Novels by oyeyemi.ajayi

Dante sat in silence, the birth certificate still in his hands. The light flickered across his face, revealing the storm behind his eyes.His father had stormed out of the meeting earlier on after the revelation was made.This was not how he had expected the meeting to go. He only thought the council was going to ensure that the Virelli clan was still secured through Dante. He had asked the council for more time to break the news to Dante but that was not the case today. The council leaders remained seated, watching him. They had dispersed the lower-level members, then one of them, a silver-haired man named Corwin, leaned forward. "You deserve the full truth."Dante didn’t speak.He wondered why his father did not just tell him by himself; why did the truth have to come from the council? Then he remembered that his father was a ruthless and heartless man; he honored his father only by duty, because even as a child, he had always known his father was a vile man, and surely there was a

Gravenport simmered with unease. The city’s pulse had quickened, and beneath its cobbled streets, something darker stirred.Dante stood in the estate’s study, the folder Julian had given him still unopened. He stared at it, fingers tense, jaw set. Gabrielle’s photo was burned into his mind—her eyes, her defiance, her silence.He opened the folder. Maps, contracts, names. And Gabrielle—again. Her name circled in red.Why?He left the study and made his way to the archives. The estate’s lower levels were rarely visited, filled with dust and forgotten ledgers. The air was thick with age, and the flickering lanterns cast long shadows across the stone walls.Dante searched for hours, pulling records, tracing Julian’s movements. Land acquisitions, council meetings, disappearances. And Gabrielle’s name kept surfacing.She was everywhere.Dante’s jaw clenched. His father was hiding something.He dug deeper. Julian’s correspondence with council members, coded letters, and a ledger marked with

Seven years had passed. Gravenport had changed, but not as much as the people who once walked its shadows.Gabrielle Moreau was now twenty-four. A smallish burst of a woman, her presence filled every room she entered. Her long, voluminous red hair cascaded down her back, and her hazel eyes held fire and memory. She had grown into her beauty and her defiance, but the years had carved caution into her bones.Julian Virelli had tightened his grip on the city. His empire had expanded, his enemies silenced, and his secrets buried deeper than ever. He rarely left the estate, preferring the company of his ledgers and shadows. He grew more dangerous and powerful. Even his closet allies slept with one eye open. No one dared to cross paths with him, not especially after the news of how he his empire had conquered syndicates in Dellwire. Dante Virelli, now twenty-nine, returned to Gravenport a different man. Bigger and broader, his dark hair now cut close, his blue eyes colder than winter glass

Gravenport had a name. But to Dante and Gabrielle, it was more than a city—it was a crucible of shadows and steel, of whispered deals and silent wars. It was where legacies were forged and broken.Gabrielle Moreau stood outside the Virelli estate, her fists clenched at her sides. The journal she’d found in her father’s belongings burned in her satchel like a live coal. Inside it, the name Julian Virelli appeared again and again—tied to debts, favors, and secrets Gabrielle had never known existed.She had to know why.The guards at the gate didn’t stop her. They recognized her now. She was the girl who had stood in the barn, the one Dante had watched with something like awe. They let her pass, and she walked through the estate with her heart pounding.But Dante wasn’t there.She found his room empty, the bed made, the air stale. She searched the balcony where it was rumoured that he stood watching the city flicker like a fuse. Nothing.Then she finally asked the maids who had escorted

The Virelli estate sat on the edge of the city like a fortress—stone walls, iron gates, and windows that never let in enough light. Inside, everything gleamed with power: polished floors, imported art, and silence so thick it felt like a warning.Dante Virelli stood in his father’s study, staring at the ledger open on the desk. Names. Numbers. Deals. Debts. Every page was a record of control. Of blood.He hated it.He was twenty-two. Sharp-featured, cold-eyed, and already feared by men twice his age. But fear wasn’t power. It was a leash. And Dante had worn it since he was old enough to understand what the Virelli name meant.Julian Virelli had built an empire from smoke and steel. He’d taught Dante how to shoot before he could shave, how to read a man’s weakness before he could read poetry. He’d said things like “Mercy is a luxury. We don’t afford it.” And “Loyalty is earned in silence, not sentiment.”Dante had learned. But he hadn’t forgotten.He closed the ledger and walked to the

Gabrielle hadn’t cried when she buried her father. Not when the preacher said his name like it was just another name. Not when the wind kicked dust over the grave like the earth itself was trying to forget him.But now, sitting cross-legged on the polished floor of her aunt’s townhouse, surrounded by the contents of his trunk, she felt something clawing at her throat. Not tears. Not grief. Something sharper.She hadn’t opened the journal until now. Not on the train. Not in the barn. Not even when the silence of the city pressed against her like a weight. But something about last night—about Dante Virelli stepping from the shadows like a ghost conjured by grief—had shifted something inside her.The name had echoed in her bones.Virelli.She’d heard it before. Whispers. Warnings. Her father’s voice, low and guarded, saying “Some names are doors you don’t open.”She opened the journal.The leather was cracked, the pages yellowed. Her father’s handwriting was neat, deliberate. She flipped