- 2 months ago
Step into a world of passion, power, and drama. On this channel, you’ll find captivating billionaire romances, intense mafia sagas, and heartfelt love stories that will keep you hooked until the very last word.
Whether it’s the allure of wealth, the danger of the underworld, or the beauty of love against all odds — Ashley’s Stories brings you tales that are bold, emotional, and unforgettable.
💖 Subscribe now and lose yourself in stories of desire, danger, and destiny.
Whether it’s the allure of wealth, the danger of the underworld, or the beauty of love against all odds — Ashley’s Stories brings you tales that are bold, emotional, and unforgettable.
💖 Subscribe now and lose yourself in stories of desire, danger, and destiny.
Category
🎈
FunTranscript
00:00The auctioneer says $12, and I raise my hand before my brain catches up with my arm.
00:05$12 going once?
00:07Wait, I blurt, because apparently I've decided to have a public breakdown on the steps of the Charleston County Courthouse.
00:13Is that... is that a typo?
00:16The woman next to me, clipboard hugged to her chest like a shield,
00:19gives me the kind of look you give a raccoon that's wandered into a Whole Foods.
00:24Back tax auction, honey. Nobody's touched that property in six years.
00:28County just wants it off the books.
00:31$12 for a house.
00:33I have exactly $41 in checking, an eviction notice folded into fourths in my back pocket,
00:39and a job that ended yesterday when Bertram's fine framing decided AI could measure a picture frame better than I
00:44could.
00:45So when the auctioneer says going twice, I don't think about it.
00:48I think about the fact that I need an address that isn't a Motel 6, and I say,
00:53sold. I mean, I'll take it. I mean, $12, right? Here.
00:59I hand him exact change like an idiot.
01:01Like I'm buying a candy bar. Turns out I just bought a mansion.
01:05Not a house. A mansion.
01:08Wrought iron gates.
01:09Ivy strangling the columns.
01:11A fountain out front that hasn't held water since the Clinton administration.
01:15And according to the county's own paperwork, appraised at just under $12 million before some legal black hole swallowed it
01:21whole.
01:22I find this out on my phone, standing on the sidewalk, while the clipboard woman shoves a manila folder into
01:28my hands and says,
01:30Congratulations, in a tone that suggests she thinks I might be cursed.
01:33I should feel like I won the lottery.
01:35I feel like I stepped on a landmine wearing flip-flops.
01:38The house doesn't want me.
01:40I know that the second I get the key to turn, an actual iron key like something out of a
01:46period drama,
01:47and the door groans open into a foyer that smells like dust and old money and something faintly, unpleasantly metallic,
01:55sunlight punches through a broken window high up near the ceiling,
01:58laying a gold stripe across a marble floor that's cracked like a spider web.
02:03Okay, I say out loud, because I talk to myself now.
02:06Apparently, that's a personality trait I have.
02:10Okay, Wren, you've survived worse.
02:13You survived your ex.
02:14You survived customer service.
02:16You can survive.
02:18That's when I hear the footsteps.
02:20Not mine.
02:21I freeze in the doorway.
02:23Every instinct I have screaming run.
02:25And a man steps out of the shadow of the east hallway like he's been waiting there for six years,
02:30which, I will later find out, is not that far from the truth.
02:35He is.
02:36And I say this as someone who does not currently have the emotional bandwidth for attraction,
02:41stupidly good-looking.
02:42Dark hair, darker eyes, a jaw you could cut glass on,
02:46and a suit that costs more than every item I've ever owned combined,
02:50including my car, which doesn't run.
02:52He looks at me the way you'd look at a raccoon that's wandered into your Whole Foods.
02:56You're standing in my house, he says.
03:00Calm.
03:01Quiet.
03:01The kind of quiet that makes the hair on your arms stand up.
03:05Funny, I say, because sarcasm is my love language when I'm terrified.
03:10I've got a deed that says otherwise.
03:13That gets a reaction.
03:15Barely.
03:16One eyebrow.
03:18A deed from a county auction that I have contested for three years.
03:22Well, the county didn't get the memo, because I just bought this place for $12,
03:26so unless you've got a better offer.
03:29I own the mineral and subsurface rights to this property, he says, stepping closer,
03:34and there's something underneath the calm now, something coiled tight,
03:37which means Miss Witch Calloway.
03:40Wren Calloway.
03:41And I don't know what subsurface rights are, but I know squatters' rights,
03:45and right now I'm the one holding the key.
03:48For a second, one full, ridiculous second,
03:51the corner of his mouth twitches like he wants to smile and has forgotten how.
03:55Interesting, he says.
03:57You have no idea what's underneath you.
03:59That should scare me.
04:01It does scare me.
04:03But it also makes something low in my stomach go hot and stupid,
04:06because apparently my body has decided that cryptic billionaire threatening me in a haunted mansion
04:11is a vibe it's into, and I hate that about myself.
04:15Try me, I say.
04:17His eyes, dark, unreadable,
04:20the kind of eyes that have clearly made grown men cry in boardrooms,
04:24flick down the hallway toward a door I hadn't even noticed,
04:27tucked under the curve of the staircase,
04:29bound shut with a chain that looks newer than everything else in the house,
04:32newer and expensive and very, very deliberate.
04:36There's a basement, he says, that you do not want to open.
04:40That's exactly the kind of sentence, I say,
04:43already walking toward it,
04:45heart absolutely roaring in my ears.
04:47That makes a woman open the basement.
04:50Wren.
04:52My name in his mouth lands like a hand on my wrist,
04:55even though he hasn't moved an inch.
04:57Whatever you think you bought for twelve dollars,
04:59you didn't buy a house.
05:01You bought a problem.
05:02My problem.
05:03And once you see what's down there,
05:05you don't get to walk away and pretend you didn't.
05:08I should listen to him.
05:09I should hand back the key,
05:11take the L,
05:12go sleep in my car with the eviction notice as a pillow.
05:15Instead, I close my hand around the chain,
05:17feel the cold bite of it against my palm,
05:19and look back at him over my shoulder.
05:22Guess we're both about to find out what I bought then.
05:25The lock gives easier than it should.
05:28The door swings open into darkness that smells like copper and secrets,
05:32and somewhere below us,
05:34deep in the foundation of a house that was never really mine to buy,
05:37something hums,
05:38low,
05:39mechanical,
05:40alive.
05:41He doesn't stop me.
05:43He follows me down.
05:44And that's the moment.
05:46Chain hitting the floor,
05:48his breath close behind me on the stairs,
05:50$12 turning into the worst and best decision of my entire life.
05:54That I understand I'm not leaving this house tonight.
05:58Maybe not ever.
06:00Here's what's under a $12 mansion in Charleston, South Carolina.
06:03A server room.
06:05Not old wiring.
06:06Not a wine cellar.
06:08A humming, climate-controlled,
06:10biometric-locked server room
06:11with enough blinking lights
06:12to make my eviction notice
06:14feel like the least insane document in my life.
06:17Rows of black towers stretch into the dark,
06:19cables taped along the floor like veins,
06:22and in the middle of it all,
06:23a single monitor glowing blue,
06:26throwing shadows up the stone walls.
06:28Okay, I say,
06:29voice doing that thing where it goes up an octave
06:32when I'm trying to sound calm.
06:33This is not a basement.
06:35This is a Bond villain's Wi-Fi closet.
06:38Behind me, he exhales,
06:40the first genuinely human sound I've heard out of him.
06:44It's a data archive.
06:46For what?
06:47He doesn't answer right away,
06:49and that silence tells me more than any answer would.
06:53I turn to look at him properly
06:54for the first time since we came down the stairs,
06:57and in the blue light,
06:58he looks less like a suit
06:59and more like a man who hasn't slept well in three years,
07:02which, I'm starting to suspect,
07:04is exactly how long this room has been running.
07:07My name's Ambrose Kane,
07:08he says finally,
07:10like it costs him something.
07:12And that server has 14 terabytes of financial records
07:15that prove Whitlock Capital laundered $900 million
07:17through Shell Charities,
07:19records I can't get out without triggering an alarm
07:22that goes straight to the man who owns the city's police commissioner.
07:24I blink.
07:27I'm sorry,
07:28I bought a haunted evidence locker?
07:30You bought a house that happens to sit on top of the only copy,
07:33he says,
07:35which,
07:36as of an hour ago,
07:37makes you a liability to a man named Desmond Whitlock,
07:40who does not do liabilities.
07:42He does disappearances.
07:45Cool.
07:46Cool, cool, cool.
07:48Love that for me.
07:49I press my palms against my eyes.
07:51You couldn't have led with,
07:53hey, don't buy this house,
07:54there's a felony in the basement.
07:56I didn't think anyone would actually bid $12,
07:59he says.
08:00And there it is.
08:01The ghost of a smile again,
08:03quick as a struck match,
08:04gone before I can trust it.
08:06Three days later,
08:07I still haven't left.
08:09Partly because Ambrose,
08:11infuriating,
08:11guarded,
08:12ridiculously competent Ambrose,
08:13is right that walking away now
08:15paints a target on my back
08:16whether I want one or not.
08:18Partly because he cooks,
08:20unprompted,
08:20silently,
08:21like it's a nervous habit
08:22instead of a kindness.
08:24And I have not eaten a home-cooked meal
08:25since my mother stopped speaking to me
08:27over a boyfriend she was right about.
08:28And partly,
08:29mostly,
08:30because of the way he watches me
08:32like I'm a puzzle he didn't order
08:33but can't stop trying to solve.
08:35We fall into a rhythm
08:37that feels dangerously like domestic life
08:39for two people staring down a billionaire
08:40with a body count.
08:42He runs decryption scripts at 2 a.m.
08:45in a t-shirt that should be illegal.
08:46I make fun of his coffee order.
08:49Black,
08:49no sugar,
08:50like your soul,
08:51I tell him,
08:52and he says without missing a beat,
08:54you'd know.
08:54You're the one who broke into my basement.
08:57And something in my chest
08:58does an embarrassing little flip
08:59every single time
09:00he lets that dry,
09:02sharp humor slip through the cracks.
09:04Why do you even care about Whitlock?
09:06I ask him on the fourth night,
09:08both of us on the floor of the server room
09:10because the chairs are gone
09:11and neither of us have slept properly.
09:13Guy like you.
09:14You could disappear to literally any country
09:17with an extradition loophole.
09:19Ambrose is quiet for a long moment,
09:21turning a flash drive over in his fingers
09:23like it weighs more than it should.
09:25He killed my sister, he says.
09:28Called it an accident.
09:29Paid the coroner enough that it stayed one.
09:32His jaw works.
09:34I've spent three years building a case
09:36instead of a coffin
09:37because I decided I wanted him
09:38to lose everything, publicly,
09:40slowly,
09:41before I let him disappear.
09:43That's the plan.
09:45That's been the plan.
09:47And now?
09:48He looks up at me
09:49and for once there's nothing guarded in it at all.
09:52Now there's a woman with a fake $41 bank balance
09:55and a mouth like a loaded gun
09:56sleeping in my dead sister's childhood bedroom
09:58and Whitlock knows her name
10:00and I don't know how to protect the plan
10:02and protect you at the same time.
10:04I don't have a joke for that.
10:05For the first time since the courthouse steps,
10:08I don't have a single sarcastic thing to say.
10:10So instead I reach over
10:12and take the flash drive out of his hand,
10:13set it down,
10:15and lace my fingers through his instead,
10:17which is either the bravest
10:18or stupidest thing I've done all week
10:20and given the week I've had,
10:21that's saying something.
10:23Then don't choose, I say.
10:25Do both.
10:26I didn't survive Bertram's fine framing
10:28and a Motel 6 parking lot
10:30to get taken out by some guy named Desmond.
10:32That startles a laugh out of him.
10:34Real, low, surprised at itself.
10:37And for a second the server room
10:39doesn't feel like a crime scene waiting to happen.
10:41It feels like the first place I've had in years
10:43that might actually be mine,
10:45which is, of course,
10:46exactly when the alarm goes off.
10:49Red light floods the stairwell above us.
10:51Ambrose is up and moving
10:53before I even process the sound,
10:55hauling me by the wrist toward the door,
10:57already talking fast and low
10:58about backup drives and exit routes
11:00and a black SUV
11:01that's apparently been parked outside since sundown.
11:03They found the breach, he says,
11:06shoving the flash drive into my hand
11:07instead of his pocket,
11:09which feels significant
11:10in a way I don't have time to unpack.
11:12Whitlock's people.
11:14They're here.
11:15Define here.
11:17Upstairs, the front door splinters off its hinges.
11:20Ambrose looks at me,
11:21one long, searing second,
11:24like he's memorizing my face
11:25in case this is the last time he gets to,
11:27and says the only thing that matters.
11:30Whatever happens next,
11:31don't let go of my hand.
11:33I don't.
11:35We don't run for the front door.
11:37Ambrose pulls me the other way,
11:39deeper into the house,
11:40through a pantry that isn't a pantry.
11:43It's a hidden hallway,
11:44narrow and cold,
11:45the kind of thing only a man
11:47who spent three years preparing to be hunted
11:48would think to build.
11:50Tell me this leads somewhere good,
11:52I whisper.
11:53It leads to the carriage house,
11:55and a car,
11:56and a lawyer who's been on retainer
11:57since before you were born,
11:59waiting for exactly this.
12:01His hand tightens around mine.
12:04Whatever happens, Wren,
12:05the drive goes to a reporter named Delacroix
12:07at the Post and Courier,
12:09not the FBI,
12:10not the cops.
12:11Whitlock owns half of both.
12:13A byline he can't buy
12:14is the only thing that actually kills him.
12:16You want me to run a corruption expose
12:18while wearing your dead sister's borrowed hoodie.
12:20Got it.
12:21Very normal Tuesday.
12:23He almost laughs.
12:25Almost.
12:26Then the pantry door behind us blows inward,
12:28and two men in black step through it,
12:31and there's no more room for jokes.
12:33What happens next takes maybe 90 seconds,
12:36though it'll live in my nervous system for years.
12:39Ambrose puts himself between me and the first man
12:42like it's reflex, not choice,
12:44and takes a hit to the ribs
12:45that makes a sound I never want to hear again.
12:48I do the only useful thing I can think of.
12:51I throw the flash drive as hard as I can
12:53down the dark hallway behind us,
12:54and when the second man's eyes follow it
12:56for half a second,
12:57I swing the only weapon in reach,
12:59which happens to be a 200-year-old fire poker
13:01still hanging by the pantry hearth,
13:03and catch him across the forearm hard enough
13:05that he drops his gun
13:06and screams words I won't repeat.
13:08Go!
13:09Ambrose grinds out,
13:10dragging himself upright,
13:11blood at his lip.
13:12Now, Wren, go!
13:13Oh, I don't leave him.
13:15I've made my peace with the fact
13:17that I'm apparently a person
13:18who doesn't leave people now,
13:20historical precedent notwithstanding.
13:23I grab the gun off the floor,
13:25point it at the man clutching his arm
13:26with a steadiness that surprises both of us,
13:28and say in the calmest voice I own,
13:30sit down before I find out if this thing's loaded.
13:33He sits down.
13:35Desmond Whitlock arrives himself 20 minutes later,
13:37which I will later understand
13:39is the arrogance that undoes him,
13:41the same arrogance that let him think
13:43a $900 million laundering operation
13:45could hide under enough charity galas
13:47and enough paid-off coroners forever.
13:49He walks into his own reckoning
13:51wearing a cashmere coat
13:52and an expression like he's here to collect a debt,
13:54not commit one.
13:56Mr. Kane, he says,
13:58stepping over his own downed man
14:00without looking at him,
14:01and the $12 tenant.
14:03How enterprising.
14:04You should have bought the house yourself,
14:06I tell him, guns still steady,
14:08back when it was actually for sale.
14:11I didn't need to own it,
14:13Whitlock says, almost gentle.
14:15I just needed everyone to think
14:17there was nothing here worth wanting.
14:20His gaze slides to Ambrose,
14:22and something older and colder
14:23moves behind his eyes.
14:25Your sister made the same mistake.
14:27She thought being right
14:29would be enough to protect her.
14:30Ambrose goes very still beside me,
14:32the stillness of a man holding back
14:34three years of grief with both hands,
14:36and for one heartbeat,
14:38I'm terrified of what he'll do.
14:40Instead, he reaches into his jacket
14:41and holds up his phone,
14:43screen lit,
14:44recording light blinking red.
14:46She was right,
14:47Ambrose says,
14:48and you just confirmed it,
14:50on the record,
14:51to a Wi-Fi connection
14:52that's been live streaming
14:53to Marisol Delacroix's inbox
14:54for the last four minutes.
14:57Whitlock's face does something
14:58I've genuinely never seen
14:59a rich man's face do before.
15:01It drains,
15:02all the polish sliding off at once,
15:03and underneath is just a scared man
15:05in an expensive coat.
15:07Sirens rise outside,
15:09real ones this time,
15:10the kind that don't answer
15:11to Whitlock's checkbook
15:12because,
15:13as I'll find out over Champagne
15:15two nights later,
15:16Ambrose called in a favor
15:17from exactly one detective
15:19in this city
15:19who hates dirty money
15:21more than he loves his pension.
15:23You bought a problem,
15:25Whitlock says to me,
15:26low, venomous,
15:28as two officers
15:29finally haul him toward the door.
15:30You should have stayed broke.
15:32I think about Bertram's fine framing.
15:34I think about the Motel 6 parking lot,
15:37the eviction notice
15:38folded in fourths,
15:39$41,
15:40and a name on a courthouse ledger
15:42nobody expected to get bid on.
15:44Turns out broke
15:45was the best $12 I ever spent,
15:47I tell him.
15:47He doesn't have a comeback for that.
15:50Rich men rarely do
15:51once the money stops working.
15:52Six weeks later,
15:53the house has water
15:54in the fountain again.
15:55Marisol Delacroix's story
15:57ran above the fold
15:58for four straight days.
15:59Whitlock Capital,
16:00The 900 Million Ghost,
16:02and Desmond Whitlock
16:03is currently enjoying
16:04a very small room
16:05with very good structural integrity,
16:07which is more than I can say
16:08for his reputation.
16:11Ambrose's sister's name
16:12is in every article
16:13spelled correctly,
16:14finally,
16:15attached to the truth
16:15instead of a paid-off lie.
16:17I'm on the mansion's front steps,
16:19actual paint
16:19on the actual railings,
16:21when Ambrose finds me
16:22with two coffees.
16:23Black for him.
16:25Entirely too much sugar for me,
16:26because he learned that
16:28about me somewhere
16:28between the server room
16:29and the gunfight
16:30and never forgot it.
16:32So, he says,
16:34handing me my cup,
16:35county assessor called.
16:37Now that it's not evidence
16:38in a federal case,
16:39they want to reassess
16:40the property value.
16:42How bad?
16:4311.8 million,
16:44give or take.
16:46I take a slow sip of coffee,
16:48mostly to hide the fact
16:49that I'm smiling like an idiot.
16:51Guess I really did get a deal.
16:53Guess you did.
16:55He sits down beside me,
16:57close enough
16:58that our shoulders touch,
16:59and for a man
17:00who spent three years
17:01building a case
17:02instead of a coffin,
17:03he looks for the first time
17:04since I met him,
17:05like someone building
17:06something else entirely.
17:09For the record,
17:10Miss Calloway,
17:11I have never once
17:12regretted losing that bid.
17:15You didn't lose,
17:16I remind him.
17:18I won.
17:19Fair and square.
17:21Twelve dollars.
17:23No, he says.
17:24And there's that ghost
17:25of a smile again,
17:26except this time it stays,
17:28fully, unguardedly,
17:29all the way to his eyes.
17:31I think, actually,
17:32I won, too.
17:34Somewhere behind us,
17:35water spills over
17:36the fountain's marble lip
17:37for the first time
17:38in six years,
17:39catching the late afternoon light.
17:41And I decide that
17:42if this is what twelve dollars
17:43buys a broke,
17:44unemployed picture framer
17:45from a bad breakup
17:46and a worse job market,
17:48then, frankly,
17:48the county should raise
17:49their prices.