Novels by Jade Banks

Adrian did not move.Rain ran from his hair, down his face, into the open collar of his ruined white shirt. He stood in the chapel doorway with Bunny hanging from one hand, soaked to the skin, his eyes fixed on the arm locked around Elena’s waist.Sebastian’s mouth was close to her ear.“One more step, brother,” he murmured, “and she bleeds before the baby does.”Elena felt the knife then.A cold kiss at the side of her throat.Adrian saw it.Something changed in his face so completely that, for one second, Elena forgot the blade. The man she had known in pieces all night — father, son, ex-husband, almost-lover — vanished into something darker. Something controlled enough to be terrifying.“Take it away from her,” Adrian said.His voice was quiet.That made it worse.Sebastian laughed softly. “Still giving orders. Still thinking the world was built to kneel when a Blackwood speaks.”“You have a knife at her throat and a baby crying at the altar,” Adrian said. “Do not mistake restraint

Elena stopped halfway down the path.Rain slid beneath her collar and ran cold down her spine. Her blouse clung to her skin, her hair stuck to her cheeks, and the gravel beneath her shoes shone black under the moonlight. Behind her, Blackwood House glowed through the rain like something beautiful pretending it was not rotten at the core.Ahead, the old chapel waited.Small. Stone. Half-swallowed by ivy.Its doors were shut.Bunny felt heavy in her arms.The blue ribbon around his neck crackled softly.Sebastian’s voice came through the tiny wire, intimate and amused.“Good girl. Now take off Adrian’s ring and leave it in the rain.”Elena looked down at her hand.Her finger was bare.Only the faint pale mark remained, where a ring had once lived long enough to leave a ghost behind.“You already have my ring,” she said.Sebastian laughed softly. “Not the one I mean.”Her stomach tightened.Behind her, somewhere inside the house, Adrian would be listening. She could imagine him standing

The radio went silent.No one moved.For a few seconds, the hall seemed to hold its breath with them. Rain tapped at the windows. The chandelier burned too brightly above their heads. Somewhere beyond the glass, the old chapel waited in the dark, and Rose was out there with a man wearing Elena’s wedding ring.Adrian’s hand tightened around hers.“He is not getting you alone,” he said.His voice was low. Almost calm.Elena knew by now that calm was the most dangerous version of him.“He has Rose.”“He wants you.”“He wants the ring.”“No.” Adrian stepped closer, and the warmth of him reached her before his hand did. “He wants me standing here helpless while you walk into the dark.”The words landed because they were true.Sebastian had not simply made a demand. He had designed a punishment. Adrian outside. Elena inside. A baby between them. A ring turned into a weapon.Vivienne watched from the side of the hall with that quiet, satisfied look Elena wanted to tear from her face.“Do not

Sebastian’s voice faded into static.For a few seconds, Rose’s cry was the only sound left, thin and frightened through the officer’s radio.Then that disappeared too.Camilla made a small, broken noise. Elias caught her before her knees gave way, but his own face had turned grey, his eyes fixed on the radio as if he could drag the baby back through it by force alone.Elena stood very still.If Elena wants the baby alive, she comes wearing the ring.Adrian turned to her at once.“No.”One word. Hard as a locked door.Elena looked at him. “Adrian—”“No.” He stepped closer, and nothing about him looked polished now. His shirt was creased, his hair ruined, his face stripped down to fury and fear. “He asked for you by name. That is not an invitation. It is a trap.”“Rose is a baby.”“And you are Leo’s mother.”The words struck deep.Leo was behind Julian, clutching Bunny, watching everything with tired, frightened eyes. Trying to understand why every adult in the house kept speaking in ca

Rose’s cry came through the officer’s radio, thin and frightened beneath the hiss of rain.Camilla broke first.She stumbled towards the stairs, the empty blanket slipping from her hands. “Rose.”Elias caught her before she reached the first step. She fought him for half a second, wild with panic, but he held her by the shoulders and spoke low, too quietly for Elena to hear. Whatever he said did not calm her. Nothing could have. But it stopped her from running blindly into the dark.Adrian had not moved.He was still staring at the officer’s phone, at the grainy image of the man outside the chapel. Sebastian Blackwood. A name that had entered the corridor like a match struck in a room full of gas.Elena looked at the screen again.The resemblance was unsettling. Elias’s eyes. Adrian’s mouth. The same hard line of bone beneath the skin. A stranger made from familiar pieces.And on his finger, her wedding ring.Adrian saw where she was looking.“I’ll take it back,” he said.Quiet. For h

For a moment, the corridor forgot how to breathe.Leo stood pressed against Elena’s side, Bunny tucked beneath his chin, his eyes fixed on Elias.“She came with the man from Daddy’s picture,” he whispered.Every head turned.Elias did not move. In the dim corridor light, with rain tapping at the windows and shadows gathering in the corners, he looked too much like the portrait to be real. Same eyes. Same mouth. Same proud, tired line to his face.Adrian stepped forward.Not far. Just enough to put his body between Leo and Elias.“Do you mean him?” he asked, his voice quiet.Leo’s little fingers tightened around Bunny’s ear.Elena crouched beside him at once, her hand smoothing over his hair. “It’s all right, sweetheart. You’re not in trouble. Just tell us what you saw.”Leo looked at Elias again, then shook his head. “He looked like him. But not exactly.”The words settled coldly over the corridor.Elias’s face changed.Only slightly.But Elena saw it.So did Adrian.“What does that m

Elena knew, before she opened the envelope, that something inside it would ruin her.Some truths had weight. You could feel them before they touched you. This one sat in Vivienne’s hand, thin and cream-coloured, the black wax seal cracked like it had been waiting years to break.Damian had gone very still.That frightened her more than if he had shouted.All night, he had been impossible to read. Cold at the altar. Controlled in the ballroom. Dangerous in the hallway. But now, standing in the rain with his wet shirt clinging to him and his face drained of colour, he looked less like a man and more like a boy watching a locked door open.“Don’t read it,” he said.His voice was low.Not a command this time.A warning.Elena looked at him. “Why?”He didn’t answer.Vivienne gave a small, bitter smile. “Because Clara’s truth is the one thing this family never survived.”The rain fell harder, striking the stone steps, flattening the hem of Elena’s wedding dress against her legs. Somewhere b

Elena could not stop looking at her father’s face.That was the cruelest part of it. Not the forged signature. Not the hospital forms soaked soft at the edges from the rain. Not even the message written on the back of the photograph like a threat slipped under a door.Tell your wife to behave, Damian.It was her father’s face.He was asleep in the picture, turned slightly towards the window, one hand resting above the blanket. Small. Grey. Tired in a way he never allowed himself to be when she visited. Her father always smiled for her. Always squeezed her fingers and told her not to worry, even when his voice was thin and the machines beside him told the truth his mouth would not.Someone had stood beside his bed and taken this.Someone had watched him while he slept.Elena’s fingers curled so tightly around the photograph that the corner bent.“Who took it?” she asked.The rain battered the stone steps, turning the driveway into a black river. Damian stood in front of her with water

Rain blew in through the open door and struck Elena full in the face.For one stupid second, she was grateful for it. The cold gave her something simple to feel. Something that wasn’t humiliation. Something that wasn’t Damian’s hand at her waist, or his grandfather’s voice turning her womb into a family investment.Then she saw Vivienne standing at the bottom of the steps.Silver dress soaked dark at the hem. Blonde hair loosened by the rain. One arm wrapped around herself, the other clutching a black file against her chest like it was the only thing keeping her upright.Elena froze.Behind her, Damian stopped too.The whole world seemed to narrow to the rain, the porch light, and the file in Vivienne’s hand.“What is that?” Elena asked.Vivienne looked at Damian first.Not with smugness this time. Not with the polished cruelty she had worn all evening like perfume. Her face looked stripped bare by the rain, younger somehow, and bitterly tired.“The reason you should have kept running

Elena did not remember letting go of Damian.One moment she was in his arms, trapped beneath the chandelier light while the ballroom cheered for the child she had never agreed to have. The next, her hand was slipping from his shoulder, her wedding dress brushing cold against her legs as she stepped back from him.The applause kept going.That was what made it worse.People were smiling. Laughing softly. Raising champagne glasses as if Damian’s grandfather had said something charming, something sweet, something a bride should blush over.An heir.Elena felt the word crawl over her skin.Damian’s hand caught hers before she could move farther.“Elena,” he said, low enough that no one else would hear.She looked at him.His face was calm, because of course it was. Damian Blackwood could probably stand in the middle of a fire and look mildly inconvenienced. But his eyes were different. Darker. Tighter. Fixed on her like he knew she was one breath away from breaking.Across the room, Vivie

Elena walked back into the ballroom with Damian’s hand resting against the curve of her spine, and every face turned towards them.It was strange, how quiet a room could become without ever truly falling silent. The music still played. Glasses still touched lips. Silk still whispered as women leaned towards one another, hungry for gossip. But beneath all of it, Elena felt the shift.The bride had returned.The ring was back on her finger.And her husband looked as though he had just won something.She hated him for that.Damian moved beside her like the room had been built for him. Black suit, loosened tie, dark eyes, one hand pressed lightly to her back as if he was guiding her, not holding her in place. To anyone watching, it would have looked intimate. Protective. A wealthy man unable to stop touching his new wife.Elena knew better.She leaned closer, smiling for the guests. “Take your hand off me.”His mouth barely moved. “Then stop looking like you’re about to run.”“I am about

Vivienne’s words did not leave the hallway when she did.They stayed there, pressed into the walls, sliding under Elena’s skin until even the silk of her wedding dress felt too tight.The child has to be conceived before the contract ends.Elena stood very still, because if she moved too quickly, she might do something humiliating. Cry. Scream. Tear the dress from her body and walk barefoot out of the Blackwood mansion in front of every rich, smiling stranger who had toasted her like she was the luckiest woman alive.Damian watched the door Vivienne had disappeared through, his face half-shadowed, his mouth set in a hard line. He looked angry. Not embarrassed. Not guilty enough. Angry, as if the night had betrayed him instead of her.Elena almost laughed.“You should go after her,” she said. Her voice sounded strange to her own ears. Too calm. Too cold. “She seems to know more about my marriage than I do.”Damian turned. “Vivienne likes to hurt people.”“And you don’t?”That landed.F

Elena heard the words, but her body refused them.Your mother’s hospital bed is empty.For a second, the room went strange around her. Clara’s dress on the bed. The broken mirror. The blood on Thomas’s temple. Natalie standing by the wall with one hand over her mouth. Adrian above Thomas, one knee pressed between his shoulders, looking calm in the way men looked right before they did something unforgivable.Elena stepped forward.Then stopped.Her legs did not feel like hers.“Say it again,” Adrian said.Thomas smiled into the carpet. “Her bed is empty.”Adrian twisted his arm higher.Thomas made a sharp sound, half pain, half laugh.Elena dropped to her knees beside him before she knew she had moved. She grabbed the front of his shirt, pulling his face towards hers.“Where is she?”Thomas’s eyes moved over her face, slow and cruel. “You really are easy to hurt.”She slapped him.The crack of it silenced the room.Her palm stung. She barely felt it.“Where is my mother?”Thomas spat b

Elena read the note three times.Not because she didn’t understand it.Because she did.Natalie was followed here. He is already inside.The words sat black and ugly on the paper, and suddenly Clara’s bedroom felt smaller than it had before. The dress on the bed. The broken speaker in the wardrobe. The red lipstick. Natalie’s blood-stained sleeve. All of it pressed in on Elena until the air felt too thick to breathe.Adrian took the note from her hand.His face did not change, but Elena was starting to understand him better than she wanted to. The colder he looked, the more dangerous he became.“Who followed you?” he asked.Natalie shook her head. “I don’t know.”“That isn’t an answer.”“I didn’t stop and introduce myself, Adrian. He grabbed me outside the hospital. I hit him with my keys and ran.”Elena’s eyes went to the blood on Natalie’s sleeve.Natalie noticed. “Some of it’s his.”“Some?” Elena asked.Natalie looked away.That was not comforting.A sound came from the hallway.No

Natalie stood in Clara’s doorway with rain in her hair and blood on her sleeve.For once, she did not look perfect.The red coat was still tied neatly at her waist, but the rest of her had come undone. Her blonde hair stuck to her cheek. Her lipstick had smudged at one corner. She was breathing too fast, one hand pressed against the doorframe as if she had only just made it there.Elena stared at the blood.Adrian saw it too.His whole body changed.Not panic. Never that. Something quieter, colder.“Whose blood is that?” he asked.Natalie looked down at her sleeve like she had forgotten it was there. “Not mine.”Elena’s stomach turned.Adrian crossed the room so fast Natalie stepped back. He caught her wrist, lifted it, checked the sleeve, then her face. His touch was not gentle, but it was careful enough to make Elena notice.She hated that she noticed.“Who?” Adrian said.Natalie swallowed. “The man who followed me from the hospital.”The room went still.Behind them, Clara’s weddin

Elena stared at the photo until it stopped looking real.Her mother was asleep in the hospital bed, one hand resting outside the blanket, small and pale against the white sheet. Beside her hand lay the contract. Elena’s contract. The one she had signed barely an hour ago with Adrian standing over her and rain tapping at the diner windows.At the bottom of the message were five words.You signed her life away.For a moment, Elena felt nothing.No scream. No tears. No shaking.Just a quiet, awful blankness.Then her body caught up.She moved for the door.Adrian was in front of her before she reached it.“No.”The word snapped something inside her.She shoved him with both hands. “Move.”“Elena—”“Move.”He didn’t. Of course he didn’t. He stood there in his damp white shirt, solid and impossible, blocking the door like he had the right to decide where her fear was allowed to go.She shoved him again, harder this time. “That’s my mother.”“I know.”“No, you don’t.” Her voice cracked, and

Elena did not cry.That scared her more than if she had.She stood in Clara’s bedroom with the ruined wedding dress behind her and Mrs Vale’s words hanging in the air, and all she could think was that her mother hated lilies. White ones especially. She used to say they smelled like funerals pretending to be flowers.Now someone had sent them to her hospital room.With a message for Mrs Blackwood.Elena reached for Mrs Vale’s phone. “Call the hospital.”Her voice came out calm. Too calm.Mrs Vale looked at Adrian first, which made something ugly twist inside Elena.“Don’t look at him,” Elena snapped. “She’s my mother.”Adrian’s face changed, just enough to show the words had landed. He took the phone from Mrs Vale, dialled, and handed it to Elena without a fight.It rang.Once.Twice.Elena gripped it so tightly her fingers hurt.A woman answered on the third ring. “St Catherine’s private ward, how can I help?”“My mother,” Elena said, and hated how small she sounded all at once. “Marg

Elena stared at the dress on the bed and felt something inside her go very still.Not fear this time.Something colder.The white lace had been spread neatly over Clara’s sheets, the sleeves laid out like arms waiting to be filled. Across the bodice, the red lipstick message looked wet beneath the lamplight.LET THE NEW WIFE WEAR IT.For a few seconds, nobody spoke.The house seemed to listen with them.Adrian stood by the door, his face unreadable, but Elena had started to notice the little things now. The tension in his jaw. The way his right hand curled once, then relaxed. The way his eyes did not stay on the dress for too long, as if looking at it hurt more than he would ever admit.Elena folded her arms over her chest, pulling his coat tighter around herself.“I’m not wearing it,” she said.His eyes moved to her. “I know.”“You don’t get to say that like it’s obvious. Nothing in this house is obvious.”A faint breath left him. Not quite a laugh. Not quite anything.“No,” he said.