Novels by Sapphire Pen

I didn’t realize how fast my fingers were moving until I stopped typing long enough to stretch. My knuckles cracked, stiff and overworked. The screen in front of me showed just how hard I'd been working. Kingston Enterprise was in perfect sheoe. I didn't know how long I'd been working or what time it was now. 11:00pm or 3:00pm, what did it matter? It didn't matter how much time was going anymore. It was the work that mattered now. Only that. It had been weeks now since she'd been gone. I didn’t let myself count the exact days anymore because if I did, I might start unraveling, and unraveling wasn’t an option. So I worked. I worked like a madman. At first, it was just something to do while I waited for the police to update us, for some news, for Rissa to call and say, “Hey, sorry, long story, but I’m fine.” But when that didn’t happen, when the silence stretched from hours to days, I shifted. Working became my way of being present. I made sure I was always away from home. I didn't

I knew something had shifted the moment the door creaked open that night.I was lying on the edge of the bed, back turned, arms stiff beneath the thin sheet. The night was heavy. Too still. No wind, no creaking boards, no distant owl cries from the woods. Just silence. And then the soft sound of the doorknob turning.I didn’t move.I wanted to believe it was my mind playing tricks. Maybe a draft. Maybe the door just wasn’t latched properly. But no. Footsteps. Slow, deliberate. And then the quiet click of the door shutting again. I knew it was him.I closed my eyes, even though every part of me was screaming to turn, to run, to hide. But I couldn’t hide in here. Not from him. Not when he held all the keys."Marissa," he said, voice low. Like he didn’t want to wake someone else. There was no one else.I didn’t answer.The mattress dipped as he sat behind me. I felt his presence like a storm cloud hovering over my skin. His fingers brushed my arm and I flinched. He froze."You’ve been di

I walked into the office just before noon. The quiet hum of computers and muffled conversations filled the space. Alicia was already in my office, and her eyes flicked up when I stepped inside. She immediately stepped back from the desk.She blinked at me, that slight surprise clear on her face. “Good morning, Mr Kingston.” Her voice was cautious, polite. “I wasn't expecting you. I saw that you'd been here earlier and your files were sorted and stacked so I just thought…”"I'm here, Alicia. Send all the pending files from the last week to my desk. And set up new appointments to replace the ones that we cancelled.”"Yes, sir.” She said, nodding and hurrying out of the office. I dived straight into work. I sat bent over my computer for almost two hours before I leaned back and allowed my thoughts to wander away from the work for a short while. The office was busy but not overwhelming. Phones ringing, footsteps on the carpet, the occasional laugh in the distance. Life moving on without

The dinner with Lilian and Devon had done something to me. Something small but important.Maybe it was Evangeline’s excitement or baby Alexander falling asleep in my arms. Maybe it was the conversation with Devon on the porch. Or maybe it was Lilian and her stubbornness. But when I got home that night, I didn’t go straight to bed. I didn’t collapse on the couch and let the silence swallow me whole like I’d been doing for days.Instead, I sat at the kitchen table and reached for the files Alicia had sent home. Alicia was another reminder of Marissa. She'd picked her after the interviews. She'd said she would fit perfectly into the role.It was past midnight. The streets were quiet outside, the city finally still. The kitchen was dimly lit, just the overhead light and the soft glow of the lamp beside me. I stared at the top page, blinked, and then read it again.And for the first time in over a week, the words made sense.Not all of it, of course. I was still distracted. My mind still d

I should’ve left the office two hours ago. That had been the plan. But here I was, hunched over a desk that I was now coming to hate and reading the same document for the third time, and still not understanding what the hell I was looking at. I blinked. Now the words were swimming. Perfect. Just perfect.“Sir?” Alicia’s voice came softly from across the room. “The files for signature?”I glanced at her, then at the pile in front of me. “Leave them. I’ll go through it later.”“You’ve said that twice today.”I didn’t answer. I just leaned back, pinching the bridge of my nose.She shifted. “You need rest, sir.”“I need my fiancée back, Alicia.”Silence.I didn’t mean for it to come out that way. But maybe I did. Fiancee? I hadn't even asked her to marry me yet. God, there was so much that I hadn't told her. So much that we hadn't had the time for. Thinking of it now, I didn't think there was anyone else I could even consider spending the rest of my life with. She was it for me. I'd known

The soft, final snick of the lock turning on the outside of the door cut through the quiet like a knife. He’d locked me in. Just like that. The room suddenly felt smaller, the cozy quilt on the bed and the polished wood of the dresser nothing more than a pretty disguise for a cage. Anthony didn’t want me outside. He wanted me contained right here, within these four walls, under his control. That much was terrifyingly clear.I stood completely still in the middle of the room, straining my ears against the thick silence that followed the sound of the lock. There were no footsteps walking away down the hallway, no creaking floorboards. It was just heavy, empty quiet. Was he standing right outside the door, leaning against it, listening for my reaction? Or had he already walked away, completely sure the locked door would hold me? My heart pounded hard and fast against my ribs, a frantic drumbeat of fear. Welcome home. Those words felt like a sick joke now, crawling under my skin. This was