My Ashes, Your Ruin

The bulldozer crushed the sign above the boxing gym before I had even finished unwrapping the white hand wraps from my fists. Dust filled the air, burning my eyes as the last thing my father had left me was reduced to rubble.

Julian Vance stood beneath a black umbrella beside his Maybach, his tailored suit immaculate.

"Keep tearing it down," he said. "Sienna wants to build a ballet studio here. This dump of a boxing gym doesn't suit her."

I rushed toward him, only to be stopped by his bodyguards.

"You promised me before we got married"

"It was nothing more than a business marriage," he cut in, his voice as cold as ice. "Did you really think you were my wife?"

I collapsed onto the muddy ground.

In my previous life, he had died in the cage trying to save me. Blood had poured from his mouth as he begged with his dying breath,

"Valerie... if there's another life, please look back at me."

But in this life, he forced me to serve as his mistress's bodyguard. He made me kneel in the rain, picking up the championship boxing gloves she had tossed onto the ground.

"Julian Vance..." I stared at his retreating figure, my voice trembling. "Were you... reborn too?"

He turned around, looking at me as though I had lost my mind.

"Reborn? What the hell are you talking about? Did boxing scramble your brain?"

I slowly closed my eyes.

Blood seeped from where my fingernails had dug into my palms.

He hadn't been reborn.

He simply...

didn't love me anymore.

Valerie POV

The deafening roar of the bulldozers shook the ground. Dust billowed into the air, blotting out half the sky and making my throat burn with every breath.

My hands were still wrapped in white boxing tape. I stared, heartbroken, at the shattered sign lying in the dirt. Titan Muay Thai Gym.

This place was my father's final legacy. It was where I grew up. Every wooden plank, every heavy sandbag, was soaked with my sweat and tears from countless days and nights.

And now, it was being ruthlessly torn to pieces.

Julian Vance stood by his black Maybach, holding a long-handled black umbrella. He looked tall, sharp, and cold in his bespoke black suit.

It was as if the building collapsing before him wasn't his wife's entire life, but just a pile of worthless garbage.

"Keep digging," Julian's voice was completely devoid of warmth, cutting through the mechanical roar straight into my ears. "I want this lot completely cleared before sunset."

"Julian!" I screamed, lunging forward with bloodshot eyes. Two burly security guards in black suits instantly blocked me, pinning me down.

"Are you insane?! This is my father's gym! You promised me before we married that you would protect it forever!"

Julian tilted his head slightly. His deep, cold eyes swept over my trembling, tear-streaked face.

A mocking sneer touched his lips. "Sienna likes this location. She wants to build a private ballet studio here. A sweaty, violent gym is an eyesore. It doesn't suit her elegance."

The words hit me like a physical blow. The blood drained from my face, and my hands went completely numb.

Sienna Pierce.

The mistress he kept hidden away. The woman who pretended to be too weak to open a water bottle, yet could effortlessly steal everything I owned.

"Just for her?" My voice cracked, shaking violently. I clenched my fists so hard my nails dug into my palms, drawing blood. "Julian, we are married! You're destroying my father's legacy for some girl on the side?"

"This is just a marriage of convenience," Julian interrupted, his tone dripping with impatience.

"Did you actually start believing you're my real wife? Why would I let your father's junk get in the way of making the woman I love happy?"

I collapsed onto the muddy ground. I stared at the man who used to hold me whenever I frowned. Now, my tears finally fell.

"Julian, you used to love me so much. Why? Why did you stop?"

Julian paused for a fraction of a second. He didn't turn around, only letting out a cold laugh. "When did I ever love you?"

Never loved me? How is that possible?

In my past life, I was blind. I ignored Julian's deep love and fell for Luke Sterling, a guy I grew up with. I resisted my marriage to Julian, treated him with cold silence, and even threw fights on purpose just to humiliate him. In the end, I fell for Luke's lies and ran away with him.

But Luke never loved me. He used me to destroy Julian.

He dragged me to Mexico, throwing me into a underground death-match cage, using my life to force Julian to show up.

That day, Julian, a man so proud he couldn't stand a single wrinkle on his suit, walked into that bloody cage just to save my life. He didn't even fight back. He let those ruthless killers break his bones and tear him apart.

Before he died, with a mouth full of blood, he kissed my hand through the iron mesh. His eyes were filled with desperate love. "Valerie... in the next life... will you please look at me?"

Then, I woke up. I had reborn.

I came back to the first year of our marriage.

I was ecstatic. I blocked Luke on everything, quit the dangerous underground fight circuits, and tried my best to be a good housewife. My entire world revolved around Julian. I swore to give him all the love I owed him.

But he had changed.

He stopped coming home. He was cold, cruel, and openly paraded Sienna around town. Now, he was tearing down my gym for her.

Staring at the ruins of my gym, a wild, terrifying thought suddenly crossed my mind.

"Julian," I stared intensely at his back, my voice trembling. "Did you regress too?"

Julian's shoulders stiffened for a split second. He turned around, looking at me like I was a lunatic. "Regress? Valerie, did you take too many hits to the head in the ring?"

His mask was perfect. Not a single eyelash flickered.

I let out a bitter laugh and closed my eyes.

Right. If he had kept the memories of his past life, how could he ever treat me like this? The truth was simple. He just didn't love me anymore.

Fine. If he wanted to let go, so would I.

Valerie POV

I don't even remember how I walked back to the penthouse.

When I pushed the door open, the massive living room was empty and freezing cold. I didn't bother changing my muddy clothes. I went straight up to the master bedroom on the second floor, pulled my suitcase out of the closet, and started packing.

Honestly, there wasn't much to take. Over the past year, I had bought expensive dresses and jewelry just to please him. I left all of them behind. I only packed a few of my usual athletic sets and my training gear.

Once I finished, I sat at the desk, pulled out a blank sheet of paper, and slowly wrote out a divorce agreement.

I wanted nothing. I would walk away with zero assets. I only wanted my freedom.

The scratch of the pen on the paper sounded incredibly loud in the silent room, echoing the sound of my heart ripping apart.

Suddenly, a high-pitched, giggling voice came from the hallway.

Julian walked in, his arm wrapped around Sienna. She was wearing a pristine white dress, looking like a fragile doll. The moment she saw me standing by the stairs, she flinched like a scared rabbit, burying herself in Julian's chest.

"Julian, Valerie's hands are covered in scars, and she's glaring at me. Is she going to hit me? I'm so scared." Sienna whimpered, clutching his sleeve.

Julian immediately shielded her behind him, glaring up at me with a deep frown. "What are you doing up here? Starting today, you move to the maid's quarters on the first floor. Stay out of Sienna's sight. You're scaring her."

My knuckles turned white as I gripped the banister.

The actual Mrs. Vance, kicked out of her own room and sent to live in the maid's quarters. How pathetic.

I didn't scream or fight like I used to. I simply walked downstairs and handed him the paper. "Sign it."

Julian glanced at the title, Divorce Agreement. A flash of dark anger crossed his eyes, but he quickly covered it with a sneer. "Playing hard to get? Valerie, do you think this pathetic stunt will get my attention? Fine. You want it, you got it."

Without even reading the terms, he grabbed the pen and violently scribbled his signature.

Sienna stared at the paper, a look of pure triumph flashing in her eyes. She scanned the living room, and her gaze landed on the glass display case by the wall.

Inside was my national championship belt and my red boxing gloves from when I won the tournament at eighteen.

"Julian, those gloves look so old and dirty," Sienna complained, holding her nose with a look of disgust. "They probably smell like sweat. It completely ruins the vibe of this beautiful room."

Julian didn't even blink. He casually looked at the maid. "Throw them out."

"Julian!" I gasped, staring at him in disbelief. "Those are my championship gloves! They were an eighteen birthday gift from my dad!"

"Throw them out," he repeated, his voice cold and cutting.

The maid didn't dare argue. She quickly opened the case, grabbed the gloves that held all my youth and glory, and threw them out the front door into the pouring rain.

"No!"

I lost my mind. I sprinted out into the storm, desperate, clawing through the mud on the lawn.

The freezing rain drenched me to the bone.

In our past life, I had tossed these gloves into a dusty corner. But Julian had picked them up, custom-ordered a temperature-controlled glass case for them, and wiped them down himself every single day.

He had told me, "My Valerie is a queen. I will guard your glory forever."

But now, he was the one throwing my glory into the trash.

I finally found the mud-soaked gloves, hugging them tightly against my chest as I sobbed on my knees in the rain. Inside the warm house, through the massive glass windows, Julian was gently drying Sienna's hair with a towel.

He didn't give me a single glance.

Valerie POV

After standing in the rain all night, I woke up with a fever of a hundred and four degrees.

The next morning, dragging my heavy body, I went to the hospital alone. As I sat on the plastic chairs in the hallway waiting for my name to be called, I saw Julian coming from the other end, gently carrying Sienna in his arms.

Sienna clung to him with tears in her eyes, looking incredibly pitiful. All because she had a tiny blister on her heel from wearing new heels.

Julian looked up and caught sight of me. When he saw my deathly pale face, his brows knitted into a tight knot. "Are you stalking us now? Valerie, can you get any more pathetic?"

My head was spinning from the fever, and I didn't even have the energy to argue. I just gave him a dead, cold look and walked into the doctor's office.

The doctor looked at my MRI scan and sighed heavily. "Valerie, the old injury in your left shoulder has worsened severely due to the cold and stress. If you don't rest immediately, you won't just lose the ability to fight. You will struggle to even lift groceries. Your career in the ring is over."

I nodded numbly. I didn't care anymore. I had already lost my ring.

The moment I stepped out of the office, Julian blocked my path. He glanced at the prescription in my hand, his eyes flickering for a second, but his face quickly turned cold again.

"Since you have so much free time to follow me to the hospital, do something useful," he commanded. "Sienna is attending a high-end jewelry gala tonight. You're going to be her personal bodyguard."

I let out a dry, raspy laugh. "Julian, I am legally your wife, and you want me to be a bodyguard for your mistress? What do you take me for?"

"You want to say no?" Julian took a step forward, his tall frame towering over me with immense pressure. His voice was laced with ice. "Your old coach is on life support in the ICU. It costs three thousand dollars a day. What do you think happens if I stop paying his medical bills today? Will he survive the night?"

My heart stopped. I stared at him, horrified.

My coach had ended up in a vegetative state after a car accident while trying to save me. In our past life, Julian had treated my coach like his own father, flying in the best neurosurgeons from around the world to treat him.

"You're using my coach's life to black-mail me?" My voice shook violently.

"Are you doing the job or not?" Julian's eyes were completely emotionless.

I bit my lip so hard I tasted copper. Finally, I closed my eyes and forced out a single word. "Yes."

The gala was incredibly lavish.

I wore a cheap black suit, standing behind Sienna like an invisible shadow, my face expressionless.

The whispers from the crowd cut through the air like knives:

"Isn't that Julian Vance's wife? Why is she acting like a bodyguard for his mistress?"

"I heard Julian doesn't care about her at all. She's just a classless street fighter anyway. She doesn't have Sienna's elegance."

Julian bid ten million dollars without even blinking to win a pink diamond necklace called "The Heart of the Ocean" for Sienna. Sienna wore it like a proud peacock, parading through the crowd to show off.

Suddenly, chaos erupted!

A crazed hater surged from the crowd, holding a bottle of clear liquid, his face twisted in rage as he lunged straight at Sienna!

"Go to hell, you homewrecker!"

"Ahhh!" Sienna screamed, her face pale with terror.

My fighter instincts kicked in faster than my brain. I bolted forward, executing a flawless, powerful front kick that sent the man flying back. The bottle smashed onto the marble floor, hissing and bubbling. It was highly concentrated acid!

The danger was averted, and the room gasped in shock.

But as Sienna fell backward, she purposely tripped herself, landing on a piece of broken glass. A tiny cut appeared on her palm.

"It hurts. Julian, it hurts so much." she sobbed hysterically.

Julian pushed through the crowd like a madman, shoving me out of the way so hard I hit the wall. He gathered Sienna in his arms. Once he saw she only had a scratch, he whipped his head around to glare at me, his eyes filled with pure rage.

"Did you do that on purpose?!"

I froze, staring at him in shock. "I just saved her life."

"You could have stopped him sooner! You were jealous of her, so you hesitated on purpose to let her get hurt!" Julian hissed, pointing at the shattered glass on the floor. His voice was cold as death. "Apologize to Sienna. Now."

The entire room went dead silent. Everyone watched us, waiting for the drama.

Forcing a proud national champion to publicly apologize to a mistress? This was worse than killing me.

I stood tall, my eyes red, stubbornly staring back at him. "I did nothing wrong."

"No apology?" Julian sneered, pulling out his phone. "Fine. I'll call the hospital to pull the plug on your coach right now."

"No!" I broke.

Under the mocking, disgusted stares of New York's elite, I slowly bent my spine, the spine that had never bent for anyone in the ring. I bowed deeply to Sienna.

"I'm sorry."

In that moment, I felt my dignity shatter into dust, never to be pieced back together.

Valerie POV

Back at the penthouse, Sienna was still crying in Julian's arms.

"Julian, every time I close my eyes, I see that psycho with the acid... I'm so scared. I won't be able to sleep tonight," she whimpered, clutching his shirt. But over his shoulder, I saw the wicked, triumphant smirk on her face.

Julian kissed her forehead gently, his voice incredibly soft. "Don't worry, baby. I'm here. No one will ever hurt you."

Sienna peeked at me as I stood soaking wet by the door. "But... I still feel unsafe. Can Valerie guard my door tonight? She's a champion. If she's standing guard outside, I'll feel safe enough to sleep."

Without a second thought, Julian turned to me, his eyes icy. "You heard her. Go stand guard outside her door."

My left shoulder felt like it was being pierced by a thousand needles. The fever made my vision blur, and cold sweat drenched my suit jacket.

"Julian, I have a high fever, and my shoulder injury is flaring up. The doctor said I can't stand for long..." I pleaded, clinging to one last shred of hope.

"Stop acting," Julian snapped, disgust written all over his face. "Standing for one night won't kill you. If Sienna doesn't sleep well tonight, you will pay for it."

The door slammed shut in my face, locking me out in the cold hallway.

I slid down against the freezing wall. Listening to Julian's soft, comforting voice inside the room, my tears fell silently.

In our past life, I had sprained my ankle during a match. Julian's eyes had gone red with worry. He had canceled a billion-dollar merger meeting, stayed awake for three days and nights, and read medical books just to learn how to massage my ankle.

He had told me, "Valerie, when you hurt, my heart bleeds. You are never allowed to get hurt again, okay?"

But now, he made me stand outside like a dog, guarding his mistress with a broken shoulder.

I stood there the entire night. My legs went completely numb, and the agony in my shoulder almost made me pass out several times, but I bit my lip and forced myself to endure.

At dawn, the door finally opened.

Julian walked out. Seeing me collapsed on the floor, pale as a ghost and barely breathing, he spoke with absolute indifference.

"Get up and stop acting pathetic. Go make breakfast." He stepped right over my body and walked downstairs without looking back.

A video of me apologizing to Sienna had been maliciously edited and leaked onto Instagram and TikTok, instantly trending.

I only found out later that my gym friend, Felix, had seen the video. His temper flared, and he drove straight to the Vance Group's underground parking garage, cornering Julian as he got out of his car.

"Julian, you absolute piece of garbage! Valerie is a champion! How dare you humiliate her like that!"

Felix threw a brutal punch, cracking Julian right across the jaw and drawing blood.

But Felix was outnumbered. Within seconds, a dozen trained security guards pinned him to the concrete floor.

Julian wiped the blood from his mouth, a dark, murderous look in his eyes. "Call the police. Press charges for assault. I want him to rot in prison. He will never fight in a ring again."

When I got the news, I didn't even put on shoes. I ran like crazy to the Vance Group headquarters and burst into Julian's office.

Staring at the powerful man sitting on his leather sofa, I bowed my head. My voice was filled with desperate pleading. "Julian, it was all my fault. Felix is only twenty. He has a shot at the world championships. Please, drop the charges."

Julian spun his wedding ring around his finger, looking at me with a cruel smirk. "Drop them? Sure. But Sienna was terrified by his violence. You need to show some sincerity to make it up to her."

"What do you want?"

"Do a live stream and announce your permanent retirement from fighting," Julian said, his eyes locking onto mine with absolute malice. "And then, in front of everyone on camera, cut your championship belt into pieces."

I whipped my head up, staring at him in sheer disbelief.

The championship belt was the honor I had fought for with my life. It was my father's proudest achievement before he died! He wanted to completely crush my soul!

"Julian, just kill me instead..." I shook violently, tears streaming down my face.

"Don't want to? Fine. Then go visit Felix in prison."

Ten minutes later, I started the live stream.

In front of hundreds of thousands of shocked fans, my face completely blank with despair, I picked up the heavy shears.

Snip. Snip.

The golden belt fell apart in pieces, and along with it, the last spark of life inside me died.

Valerie POV

The divorce was set to be finalized in three days.

I had already booked one-way tickets to Costa Rica. I was going to take my coach and Felix with me, leaving this toxic city forever.

Before leaving, Julian's grandfather, Arthur Vance, who had always loved me, called. He asked me to come to the family estate to say goodbye. Arthur was the only Vance who had ever been kind to me, so I couldn't say no.

But I didn't expect Sienna to secretly follow me there.

While I was in the kitchen brewing tea for Arthur, a sudden shriek echoed from the grand staircase.

"Ahhh!"

I ran out, only to see Arthur tumbling down the stairs, his head bleeding as he fell unconscious on the marble floor. Sienna was sitting on the steps above, crying hysterically and shaking like a leaf.

Julian rushed into the foyer. Seeing his grandfather bleeding on the floor, he screamed, "Grandpa!"

Sienna immediately threw herself into his arms, pointing at me while sobbing. "Julian! Valerie was angry because Grandpa praised me. She used her Muay Thai roundhouse kick to shove him down the stairs! I tried to stop her, but I couldn't..."

"I didn't do it!" I gasped, shocked. "She pushed him! I didn't even touch him!"

"Shut up!" Julian's eyes were bloodshot. He slammed his fist against the wall next to me, his knuckles split and bleeding. "Valerie, you can hate me all you want, but Grandpa was always good to you! How could you do this to an old man? You are a monster!"

He grabbed my collar like I was a dead dog and dragged me down to the basement of the estate.

My father's ashes were temporarily stored there in a wooden urn.

"A toxic woman like you deserves to be punished!"

Julian grabbed a heavy metal hammer from a toolbox in the corner and marched toward my father's urn.

My pupils dilated. I threw myself at his feet, wrapping my arms around his legs. "Julian! No! Hit me, sue me, do whatever you want to me, but please don't touch my dad's urn! I beg you!"

"Get off me!"

Julian kicked me away, raised the hammer high, and brought it down hard!

Smash!

Wood splinters flew everywhere. The urn shattered, and the grey ashes spilled across the concrete floor.

"Dad!"

I let out a blood-curdling scream. The sheer shock and grief caused a wave of nausea, and I spat out a mouthful of blood before collapsing onto the shattered remains of my father's urn, passing out completely.

Because of a blind spot in the security cameras by the staircase, the police couldn't find definitive proof that I had pushed Arthur. They had to release me after forty-eight hours.

Arthur was now in a coma, kept alive only by machines.

Julian was waiting outside the police station. Seeing my pale, exhausted state, a flicker of complicated emotion crossed his eyes, but it was quickly replaced by cold hostility.

He threw three plane tickets in my face.

The destination was a dangerous, war-torn country in the Middle East.

"Take your vegetable coach and your little friend Felix and get out of the country," Julian said coldly, looking at me like I was already dead. "Don't come back until you've learned how to be human."

I didn't argue. I didn't cry.

I silently knelt down, picked up the tickets one by one, and wiped the dirt off them.

"Okay," I whispered, my voice as light as a breeze.

Seeing how compliant I was, Julian turned and walked away.

At the airport.

Without a second thought, I tossed Julian's three tickets into the trash can. I pulled out the tickets to Costa Rica that I had bought days ago.

I handed the signed divorce papers to Felix and touched his head. "Let's go. Let's go home."

As the plane took off and soared into the sky, I looked at the thick clouds outside the window and closed my eyes.

Julian, in this life, I have paid back everything I owed you.

Goodbye forever.

Julian POV

In the VIP room of St. Jude's Hospital in New York.

I was sitting by Sienna's bedside, peeling an apple for her, when the TV on the wall suddenly broke into a breaking news broadcast:

"We have breaking news. Flight MU789, bound for the Middle East from JFK, crashed into the Atlantic Ocean forty minutes after takeoff due to extreme weather. All 150 passengers and crew members on board are confirmed dead..."

Drop.

The apple slipped from my hand. The sharp knife sliced across my finger, and blood began to pour, but I didn't feel a thing.

Flight MU789...

That was the exact flight I had booked for Valerie!

"All confirmed dead..."

I stared blankly at the cold numbers on the screen. My brain exploded, and the blood in my veins completely froze.

Drip, drip...

Blood dripped from my finger onto the white floor tiles, but I felt absolutely no pain.

"All confirmed dead..."

The words replayed in my mind like a rusty saw cutting through my skull. I stood up abruptly, but my legs gave out, and I fell hard to my knees.

"No, it's not possible!"

I scrambled back to my feet like a lunatic. Ignoring my coat, I stumbled out of the room.

Sienna gasped in shock, grabbing my sleeve. "Julian, where are you going? My hand is still hurting..."

"Get off me!" I yelled with bloodshot eyes, shoving her away so hard she tumbled onto the floor. I didn't even look back as I bolted toward the parking garage.

I pushed my Maybach to its absolute limit on the highway, running dozens of red lights. The tires screeched violently as I slammed on the brakes in front of the airline's headquarters.

I stormed into the lobby, grabbing the manager by his collar. My voice was raspy, like sandpaper. "Give me the passenger manifest for Flight MU789! Now!"

The manager trembled violently, pulling up the system. "M-Mr. Vance... Valerie Miller, her coach, and Felix... they are all on the list. They all boarded the plane..."

Boom.

The last string of sanity in my mind snapped.

My hands lost all strength, and I stumbled back, my tall frame shaking violently.

It was me.

I was the one who bought those tickets. I was the one who threw them in her face. I was the one who forced her onto that death flight!

"Julian, in this life, I have paid back everything I owed you."

Valerie's calm, dead eyes before she left flashed in my mind. She hadn't cried. She hadn't fought back. Because she had already decided to die!

"Valerie..." I clutched my chest. My heart felt like it was being squeezed by an invisible hand, making it impossible to breathe. I bent over, letting out a desperate, guttural scream. "Ahhh!"

That night, I deployed all of the Vance family's private jets and rescue teams to search the crash site.

For two solid weeks.

I searched the debris-filled ocean like a madman, refusing to sleep. I watched as bloated, unrecognizable bodies were pulled from the water. Every time they pulled back a white sheet, my soul died a little more.

But Valerie was never found.

The rescue captain sighed, walking up to me. My eyes were sunken, and my face was covered in rough stubble. "Mr. Vance, let it go. With an explosion of that magnitude, most of them were... vaporized. There wouldn't even be ashes left."

Vaporized.

Not even ashes left.

My body went rigid, and I collapsed onto the deck.