Novels by Evie hydes

Lance had one hand on the cab door when the sound of a hook clicking against metal cut through the evening noise. He turned, half-expecting trouble and found only Elison's car idling at the curb, engine humming low, the man himself watching from behind the wheel with an expression far too pleased with itself.Whatever unease had gripped Lance a moment earlier melted into something warmer. He smiled, straightened, and turned back toward his colleagues."Mr. Halat, you guys go. I'll come on my own."The teacher blinked. "How?""My husband is here." Lance was already walking, unable to keep the smile off his face as he crossed toward the black car.Elison leaned over and pushed the passenger door open without a word, waiting until Lance had settled into the seat before pulling smoothly back into traffic. Behind them, a cluster of teachers stood frozen on the curb, whispering among themselves."...Didn't know Mr. Lance was married," one murmured."That's Mr. Floris," another said."Omg,

"In front of the college," Lance said into the phone, watching the familiar black car ease up along the curb."I will pick you up later," Elison's voice came through, low and certain, the kind of voice that expected no argument."Don't." Lance's grip tightened slightly around the phone."Lan—""Please.""An—""Please," Lance pressed, softer this time, lips curving despite himself. "Can't my hubby listen to me?" He let the smallest whine slip into his voice, eyes wide even though Elison couldn't see them.There was a pause on the other end — the particular silence of a man losing an argument he hadn't wanted to win in the first place. Lance could practically hear him fighting a smile."Who am I to stop you," Elison finally relented. "You can go. But please — keep calling me.""Promise. I will miss you." Lance pressed a smile into the words, then hung up before Elison could hear just how wide that smile had grown.In the driver's seat, Elison stared at the phone for a moment longer than

The bell above the café door gave its usual half-hearted chime, and Van didn't even need to look up to know who had just walked in. That particular unhurried, self-satisfied gait had become impossible to mistake."What wou—" Van started, then lifted his eyes from the counter and saw the familiar mess of silver-white hair and the smirk that came attached to it. He sighed. "What are you doing here?""Heyy~" Mateo Stellar sauntered up to the counter like he owned the place, arms loose at his sides, eyes glinting with the particular brand of trouble he seemed to specialize in. "We meet again.""We are truly destined," he added, pressing a hand to his chest as though the universe itself had conspired to bring them together over cheap café furniture."More like my bad luck," Van muttered under his breath, already reaching for a cup he had no intention of using yet."Did you say something?""Are you a stalker or some—" Van caught himself, rolling his eyes instead of finishing the sentence. T

The café had been quiet enough for most of the afternoon, the kind of lull Van had learned to appreciate between the morning rush and the evening crowd. It didn't last. A man near the door had been lingering a beat too long, and when he finally moved to leave, Van's instincts sharpened by one too many dine-and-dash attempts over the years caught the tell before the man even reached the handle."Excuse me," Van called out.The man turned, feigning innocence. "What?""You didn't pay," Van said evenly."I did," the man insisted."No, sir, you didn't." Van gestured toward the small camera mounted in the corner of the ceiling. "I can even show you."The man's expression shifted, the polite mask slipping just enough to reveal something colder underneath. He didn't argue further he simply reached into his jacket, and in one swift, violent motion, pulled out a gun.The café erupted into screams."SHUT UP AND SIT DOWN," the man barked, swinging the weapon in a wide arc across the room, forcin

"Cute," Azhael said, though the word came out flat, unconvinced, more habit than genuine observation.He slumped further into the couch cushions, dragging a hand down his face with theatrical despair. "I'm so single," he groaned, the kind of complaint that demanded sympathy he wasn't actually owed.Elison didn't even glance up from his laptop. "I just have to make a call and someone will run here with a ring," he said dryly. "Don't test me.""Bastard," Azhael muttered, but there was no real venom in it.Elison chuckled, the sound low and unbothered, before something in his own words caught up with him. He tilted his head, considering."And you called him Shadow," Azhael pointed out, gesturing vaguely at the laptop screen still paused on the grainy footage. "I guess I was wrong to assume you'd figured him out completely."Elison frowned, turning the thought over. "Do you think Lance might have a twin brother?"Azhael's groan was immediate and long-suffering. "Here we go again. I'm tire

The office was dim, lit only by the pale glow of a single desk lamp, the kind of low light Azhael always kept when the day had gone sideways. He sat across from Elison, glass in hand, his red hair catching what little light there was, watching his best friend with the careful attention of someone piecing together a puzzle he didn't yet trust."Who did you talk to before the attack?" Azhael asked, his voice quiet but pointed, the kind of question that demanded precision rather than comfort.Elison leaned back in his chair, arms crossed, replaying the hours before chaos had found him. "No one except Lance. And that conversation didn't even last a minute."Azhael's eyes narrowed slightly, filing the detail away. "And when you were being attacked—when did Shadow show up?""An hour later. Give or take."Azhael went quiet, his thumb tapping against the rim of his glass, the silence stretching just long enough to feel deliberate. Then he set the glass down with a soft click against the desk.

The ring still caught the light in a way that surprised Alexander. Five years later, and he still noticed it—still paused sometimes, mid-thought, when it flashed against glass or polished stone. Not because it felt new, but because it felt real. Chosen. Earned. He adjusted his cufflinks in the mirror of the penthouse bathroom, the city stretching behind him in soft twilight. The penthouse no longer felt like a fortress or a reward. It felt lived in. Books stacked where they didn’t belong. A throw blanket Elias insisted on draping over every chair. Framed photographs that weren’t curated, just… kept. “Alex,” Elias called from the bedroom. “If you’re overthinking your tie again, we’re going to be late.” Alexander smiled to himself. Some things really didn’t change. He stepped into the bedroom, where Elias stood by the window, already dressed for the gala. Five years had sharpened him, not hardened—confidence settling into his posture the way comfort does when it’s finally all

The club hadn’t changed.The lights were still low, warm gold bleeding into shadow. Music thrummed beneath the floor, familiar and steady, vibrating through bone and memory. The mirrors still lined the walls—sleek, deliberate, once designed to obscure and divide.What had changed was how they walked in.Alexander entered first, posture calm, shoulders relaxed, no longer braced for impact. Elias followed at his side, close enough that their arms brushed with every step. There was no attempt to separate, no instinctive pause before crossing the threshold. They didn’t scan the room for danger or recognition.They were seen immediately.A few heads turned. Conversations stuttered, then resumed. Recognition flickered—surprise, curiosity, something like respect. Not everyone smiled. Not everyone approved.Alexander didn’t flinch.Elias felt the moment settle into his chest, not as fear but as weight—real, solid, survivable. He reached for Alexander’s hand openly this time, fingers threading

The apartment smelled like rosemary and warm bread—comforting, familiar, earned.Elias stood at the kitchen counter, sleeves rolled up, fingers dusted with flour as he shaped dough with slow, practiced movements. Outside the tall windows, the city hummed softly, dusk settling in like a held breath. One year ago, this hour would have carried a different weight. Panic. Anticipation. Fear of headlines refreshing every few seconds.Now, it carried something steadier.Behind him, Alexander adjusted the table settings for the third time, aligning the cutlery with unnecessary precision. Elias smiled to himself without turning around.“You’re going to wear a groove into the table if you keep nudging that fork,” Elias said gently.Alexander paused, then exhaled. “I know. I just—” He stopped himself, shook his head, and let his hands fall to his sides. “Old habits.”Elias turned then, leaning back against the counter. He studied Alexander openly, the way he did now without hesitation. The sharp

The club is quiet in the morning.Not empty—never empty, but hushed in a way Alexander rarely allowed himself to notice before. The lights are dimmed low, the velvet curtains drawn back just enough to let thin bars of daylight slip across the polished floor. It smells faintly of citrus cleaner and last night’s incense, a mingling of care and history.Alexander stands at the edge of the main floor, hands in his pockets, looking at the space that once felt like both sanctuary and prison.This place was born out of survival.He knows that now, in a way he didn’t before.Elias joins him, leaning lightly against his side. No performance, no role to play, just presence. They’ve learned how to stand together without filling the silence with tension.“Do you ever think about what it could have been?” Elias asks softly.“All the time,” Alexander admits. “And what it still can be.”They walk slowly through the club, passing rooms that once existed solely for secrecy. Each door feels different n

Alexander has always known how to endure silence.It’s a skill learned early—through boardrooms and dining rooms, through a father whose affection came packaged as expectation and approval as performance. Silence, for him, was never empty. It was judgment withheld. Love conditional.Still, this silence feels different.It has been weeks since the family meeting. Weeks since the public fallout, the interviews, the carefully measured chaos. Weeks since his father last spoke to him.No calls. No messages. Not even anger.Just absence.Alexander sits alone in the study of the penthouse, late evening shadows stretching across the floor. The city glows beyond the windows, indifferent and alive. He has a legal pad in front of him, pages already half-filled with writing that will never be mailed.The letter started as an exercise his therapist suggested. Write what you need to say, not what you expect to hear back.He hadn’t expected it to hurt this much.He reads the last line he wrote, jaw

Elias almost doesn’t answer the call.The phone lights up on the kitchen counter while he’s rinsing a mug, sunlight spilling across the floor in lazy afternoon stripes. The name on the screen tightens something deep in his chest—instinctive, reflexive.Mom.For a moment, he just stares at it, heart ticking too fast. He hasn’t spoken to her since the night everything broke open, since the shouting and the silence that followed. Since being told without words that love came with conditions she didn’t know how to renegotiate.Alexander watches him from the doorway, saying nothing. Just present.Elias exhales and answers.“Hi,” he says.There’s a pause on the other end. Long enough that he wonders if she’ll hang up.“Hi,” his mother says finally. Her voice sounds… different. Not sharp. Not defensive. Tired. “I was wondering if you’d be willing to meet me. Just… talk. No pressure.”Elias closes his eyes.“When?” he asks.The café she chooses is quiet, tucked between a bookstore and a flori

"Will your obsession ever wear out?" Silius asked one night, voice quiet in the dark of their bedroom, the question sitting between them like something fragile he'd been turning over in his hands for a long time before finally setting it down.Mathew said nothing at first. "....."Silius pressed on, the words coming easier now that he'd started, as though a door somewhere inside him had finally come loose. "Sometimes I think you don't love me at all," he said. "You're just obsessed. Everything you do only reminds me of that.""Our ideas of love are different, baby," Mathew answered finally, low and even. "To you, it may be pure and innocent. But to me, it's about keeping you safe. Keeping you by my side.""I don't feel secure unless you're with me," he went on, the words coming without hesitation, as if he'd said them to himself so many times over the years that they no longer required thought — only breath."As for obsession..." he continued, "yes. I'm obsessed with you. Because I lo

The village Micheal Volkov had spent weeks hunting down turned out to be smaller than he expected a scatter of low rooftops folded into the hills, a lake that caught the morning light like glass, and streets too narrow for the kind of car he usually rode in. It was the sort of place people went to disappear. And someone, clearly, had wanted very badly to disappear.He found him by asking the right questions in the right places, the way he always did. What he hadn't expected to find, when he finally did, was a version of the boy from the photograph so changed that for a moment Micheal simply sat in his car outside a modest little house and did nothing at all.Inside, Mile Graves was trying, with visibly diminishing patience, to cross the length of a small garden path."Wait," he said, breath catching, one hand pressed instinctively beneath the curve of his stomach. "Slow down."Delvin Mortis technically Micheal's personal assistant, though lately he seemed to spend far more hours in

"No," Mathew said quietly, into the dark.The word came out steadier than he felt saying it, smoothed over by years of practice at hiding things he didn't want seen. Silius's breath caught for the briefest moment a small, wounded sound, more felt than heard."Oooh," Silius murmured, and even in that single syllable Mathew could hear the disappointment folding itself carefully away, tucked back beneath the surface where Silius kept everything he didn't want anyone else to carry."Don't worry about him," Mathew said, pressing his lips briefly to the back of Silius's neck. "He'll be fine."Silius only nodded, silent, and let himself be held.It was a lie. Mathew knew it the moment he said it — knew it with the same flat certainty he knew his own name. Because earlier that day, at his office, across a desk cluttered with contracts and unopened mail, his brother had already told him otherwise.**Earlier that day — At Mathew's office**Micheal Volkov didn't bother knocking. He never did.H

Earlier that evening, before Mathew came home, Silius sat curled on the small settee in Mateo's nursery, the baby monitor humming faintly beside him, his phone screen the only real light in the room. Rile had gone quiet on the other end of the call for a long moment before Silius finally spoke again, his voice low, almost afraid of being overheard by the walls themselves."I can't run away with my son," he said. "Not from Mathew. He'll find us no matter where we go."There was no dramatics in the way he said it — no tears, no trembling. Just a flat, tired certainty, the kind that came from having turned an idea over so many times in his mind that it had worn smooth, like a stone in a riverbed."And it's not like my parents would help me either," he continued. "Even if he's a jerk, an asshole... I still can't stop loving him. There must be something wrong with me."He looked down at Mateo, asleep in his arms, one small fist curled against his chest, and for a moment the ache in Silius'

The apartment was too quiet. Mathew Volkov noticed it the moment he stepped through the door, jacket still damp from the evening air, keys still in his hand. Ordinarily this was the loudest ten seconds of his day — Silius calling out a greeting from somewhere in the house, the baby fussing in the background, some small chaos already in motion before Mathew had even taken his shoes off. But tonight there was nothing. Just the hum of the refrigerator and the low gold light spilling out from the living room. He found Silius on the couch. Alone. White hair loose around his shoulders, legs tucked beneath him, phone forgotten in his lap — and no baby in sight. Not on his hip, not asleep against his chest, not anywhere Mathew could see. For a full second, worry threatened to override the strange, guilty spark of relief blooming in his chest. "Where's Mateo?" he asked, setting his keys down on the side table. Silius looked up at him with a slow, deliberate calm that told Mathew every

Rile noticed it before Silius even realized he'd drifted off."What's wrong?" she asked, tilting her head. When he didn't answer right away, she reached out and tapped his shoulder. "Why are you zoning out?"Silius blinked, the fog in his mind clearing just enough for him to register her voice. "N… nothing," he said, though the word came out too quiet, too unconvincing, to fool anyone who'd known him as long as Rile had.Her frown deepened. "Sili…" She softened her tone, leaning in. "Tell me what's going on."He opened his mouth, then closed it again. Across his lap, Mateo lay still, wide dark eyes fixed on his father's face with the unblinking curiosity only infants seemed capable of, as though he understood far more than a two-week-old baby had any right to.Silius's silence stretched long enough that Rile's expression shifted from concern into something sharper."It's about Mathew, isn't it?"The question landed like a stone dropped into still water. Silius felt something in his ch