Novels by Zyvarelle

The word landed like something thrown.The table went absolutely still.Camila didn't cry. She didn't speak. Camila doesn't cry. She doesn't speak. She just looks down at the table and her jaw sets in a way that says she has heard this word applied to her before and has decided not to let it touch her, even when it does.Her hand in Enzo's went white-knuckled, and that was the only thing in the room that moved.Vittorio walks out.Enzo stared at the door after his father, something cracking visibly behind his eyes.One by one, without much ceremony, the rest of the table found reasons to leave.I found Camila in the hallway near the foot of the stairs, standing with her arms folded across her chest, studying a painting on the wall like it had said something interesting."Hey," I said.Camila glanced at her. "You didn't have to do that in there.""No," I agreed. "I wanted to."Camila was quiet a moment. Then: "I grew up in Overtown. Mom worked three jobs and still couldn't keep the lig

The foyer was grand enough to make Camila's steps falter, though she recovered quickly. The family was already assembled, scattered across the marble floor like pieces on a chessboard.Rafael is the first to see her, and something in his expression goes through amusement before landing somewhere genuinely charmed — not by the dress, but by the way she walks in. Chin up, shoulders back, taking in the entrance hall with wide eyes she almost manages to keep neutral.Adriano is unreadable, which means nothing and could mean anything.Valentina's eyes move from Camila's hemline to her face and back, something calculating settling into place.Vittorio, seated already at the far end of the hall, takes one long look and becomes very still in the particular way of a man controlling his first reaction because his second one will be more effective.Camila sees all of it. She doesn't flinch.In the kitchen doorway, two servants have found reasons to linger, eyes wide, a rapid exchange of whispers

Camila squared her shoulders and met Enzo's gaze with defiance flickering in her eyes. "Fine. I’ll change."Enzo's jaw tightened, but he nodded once. He leaned forward and tapped the partition. "Pull over."The driver obeyed without question, guiding the sleek black car to the curb. He killed the engine and stepped out, leaving the door open just long enough for Rafael and Camila to slip out into the night air.They walked together toward the booth of the car. Rafael kept his distance, his hands in his pockets, his expression somewhere between amusement and curiosity.Camila pushed through the door and immediately began rifling through her clothings. Her fingers moved with practiced ease, pulling out a sheer silver slip dress that catches the streetlight and leaves approximately nothing to interpretation.Enzo takes it from her hand without a word and puts it back in the bag."Enzo—""No.""It's cute—""It's see-through." He roots through the bag himself, produces a black satin dres

Rafael's voice is quiet when he finally speaks, sitting on the edge of the bed with his hands loosely clasped between his knees."I owe you an apology."I look at him."Going to Adriano's room like that." He exhales, something rueful in it. "I thought—" He stops, starts again. "I had a thought I shouldn't have entertained, and I acted on it before I thought it through. That wasn't fair to you.""It's fine," I say."It isn't." He looks up. "You've done nothing to deserve that kind of doubt."The words land exactly where they hurt the most, and I hold myself very still against the weight of them."It's fine, Rafael," I say again, softer this time, and cross the room to press a brief kiss to his temple. "I'm hungry. Can we go down?"He studies my face a moment, not entirely satisfied, but lets it go with the particular grace of a man who's decided this isn't the battle to push. He stands, takes my hand, and we go downstairs together.The kitchen is warm and smells of something left simme

It wasn't a question. It was a surrender and an attack, all at once.His mouth crashed down on hers. It wasn't a kiss of love; it was a kiss of punishment, of desperation. It was bruising and demanding, tasting of sparkling water and regret. Valentina gasped against his lips—a sharp, broken sound that was half protest, half plea. She didn't pull away. She met him with her own fury, her own pain. Her hands fisted in his shirt, pulling him closer, wanting to feel the violence of his conflict, to make him feel something for her, even if it was this.He walked her back against the wall, the impact knocking the breath from her lungs in a rush. "Ah—" The sound escaped her, high and startled. His hands roamed her body, but they weren't the hands of a lover. They were the hands of a man trying to prove something, to himself or to her, she didn't know. He was rough, efficient, his movements stripped of the tender, worshipful reverence he usually possessed. He yanked at her clothes—the thin str

The engine sound grows, fills the room, and we both go still at exactly the same moment.Adriano moves first.He's off the chair and pulling his clothes on with a speed and habit that belongs to someone who has spent years being ready to leave a room at a moment's notice, and watching him reassemble himself, watching the controlled, unreadable version of him slot back into place like armor put on in the dark, unsettles me more than if he'd panicked.He looks at me once, brief, something passing across his face that doesn't have a name yet.Then he's gone, and the studio door swings shut behind him, and I'm alone with overturned paint jars and the smell of linseed oil and what we just did.I take longer than I should.I find my clothes. I dress slowly, hands not entirely steady, and stand for a moment in the wreckage of paint and scattered brushes, his oversized shirt in my hands, still carrying the faint warmth of him.I put it back on the peg. I don't let myself hold it for more than

The first thing I felt was the floor.Cold stone beneath my cheek, hard and indifferent, pressing into the side of my face with a permanence that told me I hadn't just dozed off somewhere. My head was screaming. Not a headache, something deeper, more violent, the kind of pain that sits behind your eyes and pulses with your heartbeat like it's trying to push through your skull from the inside out.I pushed myself upright slowly, one hand flat on the floor, the other pressed to the back of my head. My fingers came away clean. No blood. Small mercy.The room was dim. A thin line of light bled under the door, just enough to make out shapes, a bed, a chair, a table. I was in the same room they'd put me in last night, but something was different. My shoes were gone. Someone had removed them while I was unconscious, placed them neatly beside the bed like a hotel turndown service, like a person who cared about my comfort, and that careful, deliberate detail unsettled me in a way the locked

"Ava, he's behind us!""I know, I know, just—" She cut the wheel hard and I slammed into the door, Rayyan screaming in the back seat."Mama!""Don't look baby, don't look—"I looked. Khalil's headlights filled the entire rear window. My heart was in my throat. We'd been running for four minutes and he hadn't dropped back once, not even when Ava pushed the car past every speed it should have been doing on a road this narrow."He's getting closer Ava—""Sophie I need you to stop talking—""He's going to take my son again, he's going to—""SOPHIE." Her voice cracked like a whip. "Let me drive."I bit down on everything rising in my chest and spun back to face the front. Rayyan was curled against the back seat crying quietly, and the sound of it was doing something terrible to me, pulling at every instinct that wanted me to stop, to hold him, to make it okay. I couldn't. All I could do was keep moving.Ava swung into a side street, then another, then cut through what looked like a residen

I dropped to my knees before Noura could take another step, my hands closing around her leg like she was the only solid thing left in the world. "Please," I begged, the word tearing out of me raw and ugly. "Please, let me leave with him. I'll bring him back, I swear it, anytime you want to see your grandson, I'll bring him myself, just please, don't do this to us—"She looked down at me the way you'd look at something inconvenient on the floor.Then she pulled her leg free and walked away.One by one, they followed her, Khalil first, then Safiya and her sons, then Amira, who paused for half a second like she might say something, before she too turned and left. The courtyard emptied until it was only me, kneeling on cold stone, my cheek still throbbing from the slap, my dignity scattered somewhere in the dust around me.I don't know how long I stayed there before I finally forced myself up and made my way back to the room.Rayyan was already asleep, curled small under a blanket too bi

"Away from here." I didn't step back, even though every instinct told me to. "I'm taking my son and I'm leaving. Tonight.""You're not going anywhere.""I don't want to stay in that house." My voice cracked, but I kept going, because if I stopped now I'd lose whatever courage I had left. "I don't like this place. I don't know any of you. Something about your family makes my skin crawl, and I am not raising my son in it. We're leaving."Khalil's jaw tightened. "This isn't your decision to make.""He's my son.""He's also my brother's." The words landed flat, final, like a door closing. He turned his head slightly, toward the man standing near the second car. "Reza. Take him.""No—" I lunged, but Reza was already moving, already lifting Rayyan gently but firmly out of my reach. My son's cry cut through the night, and I fought against Khalil's grip as he seized my arm."Let go of me. Let go of my son, let go of me—"He didn't let go. He didn't even slow down. He pulled me back through th

I took Rayyan’s hand the moment we stepped back outside. "Let's go," I whispered, though I had no idea where ‘go’ even meant in a place like this.We hadn't made it three steps before I saw her.Noura was collapsed over the coffin, her body folded over the polished wood like it might still hold warmth. Her wailing filled the courtyard, raw and unguarded, the kind of grief that strips a person down to something younger and smaller than themselves."My son," she cried, her hands pressed flat against the lid. "My boy, my only boy, why didn't you come home sooner, why did you let this happen"I froze. Whatever anger I still carried toward her evaporated in that moment. I understood grief. I was drowning in my own. But watching hers unfold in front of me, I felt something close to compassion, even after what she'd screamed at me minutes before.Then she rose.It happened fast. She grabbed Khalil by the front of his thobe, fisting the fabric near his throat, her face inches from his. "Punis

The gates opened onto something that didn't belong in real life.Three mansions, each the size of a small hotel, circled a fountain so large I could hear the water from inside the car with the windows up. I'd grown up thinking I understood wealth, London had taught me that, glass towers and private clubs and men who never checked a price tag. But this wasn't wealth. This was a kingdom. I pressed my hand against the window, half expecting the image to dissolve like a mirage in the desert heat.I barely registered the car stopping before I was out of it, running toward the SUV ahead, toward my son.Then I saw the men.They stood at the edges of the courtyard, dressed the same as the others but carrying rifles slung across their chests, different kinds, some sleek and modern, one I recognized without wanting to as an AK-47. My stomach turned to ice. This wasn't a home. It was a compound. A fortress dressed up in marble and gold."Khalil." My voice cracked as I reached him, reaching for R