Novels by Priscilla G

Ava’s POVThe rain had not started yet when I left the hospital, but the air already smelled like it was coming. Thick. Heavy. And waiting.I drove with the windows cracked because the inside of the car still held the ghost of Lily’s fever,sweet and wrong, like overripe fruit left too long in the sun. My bare feet pressed the pedals. The soles were filthy from the hospital tile and the parking garage. Every time I shifted, the fabric of my leggings dragged against the wet places on my thighs where tears had dried and new ones kept coming.I did not remember deciding to go to the hotel. My hands just moved. The phone sat in the cup holder, screen still lit with the photo of Ethan asleep on white sheets, champagne flute empty, arm thrown over his head like he had never once held a feverish child against his chest. Victoria’s words glowed beneath it.*Stop harassing him with your fake emergencies.*I had tried calling the bank while I sat in the car outside St. Jude. The automated voi

Ava’s POVThe fluorescent lights above me hummed like insects trapped in a jar. I stood in the middle of the emergency waiting area of St. Jude Hospital, bare feet planted on the cold tile, and I could not feel the floor. The only thing I felt was the empty space where Lily’s weight had been against my chest. My sweater clung to me, heavy with her sweat and my tears. The fabric stuck to my skin every time I shifted. My hands hung useless at my sides. One still clutched the phone. The other kept rising toward my chest as if it could find her heartbeat there and pull it back into place.People moved around me. A woman with a crying toddler. An old man coughing into a tissue. A security guard near the automatic doors. None of them looked real. The only real things were the double doors at the far end of the room,the ones that had swallowed my daughter,and the way my lungs refused to fill all the way.A triage nurse approached. Her shoes squeaked. She was young, maybe mid-twenties, wit

Ava's POVThe clock on the wall ticked like a hammer against my skull.Two-oh-three in the morning. The living room of our home sat in near darkness, the only light coming from the soft yellow glow of the lamp on the side table and the pale blue screen of the digital thermometer in my shaking hand. Lily,My sweet girl burned against my chest. Her little body felt like it was on fire, her skin damp and fever-slick under the thin cotton pajamas I had changed her into twice already. Her breath came in short, ragged pulls that scraped against my ears every time her tiny chest rose and fell.I pressed the damp cloth to her forehead again, my fingers trembling so hard the water dripped down her temple and into her dark hair. The thermometer beeped. I forced myself to look.103.8°F.It had climbed. Again.“Mommy…” Her voice was barely a whisper, cracked and thin. Her eyes fluttered open for a second, glassy and unfocused, before sliding shut again. “My head… it hurts so much…”“I know, bab

Elena’s POVPain came first.It bloomed behind my eyes in slow, pulsing waves, thick and heavy, as if someone had poured molten metal into the space between my skull and my thoughts. My mouth felt dry, coated with the bitter aftertaste of something chemical. Every breath scraped. My body refused to answer me properly. Limbs hung heavy. Joints ached. Something rough bit into the skin of my wrists and ankles.I tried to move.The resistance was immediate. Rope. Tight. Coarse. Wound so carefully that the more I pulled, the deeper it cut.My eyes opened.The light above me was a single bare bulb, swinging slightly on its cord. The rest of the room lived in shadow,bare concrete walls, a metal door with no handle on this side, a cracked floor that smelled of dust and old water. No windows. No furniture except the chair I was bound to and a low table pushed against the far wall.Panic arrived late, but when it did it was total.I jerked against the ropes. The chair creaked. The knots held. M

Elena’s POVI sat on the edge of the narrow childhood bed long after the door had settled against its frame, the narrow gap of light still visible, the house continuing its distant, ordinary sounds beneath me. My hand rested open on the blanket where his fingers had been. The ghost of that touch lingered,warm, careful, almost reverent,and I could not make myself close my fist around the empty air. Mr. Nik’s words kept replaying, soft and unfinished, the way they had hung between us before Liana walked in. *There’s something about your childhood that you don’t know. Something I’ve wanted to tell you for a very long time.* I pressed my thumb against the blue-stone bracelet, feeling the cool surface dig into my pulse. The stone had always felt like a quiet mystery. Now it felt like an accusation. I remembered the way his expression had changed when I said the name Kolia. The way his jaw had tightened. The way his thumb had brushed my knuckles once, twice, as if his body had decid

Elena’s POVThe question still hung in the air between us, soft enough that it almost did not sound like a question at all.“Do you remember?”I sat on the edge of the narrow childhood bed, the mattress giving slightly beneath my weight, the carefully smoothed blanket cool under my palms. The sunlight that had been so clean and ordinary only minutes ago now felt too bright, too revealing. It moved across the floorboards in a slow rectangle, touching the edge of Mr. Nik’s shoe, the place where the photograph had rested before he turned it face-down in his hand. Dust motes drifted in the light. Somewhere downstairs a clock marked the hour with a soft, distant chime that seemed to come from another life entirely.I could not look at him at first. My eyes stayed on the floor, on the worn grain of the wood, on the way my fingers had curled into the fabric of the blanket as if I needed something solid to hold. The name still echoed inside me—Kolia—and with it came the pieces that refused to

Elena’s PovThe name still hung in the air between us.Mrs. Carter’s question.*You know that name?*had not faded. It sat in the quiet of the childhood bedroom like something that refused to settle. I stood with the photograph in both hands, the edges of the paper pressing into my palms, the blue stone of the bracelet resting hard against my pulse. Young Nik looked back at me from the image: dark hair across a forehead that had not yet learned the weight of boardrooms, eyes already too serious for a child, the garden behind him soft with late light. The handwriting on the reverse side remained clear even in the softened ink.**Kolia.**I could not look away from it. The room felt smaller than it had a moment before. Sunlight still lay in its clean rectangle across the floorboards. The air still smelled of old wood and dust and the faint ghost of a childhood carefully preserved. None of it helped. My heart kept striking against my ribs as if it had only just remembered the rhythm it w

Elena’s PovThe car slowed.I felt the change before I saw it,the soft deceleration, the shift in the engine’s quiet hum, the way the light through the tinted windows altered as tall gates and then dense hedges replaced the ordinary New York streets. My hands rested in my lap. The engagement ring sat cool against one finger. The silver bracelet rested against the other wrist, blue stone quiet, initials private. I had not taken it off. Not once since the afternoon before. The metal had warmed to my skin during the drive, becoming almost a second pulse.The driver opened my door.I stepped out.The Carter estate rose in front of me like something that had never needed to announce itself. Stone the color of old bone stretched across a wide façade. Tall windows reflected the morning light in long, unbroken panes. A sweep of steps led to double doors that looked as if they had been opened by generations of people who already knew they belonged here. The air smelled of cut grass and somethi

Elena’s POVI woke before the alarm.For a few seconds the ceiling above me was only white plaster and the soft gray of early light. My body felt heavy in the way it always did after a night of thin sleep, limbs reluctant, mind still half-caught in the last dream I could not remember. Then the knowledge arrived, quiet and complete.Today I was meeting Mr. Nik’s family.The thought settled in my chest with the weight of something solid. I lay still, staring upward, and let the reality of it expand until it filled the quiet room. The engagement ring rested on my finger, cool at first then warming against my skin. The silver bracelet remained on my left wrist where I had fastened it the afternoon before. I had not taken it off to sleep. I had simply left it there, as if removing it would require a decision I was not yet ready to make.I sat up slowly. The sheets whispered. Outside the window the city was still muted, traffic distant, the sky the pale color of milk. I swung my legs over t

Elena’s POVMorning light slid through the sheer curtains like it had every right to be there, soft and golden and completely indifferent to the wreckage inside my chest. I hadn’t slept. Not really. Every time my eyes closed, Adrian’s laugh rolled through the dark hallway again,warm, easy, utterly certain. *Elena? Come on. She sees me as her brother. That’s all it’s ever been.*I pressed my hands against my eyes until colors burst behind the lids. The gold necklace he’d given me last night still lay on the nightstand, the tiny open book pendant catching the light. I reached for it before I could stop myself, fingers curling around the cool metal. *For the girl who never stopped turning pages, even when the story hurt.*He had spoken those words with such quiet care. His fingers had brushed my cheek for half a second too long. Then he had called me little sister and walked away to laugh about the possibility that I might love him. The contrast made me feel sick.I sat up slowly.

Elena’s povThe question left my mouth before I could pull it back.Adrian’s brows drew together. “Do what?”“Claim you protect me.” My voice trembled. I hated how small it sounded. “You walk into every room like you’re ready to fight the world for me, but you never notice when the people inside the room are the ones cutting me open. You didn’t even ask what happened. You just decided I was the trouble.”Silence stretched.Sophie’s lips parted, then curved into the smallest, sharpest smile, there and gone so fast I almost thought I imagined it.Adrian took a step closer. The scent of his cologne, cedar and something cleaner, like rain on stone, reached me. My stomach flipped.“You’re family, Elena,” he said. His voice was low, reasonable, the voice he used when he thought someone was being irrational. “Of course I will protect you. But that doesn’t mean every disagreement is an attack.”“Family.” I repeated the word. It tasted bitter. “Is that what you call it when you look at me and

Elena’s POV“Oh my God, Elena! I’m so sorry!”Sophie’s startled cry echoed through the sitting room just as red wine spilled across the front of my pale blue dress.I froze.My breath caught high in my throat. The wine dripped slowly down the bodice, seeping between my breasts, soaking the fabric against my stomach. I could feel every drop.She immediately dropped the empty glass onto the table and rushed toward me, her eyes wide with exaggerated concern.“Look at what I’ve done!” she gasped, pressing a hand over her mouth. “I’m such a mess today.”I stared at the spreading stain, unable to believe what had just happened.Sophie Bennett had been part of Adrian Williams’s life since childhood. At twenty-four, she was beautiful, wealthy, and effortlessly charming, the kind of woman people admired before she even opened her mouth. She and Adrian had grown up together, and their families had long expected their closeness to become something more permanent. Even when their relationship bec