Novels by Le’Vel Dendy

The morning air felt lighter, as though the weight pressing on Laya’s chest had lessened slightly. For the first time in weeks, there was a sense of movement—of something finally happening instead of just crumbling around her. She clutched the cardboard coffee cup in her hands, fingers wrapped tightly around its warmth as she stepped off the elevator and made her way down the familiar corridor toward Kyle’s room. His transfer was scheduled for the afternoon. A private ambulance was already on standby, arranged by Cybil through her extensive network. Cybil the guardian angel, she had been able to open doors Laya could never have dreamed of. The facility—one of the top neurological treatment centres right here in the city—would give Kyle access to equipment and experimental therapies far beyond what had been available in his current ward. It was everything Laya had dreamed of for him. But it had come at a cost. She paused just outside his door, took a breath, then pushed it

The morning sun crept in behind thick clouds, casting a muted, silver light across the grounds of St. Augustine’s Chapel. The air was brisk, almost hesitant, as if the day itself knew what was about to take place was not ordinary, not joyful, but something altogether different, quiet, strange, necessary. Laya stood in the small antechamber just off the main aisle, her hands folded tightly around a modest bouquet of ivory roses. She hadn’t asked for flowers, yet Cybil had insisted. “It’s still a wedding,” she had said, “even if it’s unconventional.” Her dress was simple, with long sleeves, smooth satin, and a high neckline. There was no veil, no frills, no lace, just the clean, solemn lines of a woman walking into something she wasn’t sure she could ever walk back from. The door opened gently behind her as Cybil stepped in. She looked immaculate in a navy-blue suit, tailored and sharp, her silver hair swept into an elegant chignon. Today, there was no softness in her expression, on

The next morning brought with it a grey light that barely filtered through the tall windows of the law office. Laya sat stiffly on the edge of a worn leather chair; her fingers laced together so tightly her knuckles were pale. Her eyes were fixed on the contract sitting in the centre of the oak desk between her and Marcus Bellamy, her father’s lifelong friend and the Kerrigan family’s legal counsel for over two decades. Marcus looked every bit the part of the seasoned solicitor, silver-haired, sharp-eyed, with lines around his mouth that spoke of too many serious conversations and too many burdens carried in silence. He was flipping through the final pages of the contract again, though she knew he’d already reviewed it thoroughly before she arrived. “I had hoped the next time you sat in this office it would be for something joyful,” he said quietly, sliding his glasses off and setting them on the desk. “But this… Laya, this is something else.” Laya swallowed hard, her throat dry d

Laya didn’t sleep, not really. She spent the night tangled in her sheets, limbs heavy and restless, her mind endlessly circling back to the chapel and Cybil Ashcroft’s voice: smooth, composed, and razor sharp beneath its warmth. “Is it worse than watching everything fall apart for the both of us?” The words slithered into her thoughts like a vine wrapping around the trunk of a dying tree: quiet, steady, and unshakable. The very idea of marrying a man on the verge of death, one she barely knew, was grotesque in theory: cold, calculated, transactional — everything she had never been. Yet, every time she tried to dismiss it, Kyle’s face surged to the front of her mind: pale, fragile, with that quiet smile he reserved only for her, the one that never stopped being protective even as his own body betrayed him. She saw him as a child, curled in their father’s lap, arms wrapped tight around John Kerrigan’s neck as if he’d never let go. She remembered the first time she had met him. Lay

The hospital chapel was dimly lit, a soft amber glow spilling from wall sconces onto the polished wooden pews. The scent of old incense lingered faintly in the air, soothing, almost sacred. It was the kind of quiet that wrapped around the soul like a wool blanket, warm, heavy, absolute. Cybil Ashcroft stepped inside, her heels hushed by the carpet. She exhaled a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding, the weight of the day pressing into her chest like a boulder. Daniel’s prognosis remained uncertain. The doctors had said things like “hours,” “trauma,” and “massive blood loss.” Words that spun like autumn leaves in her mind, never settling, never stopping. She needed to think. To be still. Her eyes swept across the room and paused. A young woman sat hunched on the front pew, shoulders shaking, hands covering her face. She looked small in the vast stillness of the chapel, swallowed by grief. Cybil hesitated, half-ready to leave, but something in her, the mother perhaps, kept h

The screech of tires outside the emergency entrance barely registered as Cybil Ashcroft flung her car door open and stepped out, her heels clacking sharply against the wet tarmac. Her coat flared behind her in the wind like a cape, a useless piece of fashion in the face of raw panic. “Daniel Ashcroft,” she barked at the front desk before the receptionist could finish her greeting. “My son was brought in after a car accident. Where is he?” The young woman blinked up at her, startled. “Yes, ma’am. He’s in surgery now. The trauma team—” “I want to speak to a doctor. Now.” “I’ll get someone to update you. Please take a seat in the family waiting room, just down the corridor.” Cybil didn’t thank her. She turned on her heel and marched down the sterile hallway, breath shallow, heart pounding as if it were trying to escape her chest. Her fingers were cold, though she couldn’t recall when she had taken off her gloves. The world around her blurred, beeping machines, the distant rol