Novels by Ciara white

My bare feet hit the runner, cold against the wool.Through the crack in the door, Dante stayed on one knee beside the bed. His head was down against the mattress, his broad shoulders hunched forward like a collapsed wall. In his hands—scarred, blunt fingers that had signed away my family’s house four hours ago—he held a small, grey stuffed rabbit with one ear chewed down to the cotton stuffing.I didn't mean to make a sound. But my heel scraped the brass transition strip between the hallway and the threshold.A tiny, dry click.Dante didn't flinch. He didn't drop the toy. He set it on the eyelet pillow with slow, agonizing care, stood up, and turned toward the door.His face was completely blank. Not angry. Just hollow, like a statue someone had forgotten in an empty lot.I backed up two steps, my pulse kicking against my throat. "Dante—"He crossed the room in four strides, grabbed the edge of the steel door, and hauled it open. His other hand shot out, his fingers wrapping around m

The echoes of Helena’s frantic weeping and the hydraulic hiss of the freight elevator died into absolute, suffocating silence.Fifty stories above the city, the afternoon clouds were curdling into the bruised violet of an approaching Midwestern squall. Rain began to tick against the triple-paned ballistic glass, tiny erratic taps that sounded like fingernails clawing at a coffin lid.Dante’s hands remained clamped over mine, fingers threaded between my own. The metal of his heavy platinum band dug into the side of my knuckle, cold and immovable, while the blood-red ruby he had forced onto my fourth finger trapped me in return.I couldn't breathe. My ribs felt tight, bound by phantom corset laces that were no longer there."You destroyed them," I whispered. My voice sounded thin, stripped down to raw wire. "You took their house. You took their name. In six hours, the entire city will know Arthur Thorne is a bankrupt thief.""I didn't destroy them, Eloise," Dante murmured behind me. He

They arrived precisely at noon, wrapped in camel-hair coats and the stench of unearned entitlement.I stood beside the floor-to-ceiling glass in the formal dining salon, my fingernails biting into the wool of my trousers. Dante sat at the head of the twenty-seat ebony table, an espresso cup balanced between his long fingers, a single black leather folder resting beside his plate. He hadn't changed clothes. He didn't look like a host preparing for in-laws; he looked like an executioner waiting for the condemned to mount the platform.The double bronze doors opened with a soft hiss. Marcus stepped aside, his massive frame radiating silent hostility, his right hand resting flat against his utility belt."Eloise, darling!" Helena burst through first, her voice pitching into that theatrical, trembling register she reserved for church fundraisers and funeral wakes.She wore a fresh blowout and a mink collar pinned with a vintage emerald brooch—a piece she had borrowed from my grandmother’s

The heavy click of the bronze latch echoed like a shot in the cavernous office.Dante didn’t rush. He walked with the effortless, predatory leisure of a man who owned the building, the air inside it, and the woman standing behind his desk. Every step on the herringbone hardwood was deliberate, his grey gaze tracking the tremor in my fingers, the shallow rise and fall of my sweater, the scattered gloss of surveillance photos catching the morning glare."Rule number three," he repeated softly, stopping on the opposite side of the walnut slab. He braced two large hands on the dark wood, leaning in until the scent of cedar and roasted coffee washed over me. "Do you have trouble retaining information, Eloise?"My mouth was dry as bone, but the shock had crystallized into something cold, sharp, and incandescent in my chest.Rage.I didn’t step back. I slammed my palm down on the center of the desk, pinning the photograph of myself outside the Lincoln Park Conservatory right beneath his thum

Morning did not break gently over the Valerius Tower; it cut through the floor-to-ceiling glass like a scalpel.I woke tangled in 800-thread-count Egyptian cotton, the scent of cedar and clean rain clinging to the sheets. For five disoriented seconds, I thought I was still in the drafty attic bedroom of the Thorne estate, waiting for Helena to shriek my name up the back stairwell.Then the blood-red ruby on my fourth finger caught the glare of the Lake Michigan sunrise.Mrs. Valerius.The title sat in my chest like a jagged stone.By six in the morning, the master bedroom across the connecting vestibule was already empty. The king bed was made with military precision—no wrinkles, no pillows out of place. Dante Valerius was a ghost in his own fortress.On the mahogany sideboard in my suite, someone had placed three garment bags, a pair of Italian leather flats, and a glass of ice water. The clothes inside were not Seraphina’s hand-me-downs, nor were they the neon silk rompers she favor

Riiiiip.The metal teeth of the zipper parted down my spine with brutal speed.Cold air bit into the bare skin of my back, sending a violent shiver through my ribs. The heavy boning of the corset slackened, no longer crushing my lungs, but the sudden rush of oxygen did nothing to ease the vertigo spinning in my skull."Don't touch me," I gasped, my hands bracing flat against the hard planes of his chest. Beneath the black dress shirt, his muscle was corded iron, hot and unyielding.Dante didn't answer. He didn't let go.His large hands caught the shoulders of the gown, peeling the stiff satin and Brussels lace down my arms. The sleeves fell away, pooling around my wrists. The heavy skirts dragged downward under their own weight, collapsing onto the marble floor in a crumpled heap of ivory silk and shattered pearls.I stood trapped between his towering body and the cold pillar, wearing only a sheer lace chemise, pale silk stockings, and the crimson ruby ring biting into my finger.Dant