Novel-novel oleh Danica Kiernan

POV: AlieThe knock comes midmorning, polite and unhurried, like someone certain they’re expected. I’m halfway through an email when it lands, two even taps against the door. I freeze—not because I’m afraid, just because I’ve been living so much inside my own head lately that the sound of the world answering back startles me.When I open the door, there’s a courier in a dark jacket holding a box tied with cotton string. The package is large enough to suggest importance, small enough to be personal.“Delivery for Alie,” he says, checking the name. “No signature required.”No return address. No sender listed. Just my name in clean black type, printed from a machine that doesn’t believe in handwriting.I thank him, and the door clicks shut with the finality of a scene change. The box sits on my table like it knows it’s not supposed to be here.I tell myself this is what success looks like: clients send things. Appreciation, samples, promotional materials. Probably Heliograph. They strike

AlieThe invitation says Conversation on Story: Building Worlds for Real Life which is the kind of title that makes you feel smart while you drink tea out of a paper cup and pretend the folding chair isn’t a folding chair. The bookstore is small, all honeyed wood and lamps that try to be kind. Someone strung twinkle lights between nonfiction and essays, like stars got cozy in the ceiling.I arrive early on purpose and then stall in front of the display of fountain pens because apparently I enjoy tempting fate. My reflection in the glass case looks almost like a woman with boundaries. I adjust my scarf. I tell myself I’m here for research, for work, for curiosity that is absolutely, definitely professional.“Alie?”His voice finds me before I find him. I turn and there he is—no corner office or mirrored window to frame him this time—just a man in a dark sweater, sleeves pushed to his forearms, a book tucked in one hand like he actually reads them and not just buys them in boxes.“Mr. B

AlieThe email looks legitimate.Subject line: Heliograph Fund – Creative Consultant Inquiry.A neat paragraph about a short-term branding project, a generous stipend, and an address that’s only ten blocks from where I met Mr. Black last time.I tell myself it can’t be connected. Heliograph sounds like a grant, a committee, something run by serious people with lanyards. But the phrase narrative strategy flickers in the back of my head like a low battery warning.I answer anyway. I need the work. I need to believe coincidences still exist.By noon, an assistant with a bright, efficient voice schedules a “brief orientation.” The confirmation lands in my calendar with the same weight as a verdict.And when I look up the address—West Tower again, same elevator bank, different floor—the air in the apartment seems to shift temperature.The office smells like cedar polish and static electricity. A receptionist offers coffee I don’t want. My throat is already dry.“Mr. Black will see you now,

POV: CaineGlass tells the truth if you look long enough.In the morning, the house is all clean angles and reflected sky. The storm has rinsed the city, left it bright enough to sting. I stand before the window until my own shape stops meaning anything and what’s behind me becomes more interesting: the room’s calculus, the line where order tips into emptiness, the way silence arranges itself around the things you want.She felt it yesterday—the current. I saw it in the set of her shoulders, the way she swallowed before she lied and said happy. People think truth lives in their words. It doesn’t. It lives in the small corrections their bodies try to make when the story doesn’t fit.I drink my coffee black and let the heat settle behind my ribs. The phone is facedown on the desk; it doesn’t matter if it buzzes. I already know what the day needs.Recognition first. Then inevitability.When I picture her apartment, I don’t need detail. It’s enough to imagine the geometry: desk by the win

bodega with the cat that is three parts lion, the nail salon two doors down that is always playing a true crime podcast at a low murmur, a teenager on a skateboard practicing a trick like persistence is oxygen. I buy a second apple because the first one was a betrayal and I am stubborn. I come home feeling more like a person and less like a cursor blinking without a sentence.Inside, the light has gone gold. I put the apple in the bowl. I take a picture of the bowl. It’s ridiculous and also reassuring because later, if I need to, I will know exactly how many apples there were and where they were sitting. I tell myself this is not a symptom; it is the sensible impulse of someone who intends to stop making herself crazy. I delete the photo and immediately regret it, then tell myself the regret is how I know I’m not actually spiraling.I sit down at my desk to make a list of what I’ve done and what still needs doing, because the day feels smeary if I don’t pin it to a page. The chair giv

Chapter 8 - The Pull and Snap Alie I don’t realize I’ve checked my phone a dozen times until the thirteenth buzz makes me jump. Tomorrow, ten a.m.—Black & Co. offices, West Tower. Bring your notes from the marketing project. No greeting. No sign-off. Just a time, a place, a directive. I should say no. Instead, I screenshot the map and set an alarm. Morning comes too fast. I tell myself it’s work, not whatever else it could be. I pick the most neutral outfit I own—something professional enough to armor me but soft enough that it doesn’t look like armor. I tug at the cuff of my sleeves, smoothing down my shirt, remembering the gentle touch of his hand, which causes a shiver down my spine. The subway ride feels longer than usual; every reflection in the windows looks like someone watching. The West Tower lobby smells like cedar polish and money. Security waves me through after I give my name. Mr. Black is expecting you. Hearing it out loud makes my stomach tighten. The elevat

Dante I’ve survived hostile takeovers, boardroom coups, and a childhood that felt like living inside a collapsing cathedral. None of that terrified me the way tonight does. Lyra saw me break. She wasn’t supposed to. I told her to go. She stayed. I told her not to look at me. She did anyway. And worst of all— I wanted her there. It takes me an hour to work up the nerve to knock on her door. I don’t touch it at first. I brace my hand an inch away and wait until I’m sure I won’t tremble. Finally, I tap once. “Lyra.” A soft rustle. Then: “Come in.” Her room is dimly lit, warm. She’s sitting cross-legged on the bed, hair down, wearing one of the soft shirts she stole from my side of the closet. The sight hits me low in the chest. “You shouldn’t be up,” I say. “You shouldn’t be alone,” she replies. I inhale slowly. “May I sit?” She nods. I sit on the edge of the bed, hands clasped, posture too perfect—like a man preparing to make a confession in court. “

Lyra The first time I attend a press lunch as Dante Marcellus’s fiancée, I learn two things immediately: 1. The salad forks alone cost more than my monthly rent used to. 2. Reporters can smell blood in the water even when no one’s actually bleeding yet. The private dining room is staged like a peace treaty conference—white tablecloths, curated floral arrangements, low gold lighting meant to make everyone look richer, calmer, softer than they really are. Dante’s hand hovers at the small of my back as we enter. Not touching—just a breath away, like a promise or a warning. “They’ll play nice at first,” he murmurs. “Don’t let the smiles fool you.” “I work in finance,” I whisper back. “I’ve met sharks.” He gives me a look—brief, sharp, appreciative. “You’ve met minnows. This is different.” I smile like I’m unbothered. I absolutely am bothered. The seating has already been arranged: place cards with looping calligraphy, the kind of handwriting that implies generational wealth.

Dante I stand there for a moment, hand still on the handle, wanting to knock again and knowing I shouldn’t. She didn’t slam it — she’s too controlled for that — but the message was unmistakable: Give me space. Or maybe: Don’t follow me if all you’ll give me is half-truths. I let go of the doorknob. The hallway is too quiet. The whole penthouse feels wrong — like all the angles shifted when she walked out of that dining room. I turn back toward the living area. Elias is still sprawled in Dante’s favorite chair like he’s auditioning for the role of “person I regret knowing.” Victor stands near the bar, watching the doorway I came through. Langford has already fled — probably texting his therapist. The room falls silent as I enter. “Everything alright?” Victor asks. He already knows the answer. “Yes,” I lie. “We’re finished.” “With dinner?” Elias asks, swirling his drink lazily. “Or with her?” I look at him. Slowly. He smiles like a child poking a bruise. “

Lyra I should have known dinner with men like this wouldn’t involve “dinner.” When the calendar invite showed up on my phone I should’ve just declined. But I’m stubborn. And curious. It’s more of a display. A negotiation disguised as small talk. A stage with cutlery. Rhoades seats me at Dante’s right side, which already feels like a test. Across from me: three men who look like three different types of trouble. Langford is the kind who apologizes before he speaks. Victor is the kind who knows too much and says too little. And Elias…is the kind who thinks everyone at the table is a toy. “Lyra,” Elias says, lifting his glass. He stretches my name out like he’s tasting it. “We finally meet.” I smile politely. “You say that like I’ve been ducking you.” “Have you?” he asks, eyes bright with amused cruelty. Before I can answer, Dante says, “She hasn’t.” “It was a joke, Marcellus,” Elias says, leaning back in his chair. “Relax.” Victor glances at me. It’s quick,

DanteTomorrow starts with blood.Not hers. Not this time.The markets open red and stay there. A glitch in an algorithmic fund slams half the sector; three of our clients panic; one of them sends a seven-paragraph email accusing us of collusion with gravity.I skim it, flag it, and move on. This is the kind of chaos I know how to handle.The kind I don’t is waiting in my inbox.Subject: Draft — Quinn/Marcellus Human Interest Piece (Unapproved)The email is from Comms. The attachment is from hell.I open it.The headline is soft, like a knife with a smile.From Debt to Diamond: The Woman Who Captured Dante Marcellus.There’s a photo of Lyra outside our old building—hair pulled back, cheap canvas bag on her shoulder, Maya beside her with a coffee and a grin too big for the frame. The shot is zoomed, grainy, invasive. The kind you get when you wait in a car across the street.The captions speculate. They talk about “humble beginnings.” They call her “financially vulnerable.” They call M

LyraThe sound comes first.Soft piano, clean as breath. The kind of melody that’s too gentle for morning.I blink awake to the unfamiliar rhythm—the faint hum of something mechanical beneath it. A small, sleek device sits on my nightstand. Next to it: a folded silk mask, black, expensive, unapologetic.A card leans against the base. No logo, no flourish. Just his handwriting.For the hours that won’t behave.I trace the ink with my thumb before I can stop myself. The letters are precise, like he drafted them first. I should feel comforted. Instead, I feel cataloged.Because of course he would notice my insomnia. Of course he would solve it before I asked. That’s what he does—turns people into patterns and fixes them before they break.I switch off the machine. The silence that follows sounds too honest.He’s in the kitchen when I find him, sleeves rolled, phone face-down. Even like this—half-absent, half-effortless—he fills the room.He sees me before I speak. “Did you sleep?”“Event