Novels by Black sweet

— Xander —The fire had been extinguished by the time I returned.Smoke still coiled upward into the night, thick and bitter, staining the snowfall gray. The wreckage sat in the middle of the east road like a carcass picked clean by violence.The metal had collapsed, the windshield was gone and the frame was unrecognizable.My men stood back, forming a perimeter. No one spoke when I approached.Dominic walked beside me.“They pulled what they could,” he said quietly. “There wasn’t much left.”There rarely was.I stepped closer.The smell lingered, burned fuel, charred rubber and something heavier beneath it.Human.One of the men swallowed. “We found remains in the driver’s side.”Driver’s side.Not the back, not hidden or restrained.My gaze lowered to the blackened interior.The body was slumped forward, fused into what remained of the seat. Fire had erased identity. Flesh and fabric had become indistinguishable.There was nothing recognizable.Nothing that screamed her name.For a

— Xander —War did not frighten me.It steadied me.Gunfire cracked through the estate like splitting wood. Glass shattered somewhere along the east wing. Men shouted over one another, radios screeching with half-formed updates.Chaos was loud.But inside my head—Silence.I stepped over a body without looking down.“Chiudi l’ingresso ovest,” I said calmly. “Bloccate il cancello secondario. Nessuno entra, nessuno esce.”Close the west entrance. Lock the secondary gate. No one in. No one out.My voice did not rise.It never needed to.Dominic appeared at my side, blood staining the cuff of his sleeve — not his own.“They knew the blind spots,” he said low enough for only me to hear. “Lower perimeter. North fence.”“They didn’t know,” I replied evenly. “They were told.”There was a difference.Information was not guessed.It was given.Another burst of gunfire echoed. A chandelier crashed somewhere in the foyer.Snow drifted through the open doors where one of the panels had been blown

~ Avelyn ~Snow swirled in behind him, melting into the carpet like evidence that didn’t belong.Kyle’s face was tense and surprising as it may sound. It wasn’t from panic.He looked focused.“How did you even get up here?” I whispered.“There’s no time,” he said, glancing toward the hallway door as if he could see through it. Distant shouting echoed faintly through the estate. A thud. Something breaking. Gunfire, muted but unmistakable.My stomach dropped.“That’s not security,” I breathed.“No,” Kyle said quietly. “It isn’t.”The projector light flickered across his face, casting pieces of me over him. Pieces of my frozen body suspended mid-spin on the screen behind us.His jaw tightened when he noticed it.“He keeps recordings of you?” he asked.I didn’t answer and I heard him curse under his breath, “That sick bastard.”“We have to go. Now.”The urgency in his voice snapped me back to the present.“Go?” My heart began to race for a different reason. “Kyle, this is Xander’s private

~ Avelyn ~The room felt too large after he left.Too quiet.The silence wasn’t peaceful. It was waiting.I stood where he had ordered me to stay, fingers trembling slightly as I lifted them to my neck. The skin there was tender from his grip, not exactly bruised, he hadn’t let it go that far but marked in a way I could still feel beneath the surface.My hand drifted lower and before I could stop myself it landed on my stomach.A barely-there touch and a secret I carried alone.I didn’t know which terrified me more. What he would do if he found out… or what he would do if he didn’t.I moved to the window because I couldn’t stand still anymore. The air inside the room felt thick, like it was pressing against my lungs.I expected to see headlights. Armed men. Movement in the courtyard. Something violent to match the storm brewing inside this house.Instead—A single snowflake drifted past the glass.Then another. And another.Within seconds, the sky was shedding white.The first snow o

~ Avelyn ~“I knew you would come.”His voice didn’t rise and it didn’t need to. It settled into the room like a verdict already passed.For a heartbeat, I couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe. My fingers were numb, curled uselessly at my sides as the letter lay on the floor between us exposed, incriminating, no longer mine to protect.Slowly, he stepped inside.The door closed behind him with a quiet finality that made my stomach drop.“You’re not very good at lying,” Xander said mildly but I could hear the underlining of restrain in his tone. “But you’re excellent at convincing yourself you are.”I shook my head before I realized I was doing it. “I wasn’t— I didn’t—”“Stop.” One word. Absolute.I obeyed, my mouth closed like they had no right to be opened in the first place. I gulped the excess saliva in my mouth. He walked closer, unhurried, eyes never leaving my face. He didn’t bend to pick up the letter. Didn’t need to. He already had what he wanted.Me cornered.“I watched you tonig

~ Avelyn ~By the time I was escorted back to my room, my body felt hollow.Not weak, not tired.Hollow, like something essential had been scooped out and left behind somewhere between accusation and silence.I expected chaos when the door shut behind me.Broken things. Disarray. Evidence of a storm.Instead, the room was immaculate.The bed perfectly made. The curtains drawn at their precise angle. Not a single object out of place. Even the chair I’d abandoned in a rush earlier sat tucked neatly beneath the desk, obedient and still.I stared at it and then I laughed.It slipped out of me sharp and unsteady, too loud for the quiet. My hands flew to my mouth as if I could shove the sound back in, but it was already gone. The laugh didn’t carry humor. It carried hysteria.Of course the room was clean.As if nothing had happened.As if I hadn’t just watched a woman die on the floor.As if I hadn’t accused the most dangerous man I knew of murder to his face.As if my life wasn’t quie