Novels by esseyaudu

NowThe steel door closed behind Leo. Ava stood in the empty clinic. The invitation lay on the counter—heavy paper, gold seal, his scent still on it.She didn't touch it.She walked to the back room. Closed the door. Leaned against the wall and let herself shake.Not from fear. From relief.He'd taken it. The whole thing. The clothes, her performance. She pulled out the phone. Dialed."He came," she said.Silas's voice, flat: "And?""He's offering the gala. The dress. Everything." She looked at her hands. Steady now. "He thinks he's using me. Thinks I'm his weapon against Ryan.""You're sure he doesn't know?"Ava laughed. Once. Ugly. "He doesn't even know I know his name."She hung up. Stood in the dark.Day 1The first night. The room in the supply closet. Ava couldn't sleep. She pressed her palm to the wall. Cold. Concrete. The Pit roared three walls away, but she wasn't listening to the screams.She was listening to names.Silas had mentioned Leo Vane once. Casual. "The next Top A

Leo sat in the back of the black sedan. Elias drove—silent, efficient, the perfect Omega. The city blurred past. Gray Zone to glass towers. Filth to money. Everyone here knew who Leo was. Everyone moved when he walked. She hadn't. Leo reached into his pocket. Pulled out the pen. Broken, useless. He'd taken it from her table without deciding to. Clicked it twice. It still didn't work. He threw it at the closed window. It bounced off, landed on the seat. He didn't pick it up. "Elias." "Sir?" "The girl from the Pit." "Find out who she is." Elias glanced in the rearview. "The one who—" "Yes." "What for?" "She didn't know who I was," he said. The words came out wrong. He didn't explain himself. Didn't need to. "Find out everything. Name. Where she came from. Why she's there." Elias nodded. "Okay sir" Leo looked out the window. The city moved below him. The pen clicked in his pocket. He didn't remember putting it there. At the penthouse, he walked past the bar. Past the safe wit

Silas threw the boots. Ava caught them against her chest without looking up from the suture she was practicing on rubber skin. "Get ready," he said. "You’re coming with me to the pit." Ava replied "You said not to—" "I know what I said." He was already moving grabbing supplies, stuffing them into a canvas bag. "You’ll be counting bets tonight. Please try not to be bad at it. Don't steal." She set the needle down. The boots went on—tight, automatic, no wasted motion. Two weeks of scrubbing blood and counting morphine and sleeping in three-hour shifts. Her hands were rough now. Her back didn't ache anymore. She'd stopped flinching when the steel door screamed. Silas didn't wait. He walked to the steel door, pressed his palm to the scanner. The lock clicked. Ava followed. The hallway was narrow. Wet. Lit by bare bulbs that flickered when the crowd roared. The sound wasn't cheering—it was just noise. Animal. Pressed close enough to feel through the floor. Ava's boots were l

The room was a broom cupboard with a mattress thrown in. Ava found it by smell—industrial cleaner failing to cover something older. Sweat. Blood. The particular ammonia of someone else's fear. She lay down. The sheet was damp. She stared at the ceiling, counting water stains. Placeholder. She pressed her palm flat against the wall. Concrete. Cold. Then—vibration. A low frequency that started in her teeth and traveled down her spine. Not machinery. Voices. Distorted by distance, by steel, by the particular acoustics of a building that had heard too much. She pressed harder. The cold bit through her skin. The vibration continued. Someone was screaming, three walls away, and the wall was thin enough to carry it. She didn't sleep. She listened. The screams had shapes. Some high, breaking. Some low, stubborn. One sounded like begging. Another like rage. Then one that sounded like please, do you know who I am, and Ava's stomach turned because she heard Ryan in it. Not his voice—th

Ava didn't look back. She had no phone, no coat, no money. Just a ruined dress and blood drying sticky on her palms. The bus wheezed up. She climbed in, bare feet black on the metal steps. The fluorescent light made her look like a ghost—torn silk and wild hair. The other passengers stared, then looked away. Nobody sat near her. She pressed her forehead to the window, let the vibration rattle her skull. Every bump was Ryan's voice. Placeholder. Every pothole was her father's door slamming. Decorative. She dug her nails into her thigh until it hurt worse than the memory. The bus emptied out. Neighborhoods changed—glass towers to cracked concrete, BMWs to busted Neon signs. The kind of place where you settled scores with fists, not lawyers. "End of the line." The driver's voice dragged her out. She stood on wet asphalt, still barefoot. The pavement was ice and glass. She walked until she found a teenager leaning against tagged brick. "Is there a doctor around here?" The teen looke

The Hale estate didn't have a gate. It had a throat. Ava walked up the drive, gravel cutting into her bare feet with every step. The house loomed ahead—modernist glass and steel, her father's pride, her mother's cage. The windows were dark except for one. His study. Always his study. She didn't knock. In this house, you announced weakness. Marcus Hale sat in his study, legs crossed, whiskey catching the light from a lamp that cost more than most wolves made in a year. He didn't look up. Didn't need to. He'd heard the gate. Heard the gravel. Probably heard her heartbeat, the way Alpha’s could when they bothered to listen. "You're trending," he said. “Congratulations. You’ve become the most expensive joke in the city.” Ava stood in the doorway. Soaked. Her dress clung to her like a second, ruined skin. The cuts on her feet had reopened on the walk, leaving red smears on his precious floors. "Ryan dumped me," she said. "I know." Marcus swirled the glass. The ice clicked against cry