SCORNED EX WIFE Queen Of Ashes (Camille and Stefan)

Camille sat in the back seat of the black sedan as it approached the women's correctional facility upstate, her hands trembling with nervous energy. Two weeks had passed since her rescue, two weeks of thinking about Rose's unexpected act of salvation, two weeks of remembering the sister she had once loved before everything went wrong between them.

Alexander sat beside her, his face showing concern and uncertainty about this decision she had made against everyone's advice.

"Are you sure about this?" Alexander asked for the tenth time since they had left Manhattan. "Camille, you don't owe Rose anything, not even gratitude. She tried to have you killed."noveldrama

"She also saved my life," Camille replied, her voice steady despite the emotions churning in her chest. "Alexander, I need to see her. I need to look into her eyes and understand who she really is underneath all the hatred and manipulation."

The correctional facility loomed ahead of them, a gray concrete structure surrounded by razor wire and guard towers that spoke of punishment rather than rehabilitation. Camille felt her stomach tighten as she realized this was where Rose had been living for months, paying the price for her crimes against her own family.

The visiting room was stark and institutional, with plastic chairs and metal tables bolted to the floor. Fluorescent lights cast harsh shadows that made everyone look pale and tired. Other inmates sat with their visitors, speaking in hushed tones about family news and legal appeals and the small details of life on the outside.

Camille chose a table near the window, where natural light softened the harsh atmosphere slightly. She had dressed simply in jeans and a blue sweater, wanting to look like herself rather than the successful businesswoman or the Kane Industries heiress. Today, she was just Camille Lewis, coming to see her sister.

When Rose entered the visiting room, Camille felt her breath catch in her throat. Rose looked smaller than she remembered, thinner, with her naturally blonde hair grown out to show dark roots. The expensive clothes and perfect makeup were gone, replaced by the standard prison uniform that made her look younger and more vulnerable.

But it was Rose's eyes that shocked Camille the most. The calculating coldness that had defined her sister for so many years was gone, replaced by something raw and uncertain that looked almost like fear.

Rose walked slowly toward Camille's table, her steps hesitant as if she wasn't sure she would be welcome. When she reached the chair across from Camille, she stood for a moment, just staring at her sister's face.

"You came," Rose said, her voice barely above a whisper. "I didn't think you would ever want to see me again."

"I almost didn't," Camille admitted. "But I needed to understand why you helped save my life. I needed to see you one more time."

Rose sat down carefully, her hands folded in her lap like a child who was afraid of being scolded. For a moment, neither sister spoke, both of them processing the strangeness of being in the same room again after everything that had happened.

"You look good," Rose said finally. "Healthy. Happy. I'm glad Alexander is taking care of you."

Camille studied Rose's face, looking for signs of the manipulation and false sincerity that had characterized so many of their interactions over the years. But what she saw instead was genuine relief, as if Rose was truly glad to see that Camille had survived and was thriving.

"Rose, why did you help us find where James was holding me and Victoria?"

Rose was quiet for a long moment, staring at her hands as she struggled to find words for feelings she had buried under years of hatred and jealousy.

"Because when James described what he was planning to do to you, I realized something," Rose said, her voice growing stronger. "I realized that I had spent so many years being angry at you for having the life I wanted that I forgot you were the only person who ever really loved me."

Camille felt tears starting to burn her eyes at Rose's words.

"When we were teenagers, when I was scared or lonely or angry at the world, you were the one who sat with me. You were the one who listened when I told you about the foster homes, about feeling like I didn't belong anywhere." Rose's voice cracked with emotion. "You were my sister before you were my enemy."

"What changed, Rose? What made you start hating me instead of loving me?"

Rose lifted her head and looked directly at Camille for the first time since sitting down. "Fear. Fear that I wasn't good enough to keep your love. Fear that Mom and Dad would eventually get tired of me and send me back. Fear that you would realize I wasn't worth being your sister."

"Rose, that never would have happened."

"But I didn't know that. All I knew was that you had everything I wanted - parents who loved you unconditionally, confidence that you belonged somewhere, the security of knowing you would never be abandoned again." Rose's tears were flowing freely now. "Instead of being grateful that you shared your family with me, I became resentful that it wasn't mine by birth."

Camille reached across the table and took Rose's hands, feeling how cold and small they were. "Rose, you were my sister by choice. That should have made it more special, not less."

"I know that now. But back then, all I could see was what I didn't have instead of what I did have." Rose squeezed Camille's hands tightly. "And by the time I realized how much I had thrown away, it was too late. I had already hurt you too badly to ask for forgiveness."

"It's not too late now," Camille said softly.

Rose stared at her sister in disbelief. "Camille, I tried to have you killed. I hired men to attack you in that parking garage. I spent years manipulating and undermining you. How can you even consider forgiving me?"

"Because holding onto hatred was destroying me just as much as it destroyed you. Because I remember the sister who taught me to braid friendship bracelets and read me bedtime stories when I was scared."

e's voice was steady despite

her tears. "Because whempit mattered most, when James asked you to help him hurt me, you chose love over revenge."

Rose broke down completely at Camille's words, sobbing with the force of years of suppressed guilt and regret. Suddenly, she slipped out of her chair and dropped to her knees beside the table, looking up at Camille with desperation and hope. "Camille, please," Rose said, her voice breaking. "Please forgive me. I know I don't deserve it. I know I can never undo what I did to you, to our family, to your marriage. But please, if there's any part of you that still remembers loving me, please forgive me."

The sight of Rose on her knees,

begging for forgiveness with tears streaming down her face, broke something open in Camille's heart. This wasn't the calculating manipulator who had tried to steal her husband and destroy her life. This was the scared

thirteen-year-old girl who had arrived at their house with all her

possessions in a garbage bag,

desperate to be loved and terrified of

being abandoned.

Camille slipped out of her own chair and knelt on the floor facing Rose, taking her

sister's face in her hands.

"Rose, look at me," Camille said gently.

Rose lifted her tear-stained face to meet Camille's eyes.

"I forgive you," Camille said simply. "Not because what you did was forgivable, but because you're my sister and I love you."

Rose collapsed forward into Camille's arms, both sisters holding each other and crying on the floor of the prison visiting room. Other visitors and inmates watched in silence as the two women who had been torn apart by jealousy and betrayal found their way back to each other through forgiveness and love.

"I'm so sorry," Rose whispered against Camille's shoulder. "I'm so sorry for everything I did to you."

"I know you are," Camille replied, stroking Rose's hair the way she used to when they were teenagers. "I know you're sorry."

They held each other for several minutes, both of them crying for the years they had lost, for the pain they had caused each other, for the sister they had been before jealousy and fear poisoned their love.

When they finally pulled apart, both sisters looked different somehow. Rose's face had lost the hard edge that had defined her for so long, while Camille looked lighter, as if she had finally set down a burden she had been carrying for years. "What happens now?" Rose asked as they sat back in their chairs.

"Now you serve your sentence and work on becoming the person you want to be," Camille said. "And I go home and build a life with Alexander and Victoria, knowing that my sister loves me."

"Will you visit me again?"

Camille was quiet for a moment, considering the question carefully. "I don't know, Rose. I forgive you, and I love you, but I also need to protect myself and my family from being hurt again."

Rose nodded, understanding the boundaries Camille was setting. "I just needed to know that you don't hate me anymore. I needed to know that somewhere in your heart, there's still room for the sister I used to be."

"There's always been room for that sister," Camille said. "Even when I hated what

you had become, I never stopped loving who you were to me when we were

young."

As visiting hours ended and they prepared to say goodbye, Rose reached across the table one more time.

"Camille, can I ask you for one more thing?"

"What?"

"When you're happy, when you're living your life with Alexander and Victoria and building your future, remember sometimes that you have a sister who loves you. Even if I'm not part of your life anymore, even if we never see each other again, remember that Rose Lewis loves Camille Lewis more than anything else in the world."

Camille felt fresh tears flowing down her cheeks as she squeezed Rose's hand one final time. "I'll remember And Rose? When you're serving your sentence, when you're working on becoming better, remember that you have a sister who believes you can change. Remember that Camille Lewis will always love the best parts of Rose Lewis."

As Camille walked away from the visiting room, she felt a sense of closure she hadn't expected to find. The sister who had tried to destroy her was still in prison, still paying for her crimes. But the sister who had built blanket forts and braided friendship bracelets had finally come home.

The reconciliation didn't erase the past or guarantee the future. But it offered something precious that both sisters had thought was lost forever: the knowledge that love could survive even the deepest betrayal, and that forgiveness could heal

wounds that seemed impossible to repair.

In the car driving back to Manhattan, Alexander held Camille as she processed

the emotional weight of seeing Rose again.

"How do you feel?" he asked.

"Free," Camille said simply. "For the first time in years, I feel free."