When Love Turns to Ash Novel – Chapter 15
Florence was golden.
The sun filtered through terracotta roofs and ancient stone alleyways, and the Arno shimmered like molten glass beneath the Ponte Vecchio. Life moved differently here—slower, quieter. And I had started to breathe again.
The chaos I’d escaped—the betrayals, the manipulation, the bleeding heartbreak—felt like a different world. Like someone else’s nightmare.
Occasionally, I heard echoes of that old world in my conversations with Ben.
We still talked, every week or two. A tether to what once was.
“Are you okay?” he asked during our latest call, his voice gentle, unsure. “With everything that’s been happening… the press… the trial stuff… I just—”
“I’m okay, Ben. Honestly.” I sat by my little window overlooking a sunlit courtyard. “I’m more worried about you.”
“Don’t be,” he said, letting out a breath. “The Night Howlers are done. Good riddance. I’m doing session work now. It’s… quieter. Healthier.”
There was something in his tone—relief.
“I’m focusing on my studies,” I told him. “And I’ve met someone.”
A pause.
“Oh?” He tried to sound casual. “Anyone I should be worried about?”
I laughed. “No. His name is Mateo Rossi. He’s an architectural student from California. Here for the semester. He’s… kind.”
Ben was silent a beat longer than necessary.
“Kind is good,” he said finally. “You deserve kindness, Sav.”
I smiled, even though he couldn’t see it.
Then, softer: “I sent more files to the investigators. From Jax’s laptop. Stuff I found back when we were still in the band. Just… cleaning up loose ends.”
He didn’t say it for credit. He said it because he still cared.
Meanwhile, across the ocean, Jax Harding was unraveling.
A cheap motel room. Bottles on the nightstand. A flickering television playing static more often than sound.
He was alone.
The band was gone. His company, dismantled. His fans, quiet. His friends… nowhere.
The betrayal circled endlessly in his mind. Chloe. Julian. Lies, secrets, fake love, false promises. All of it.
He’d built his world on sand, and now it had collapsed.
A text from his lawyer confirmed it:
“Chloe has fully confessed. She’s admitted to conspiring with Julian for years, leaking company intel, manipulating investors, and misleading you. She implicated herself in everything.”
So much for love.
His eyes drifted to a cardboard box in the corner. The one Ben had thrown at his feet weeks ago. Mementos from my old life.
He pulled out the sketch.
A portrait of himself—young, bright-eyed, guitar in hand. Drawn with love. With hope. With a belief in someone who never really existed.
He stared at it. Then he broke.
Jax Harding—rockstar, CEO, showman—crumbled.
And for the first time in years, he wept.
Not the drunken, dramatic sobs of a man seeking pity. But the raw, shaking grief of someone who finally understood what he’d lost.
Hours later, Mark and Lee showed up.
They found him sitting on the floor, clutching the sketch, surrounded by scraps of the girl who had once loved him completely.
“Man,” Mark said, glancing around the wreckage. “Chloe and Julian were playing you for years.”
Jax didn’t look up.
“You… you knew?”
Lee scratched his head. “We heard them once. Thought maybe you knew. Or didn’t care. Chloe kept you on a short leash. Guess we figured you were in on it.”
Jax’s world tilted again.
Even they had known.
Everyone had known—except him.
He shot to his feet, eyes wild.
“I have to find her.”
He tore out of the room, his heart pounding.
“SAVVY!”
He made it to the bus station before Ben found him.
Ben’s voice sliced through the haze like a whip. “Where the hell do you think you’re going?”
Jax turned, frantic. “I have to find her, Ben! I have to apologize—I have to—”
Ben stepped in his path.
“No.”
Jax faltered. “Please, Ben. Just let me—”
“She’s gone, Jax. Gone for good.”
Ben’s eyes, once full of hope and worry, were cold now. Final.
“There’s nothing left for you to say. You are dead to her.”
Jax stood there, the words hitting him harder than any punch ever could.
Not Chloe. Not Julian. Not the company or the band.
This.
This was the true loss.
Ben turned and walked away, leaving Jax standing alone under the flickering lights of the terminal.
And for the first time, Jax Harding had nowhere to go.