Chapter: ISABELLAISABELLAPOV: NikolaiShe came through the door between two investigators and she looked like herself.That was the thing I noticed first. After a day that had taken pieces off everyone in it, after a mountain and a cabin and a library full of things that could not be unsaid, Isabella came through the door of the Varyn estate looking exactly as she always looked. Composed. Upright. The specific armour of a woman who had decided thirty years ago that appearance was its own form of power and had never stopped believing it.She looked at me first.Then at Hazel.Then at Vera, who had come out of the library when she heard the cars and was standing at the end of the entrance hall with her hands folded, waiting.The two investigators were a man and a woman, both in their forties, both with the particular quality of people who had been doing this long enough to read a room without showing that they were reading it. They introduced themselves and showed credentials and asked if there was som
Last Updated: 2026-05-02
Chapter: SIGNATURESIGNATUREPOV: HazelI kept the phone to my ear."Say it again," I said to Mara.She said it again.Vera Varyn.I looked at Vera and she was looking at the window and the fire was going and the tea was on the table and everything in the library was exactly as it always was and the woman sitting in the chair at the centre of it had just become a different shape entirely."I will call you back," I said to Mara.I ended the call.Nikolai was very still beside me.The room held the specific silence of people who were waiting for someone to speak and understood that the person who needed to speak was the one who was not looking at either of them."Vera," I said.She looked at the fire."You signed the original structure documentation," I said. "Reeve's earliest operation. The one my father handed over on the mountain. Your signature is on it."She said nothing."You were not watching Reeve build," I said. "You were building with him."She looked at me then.Her face was the same face it al
Last Updated: 2026-05-02
Chapter: SOLICITORSOLICITORPOV: HazelI looked at her for a long moment."You have been holding my mother's account for eleven years," I said."Yes," she said."You are the solicitor in Edinburgh," I said."I have an office there," she said. "I maintained it after my husband's death for exactly this kind of purpose. Something that existed outside the Varyn name and outside Sky Shade City and outside any structure Reeve could find if he went looking." She set her tea down. "Your mother trusted me with it because I was the only person she knew who had both the means to protect it and enough distance from Reeve's network to do so safely.""And you sat in this house for a year," I said. "Watching me survive inside a marriage I did not need. Watching me pull at threads trying to find something I already had access to.""Yes," she said."Why," I said. "If you had the account and you knew who I was and you knew why I was here, why did you not tell me."She held my gaze."Because you needed to be ready," she
Last Updated: 2026-05-01
Chapter: HOMEHOMEPOV: HazelWe got back to the estate at four in the afternoon.Kaden was at the door before the car stopped, which meant he had been watching the drive, and he looked at the back seat and saw Iris and something in his face loosened that had been tight since this morning. He opened the door and I passed Iris to him without thinking and he took her with the careful unpracticed hold of a man who did not have much experience with small children and was trying not to show it.Iris looked at him.He looked at her."Hello," he said.She grabbed his ear.He winced and looked at me."She does that," I said.Lena came out of the house behind him and I stepped back and let her reach Iris and that was a thing I did not need to watch closely because it was hers and I had already had my version of it on the mountain step and there was only so much a person could hold in one day.I went inside.The estate felt different when I came through the door. Not different in the way it had felt for the
Last Updated: 2026-05-01
Chapter: BUYERBUYERPOV: NikolaiThe name on the screen was Vera Varyn.I stood in the middle of the cabin and looked at it and looked at Hazel and looked at it again and the specific quality of the silence in the room said that everyone present understood what they were looking at and nobody wanted to be the first to speak.Reeve spoke first."I did not know," he said.I looked at him."The distribution list was managed by Petra," he said. "I set the logistics chain up and I handed it to her and I did not audit the buyer list directly. I had a figure at the end of each season and a chain that did not connect to my name and I did not look further than that.""You did not know Vera was buying the extract," I said."No," he said.I looked at Petra.She was leaning against the wall with her arms crossed and the expression of a woman who had just run out of things to trade."How long," I said."Since the beginning," she said. "The first season. She contacted the logistics chain six weeks after the faci
Last Updated: 2026-04-30
Chapter: FACILITYFACILITYPOV: NikolaiTwo kilometres.The same distance Sable had told me I had been from the herb when I was on this mountain for three months. I had walked this ground in every direction looking for something and it had been two kilometres away the entire time, not growing wild the way I had imagined it, not hidden in some unreachable fold of the mountain, but inside a facility that Reeve had been running for twelve years while I was grieving the woman whose life it could have extended.I looked at Petra."Take me there," I said."Nikolai," Hazel said."Stay with Iris," I said. "I will be back."She looked at me with the expression she had when she wanted to argue and had decided the timing was wrong. She stayed.Petra pulled on her coat and I followed her out of the cabin into the cold mountain air and we walked in the direction I had walked a hundred times during those three months, northeast, toward the ridge I had climbed repeatedly looking for the specific terrain the herb requ
Last Updated: 2026-04-29
The stepbrother I ran from is my new professor.
“Tell me,” he said, low and dangerous. “Tell me who this cunt belongs to.”
“You,” I panted, spreading wider, shameless. “It’s yours—please, Micaiah—”
“Come on my cock,” he ordered through gritted teeth. “Show me how much you love being fucked by me.”
★☆
Maliya comes home after two years abroad, hoping everything she ran from has finally cooled. But the moment she steps through the door, she realizes nothing has changed—especially not the one person she never wanted to face again.
Micaiah.
Her stepbrother. Her almost. Her reason for disappearing.
She plans to keep her distance, start classes, rebuild her life… until her parents drop the news: they’ve transferred her to a new university, the one where Micaiah works as a professor. And they’re leaving for a three-month honeymoon, meaning she and Micaiah will be living in the same house. Alone.
Maliya tells herself she can handle it.
But Micaiah has his own ideas about unfinished business.
Three months isn’t long… unless you’re stuck with the one person you swore you’d never fall for again.
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Chapter: BrotherChapter Eighty-One — Brother⚔Micaiah's POV⚔I hadn't said that name out loud in two years.Maliya was staring at me with her phone still extended between us and I was looking at the paused footage and trying to decide how much of what just came out of my mouth I could take back. The answer was none of it. It was already out there, sitting in the hallway between us, too big to step around.I took the phone from her hand and watched the footage from the beginning.Forty seconds. Kieran and Marcus standing between two cars, close enough that whatever they were saying wasn't meant to travel. Marcus had his back mostly to the camera but I knew his posture the same way you know anyone you grew up watching. The way he held his shoulders. The way he turned his head when he was making a point he wanted to land.I'd spent twenty years knowing that posture.I handed the phone back."Marcus Veil is your uncle," Maliya said. Not a question."My father's younger brother. He dropped the Anderson na
Last Updated: 2026-05-01
Chapter: watchedChapter Eighty — Watched★Maliya's POV★Stephanie had been talking for ten minutes straight and I hadn't heard a word she said.I knew she was talking about some guy from her modeling agency because she'd said his name three times and made a face each time, but beyond that I had nothing. My brain was somewhere else entirely. Sitting in Micaiah's car replaying that message on a loop.You need to tell Micaiah about me.I hadn't. I'd sat next to him the whole drive and said nothing and then spent the rest of the morning convincing myself I was waiting for the right moment when really I just didn't know how to hand him that particular grenade.Hey, the person you've been looking for has been in your phone for weeks. Surprise."Maliya."I looked up. Stephanie was staring at me."Where are you right now.""Here. Sorry. Keep going."She gave me the look she'd perfected over the past few weeks, the one that said she didn't believe me but wasn't going to push. Then she went back to the agency
Last Updated: 2026-05-01
Chapter: footageChapter Seventy-Nine — Footage⚔Micaiah's POV⚔I knew something was wrong before she said a word.Maliya had been quiet the whole drive, which wasn't unusual. But there's a difference between someone who has nothing to say and someone who's sitting on something they haven't decided what to do with yet. She was watching the road the whole time with her phone face down in her lap and her jaw set in that particular way that meant her brain was working faster than she was letting on.I parked and she got out before I cut the engine.I let her go.First class was mine. I stood at the front of the room and taught and watched her in the third row not look at me, which was its own kind of looking. She took notes. Asked one question that was sharper than anything anyone else in the room had offered all morning. Two students near the back were visibly surprised she'd said anything at all.I called on her once near the end just to see what she'd do.She answered without hesitating and then went
Last Updated: 2026-04-28
Chapter: The NameChapter Seventy-Eight — The Name★Maliya's POV★I didn't sleep.I tried. Lay flat on my back with the lamp off and my phone on my chest and stared at the ceiling until my eyes adjusted to the dark and then kept staring. The anonymous account's last message was still open. Lock your door. Like whatever he knew was bad enough that a locked door was the first thing he thought of.I'd locked it.That was the part that scared me most. That I'd done it without arguing.I got up at six, showered, and came downstairs to find Micaiah already in the kitchen. He was dressed for school, coffee made, standing at the counter going through something on his phone with the focused expression he got when something was wrong and he was trying not to show it.He looked up when I came in."You slept," he said."Barely."He nodded and poured me a coffee without being asked. I took it and sat at the counter and we did the quiet morning thing we'd been doing since I came back. Careful. Measured. Like two peo
Last Updated: 2026-04-08
Chapter: what he knowsChapter Seventy-Seven — What He Knows☆Daemon's POV☆The photo came in at 11:47 p.m.I looked at it once. Put my phone face down and finished the drink in my hand. Then I picked it back up and looked at it again.Me and Maliya on the couch. Her head on my shoulder, both asleep. Taken from outside the window, close enough that whoever held the camera had been standing maybe four feet from the glass. Patient. Still. Waiting for exactly that frame.I called Zane.He picked up fast. "Boss.""The safe house on Mercer. Who was on the south perimeter last night."A pause I didn't like. Then I heard him moving, keys, a door closing."Zane.""Pulling it now." More movement. Then he went quiet in a way that told me he'd found something before he said anything. "Luca. He had south from ten to two."I hung up.Luca Marre had been with me for six years. I'd pulled him out of a collapsing operation in Vegas when he had nothing and no one and I'd given him a place and a salary and more trust than I
Last Updated: 2026-04-07
Chapter: what the name meansChapter Seventy-Six — What the Name Means★Maliya's POV★I unpacked like it was something I could control.Shirts folded. Books stacked by size. Toiletries lined up on the bathroom shelf in the order I'd use them. If I kept my hands busy my brain would follow. That was the theory.It wasn't working.The necklace sat on the edge of my dresser and every time I moved past it I'd pick it up, hold it for a second, then put it back down like it was something that might burn me if I held it too long.I left it there and went back to unpacking.When the bag was empty I sat on the bed and pulled out my phone. The photo I'd taken of Richard's paper was still in my gallery. I'd looked at it a dozen times since last night without actually doing anything with it. Just staring at the circled name like it would eventually mean something on its own.I opened a browser and typed it in.The results loaded fast.I read the first three lines and went very still.It wasn't a company name. It wasn't a rand
Last Updated: 2026-04-07
Addicted to Roseanne {GL}
Blurb
Elle has always been the tough girl next to her best friend Roseanne, the sweet one with perfect curves that make heads turn. In their last year of high school, Elle helps Roseanne take nude photos for her boyfriend Jake, but seeing Roseanne's bare tits sparks a fire in Elle that she can't put out.
Her flag turns rainbow, and her mind fills with filthy dreams of pinning Roseanne down, tasting her wet folds, and making her scream in pleasure. But Jake stands in the way, a rich jerk who cheats and hurts Roseanne.
Elle blackmails him to break up, but that just starts a chain of dark events. Roseanne, heartbroken, leans on Elle for comfort, leading to stolen kisses and heated touches that cross lines. Elle's obsession grows, turning her into a hunter who watches Roseanne sleep, steals her panties, and plans ways to own her fully.
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Chapter: TenChapter Twenty — TenRoseanne's POVI did not wait for her to promise.I already knew she would not do anything stupid before tonight. Elle did not make reckless moves. She made calculated ones, and the calculation required information she did not have yet. That was the only reason Jake was still untouched.I went home and made it through dinner.My father was tired from travel and my mother had made pasta and kept the conversation neutral, the way she did when she was managing the room. We talked about school, about the weather turning, about my father's trip. Nobody mentioned Jake. Nobody mentioned Elle. The name sat under the table like something we had all agreed not to step on.After dinner my father asked me to sit with him in the study for a minute.I sat. He closed the door and stood by the window with his hands in his pockets, looking out at the dark street. The lamp on his desk was on and it made the room feel smaller and quieter than it was."Thursday still works for you?"
Last Updated: 2026-05-01
Chapter: VinceChapter Nineteen — VinceElle's POVI read my mother's text twice and kept walking.Not because it did not matter. Because standing in the middle of a school hallway staring at my phone was not going to change what it said, and I needed walls around me before I could think straight.I found the bathroom at the end of the science wing, empty third period, and stood at the sink with the tap running and looked at my own face in the mirror. Three words. Vince came by. That was all she had sent and it was enough. Vince did not make house calls to check in. He made house calls to remind you that your house existed and that he knew where it was.I turned the tap off and called her.She picked up on the first ring, which meant she had been waiting."What happened," I said."He knocked on the door this morning." Her voice was lower than usual, the particular quiet she used when she was sober and scared. "Two of his guys waited by the car. He was polite, Elle. That's what scared me."Polite was
Last Updated: 2026-05-01
Chapter: paperChapter Eighteen — PaperElle's POVThe note was still in her jacket pocket.I knew because she had not thrown it away, had not shown it to me, had not mentioned it once since she folded it back up and closed her locker. She had just carried it through the whole morning like it was something she was still deciding what to do with.That bothered me more than the note itself.We had two classes together on Mondays, third and fifth period. I watched her through both of them. She sat straight, answered when she was called on, wrote notes in her usual careful handwriting. From the outside she looked fine. I knew the difference between Roseanne fine and Roseanne actually fine. This was the first one.At lunch she found me before I found her, which was unusual. She sat down across from me at the far end of the courtyard, away from the main tables, and put her tray down without saying anything. I waited. She picked at her food for a minute."It said I should ask you what you did with the copi
Last Updated: 2026-05-01
Chapter: paperChapter Eighteen — PaperElle's POVThe note was still in her jacket pocket.I knew because she had not thrown it away, had not shown it to me, had not mentioned it once since she folded it back up and closed her locker. She had just carried it through the whole morning like it was something she was still deciding what to do with.That bothered me more than the note itself.We had two classes together on Mondays, third and fifth period. I watched her through both of them. She sat straight, answered when she was called on, wrote notes in her usual careful handwriting. From the outside she looked fine. I knew the difference between Roseanne fine and Roseanne actually fine. This was the first one.At lunch she found me before I found her, which was unusual. She sat down across from me at the far end of the courtyard, away from the main tables, and put her tray down without saying anything. I waited. She picked at her food for a minute."It said I should ask you what you did with the copi
Last Updated: 2026-04-28
Chapter: WarmChapter Seventeen — WarmElle's POVShe was smiling at her plate.I knew because she sent me a voice note at nine fifteen, whispering from her bedroom, and I could sense the smile in her voice even before she said anything worth smiling about. She said her dad had come home and it had not gone the way she expected and she would tell me everything tomorrow and goodnight.I played it three times.Then I lay on my back on my bed and stared at the ceiling and thought about the way she had looked in my doorway this evening. The porch light catching her face. The way she had not stepped out immediately, just stood there in the gap between staying and going. I had wanted to reach out and pull her back inside. Had wanted it badly enough that I had to consciously put my hands in my pockets.She was going to be the end of me.I got up eventually and went to check on my mother.Diane was asleep on the couch, properly this time — not passed out, just asleep. Blanket pulled up, television low. A g
Last Updated: 2026-04-02
Chapter: MineChapter Sixteen — MinePaul Calvert's POVShe said it so simply.Not defensively, not carefully, not wrapped in the soft language I might have expected from my daughter who had always known exactly how to manage me. Just two words, flat and certain, like she was identifying something that had always been true and was tired of pretending otherwise.I looked at her face. She did not look away.I had flown home early for this. Richard Harlan had called me at two in the afternoon while I was in a meeting, voice smooth and practiced, the tone of a man who had handled situations before and considered himself good at it. He had talked for eleven minutes. I had said very little. I was good at that too.On the drive from the airport I had built a version of this conversation in my head. Questions I would ask. Points I would make. The measured, reasonable approach of a father who was concerned but not reactive.Standing in her doorway now, none of it felt right."Sit down, Dad," Roseanne said.
Last Updated: 2026-04-02
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