — STAR OR SCANDAL?

And the video…

It was from last night.

In his hotel room.

Ava Sinclair just fell from grace. And the world? It never forgives a fallen goddess.