Novels by Ilelaboye Demilade

The EmbraceBella's POVThe charity gala was not my idea of how to spend an evening when a man named Marcus Cole had gone dark somewhere in the city and a second leak inside Patricia's operation was still unidentified.But Elena had pointed out, correctly and without softening it, that cancelling my attendance at an event I had publicly committed to would be read as weakness by everyone who mattered and as fear by everyone who didn't so I went in a deep green gown that cost enough to make a statement and heels that made me three inches taller than I needed to be. I went and I smiled and I worked the room the way I always did, moving from conversation to conversation with the ease of someone who had been doing this since London and had never once let it show that any of it cost her anything.Elena stayed close as the two security people Carter had arranged stayed at the perimeter of the room, visible enough to be present and careful enough not to be obvious.I was in the middle of a co

The Second LeakDamian's POVI had been in enough boardrooms and enough battles to know that good news and bad news rarely arrived separately.They came together, the way they always did, one hand holding something you wanted and the other already reaching for something you didn't expect to lose. Patricia's call that morning had given us the fingerprint match and the federal warrant in the same breath as the news about Crews and the altered document. I had learned by now to receive both without letting the good make me slow about the bad.Carter came to my office at noon with the expression I had started to recognise as his version of controlled alarm. He sat down, set his tablet on the desk between us, and said, "The federal team reached Cole's last known address at ten this morning.""And?" I asked."He was gone. Apartment professionally cleared. No devices, no prints, nothing left behind that could be used to establish his next location. The team said it looked like the kind of cle

The Eleventh NoteSelene's POVI had listened to the voice notes four times before I caught it.The first three times I had been listening the way you listen when you are afraid. My heart pounding against my ribs, my breath caught somewhere in my throat, bracing myself for words I desperately hoped I would never hear. I was scanning for the obvious things, the names, the plans, the instructions, the things that could be used immediately as evidence or protection. I had found those things in notes one through ten and I had noted them carefully and I had told myself that was enough.The fourth time I listened more slowly. The way you listen when you have stopped being afraid enough to pay proper attention.The eleventh note was the shortest one. 43 seconds. Margaret's voice was quieter on it than on the others, more private, like something she was saying to herself rather than recording as a memo. For the first three listens I had dismissed it as personal reflection, the kind of thing t

Morning LightBella's POVI woke up before the alarm.The penthouse was still dark, the city outside doing that particular pre-dawn thing where it looked less like a city and more like a field of scattered light, quiet and almost peaceful. I lay still for a moment, listening, before I remembered why everything felt different this morning.Then I heard the quiet sound of movement in the kitchen and the low click of a coffee machine. The soft pull of a drawer being opened and closed with the careful consideration of someone who did not want to wake anyone up.Damian was already awake.I stared at the ceiling for a moment before getting up reminiscing how I had spent years building a life in which every morning began alone… london, dubai, new york. Every version of the morning had been just mine. The routine of it had become something I valued without realising I valued it, the specific quiet of a space that answered only to you.And now Damian Cole was in my kitchen at 5:40am, carefully

The Closest I Have Ever ComeDamian's POVI was already in a moving car before she finished the sentence.Carter answered on the first ring when I called him from the road. I told him about the photograph, the courier, and the four words on the back. He was quiet for three seconds, then he said, "Don't let her touch it again. If Cole handled that photograph personally rather than through a third party, his fingerprint puts him at the scene." I told him I understood and ended the call and stared out at the city moving past and thought about a woman standing alone on a West Village pavement this morning, two minutes of private grief, believing she was unseen.Someone had been there watching, close enough to frame her face in a photograph. That thought sat in my chest the whole drive over, sharp and specific, and it did not move.>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>She opened the door before I knocked. She had changed out of her work clothes into something simpler with her hair down. The performance part o

I See YouBella's POVI had learned a long time ago that the most productive thing you could do with fear was to make it work for you and not pretend it wasn't there. Fear had a way of finding the cracks in pretending and seeping through anyway. What worked was acknowledging it quietly and redirecting its energy into something useful. Focus and precision, the next move. That was what I had been doing all evening.The information Victor had handed over this morning had not left me. It had settled beneath my ribs and stayed there, cold and specific. Margaret had built a physical failsafe into the plan before I ever came home. She had used the phrase make it impossible for her to continue three times in a single typed document. I had been holding that knowledge like a stone in my pocket all day, feeling its weight but refusing to let it slow me down.I was going through the financial records Elena had compiled on Margaret's asset movements when my office door opened at half past nine.E