Novels by Jhumie_writes

The estate gates groaned open, the sound echoing through the driveway like a warning. The convoy rolled in, dark SUVs, blood still drying on metal, engines ticking with heat. The courtyard was silent. The air felt thick, as if the house and land themselves were holding breath.Emilia stepped out before her door fully opened.Her boots hit the ground with a cold, steady purpose. No hesitation. No tremor. But inside her chest, something ached, sharp, aching, longing. She had held herself together for hours, for battles, for commands, for the coldness of war.But now, She lifted her head.And there he was.Lucien Moretti stood on the balcony above, one hand gripping the stone railing, the other resting carefully against his ribs. The bandages beneath his open shirt were stark white against his skin. His face was drawn, paler than she had ever seen him, exhaustion carved into hard lines.Rosa stood beside him, supporting him gently, her shoulder just barely against his arm.A silent guardi

Lucien woke like a man dragged back from death by force.He surfaced from the darkness like someone hauled out of deep water, lungs burning, ribs screaming, chest aching with each breath. Every muscle throbbed with the memory of fire, metal, and loss. The world swam in a haze of pain and heavy silence.He blinked.The ceiling.The carved cornices.The scent of antiseptic and blood.The room was painfully still, too still, except for the soft, exhausted breathing of someone asleep beside him.Rosa.Her head rested on the edge of his bed, her hand still loosely wrapped around his. Her fingers were cold. Her face streaked from old tears. Her hair undone, her eyes bruised with sleepless grief.She hadn’t left him. Not once.Lucien tried to speak, but the first sound caught in his throat like broken glass.Rosa stirred, lashes fluttering. The moment her gaze found his awake, A breath escaped her, trembling and relieved.“Lucien,” she whispered, voice cracking.He blinked again, slow, disori

The house still smoked when they brought him in.They carried Matteo like you carry a bad debt, limp, sheepish, bound with rough rope and the coward’s new look, a man who had been caught thinking he could outlive his choices. One of Enzo’s boys shoved him through the doorway, laughing like a kid who’d found something forbidden in a locked attic.“Look who we dragged out from under the chandeliers,” the kid joked, voice high with triumph. “Tried to hide in the wine cellar like a rat.”Everyone in the room laughed.Matteo’s leash scraped across the marble, a wet, humiliating sound. He was pallid, hair plastered to his forehead with smoke and sweat. His eyes darted to the window where the courtyard still burned, then to the corridor where the men of the house stood in small groups, guns tucked at their sides, faces unreadable.For a second he tried to gather posture, tried to look like a man, not a snared animal.“Long time no see, Matteo,” I said. My voice was light; the words were a sca

The estate was already trembling under the weight of gunfire when Emilia took a step forward. The air cracked with chaos, shouts, bullets, glass shattering like rain. The marble floors of Dario Vescari’s mansion gleamed beneath the strobe of muzzle flashes.Dario’s guards scrambled for cover, shouting orders that dissolved into screams. It all happened too fast for them to understand; they didn’t realize the men outside weren’t reinforcements in case anything went wrong. They were executioners. Emilia had briefed them for war.She didn’t blink.Her hand lowered from the small detonator she had pressed. Her voice came steady, even as the walls shook.“One thing I’ve learned from Lucien,” she said softly, “is that you never give an enemy a second chance to hurt you.”Her father turned sharply, fury flaring through his shock. “What have you done?”“What Lucien would have done,” Emilia replied. “Ended the problem. Permanently.”Dario’s eyes widened as realization dawned—too late.“You…”“Y

The gates of Dario Vescari’s estate opened with the slow hum of betrayal. Emilia didn’t wait for an escort. She walked through alone, her boots echoing against marble like a clock counting down.Her men were already in position beyond the fences, engines off, radios quiet, the night heavy with waiting.Inside, the air smelled like smoke and secrets. Classical music drifted from somewhere deeper in the house, soft and deceitful. Two guards by the door exchanged uncertain glances when she passed. None dared to stop her.Every step she took through Dario’s corridors was measured, no hesitation, no fear. Only the quiet certainty of a woman who had already decided how the night would end.When she reached the glass doors of the main room, she paused. Through the reflection, she saw him.Her father.The Vulture.He was seated at the far end of the room, a tumbler in hand, voice sharp as he barked orders into his phone.“Santiago needs to let us strike by dawn! Moretti’s men are scattered, i

Dawn bled slow and gray over the Moretti estate. The smoke from burned curtains and scorched beams hung low, a ragged halo that made the house look less like a palace and more like a battlefield shrine. I stood on the balcony overlooking the courtyard, cloak pulled tight around my shoulders though the air had the raw bite of early autumn. Below, men moved with the focused, clean violence of those who had done this before: loading crates, checking magazines, fastening straps, stacking cases of ammunition into the back of battered trucks.The sight should have sickened me. It did not. It steadied me.They were my makeshift army now. They had followed a man they called boss for years; they would follow me today because I gave them a reason to. Because this was no longer only about vengeance. This was about cutting out the rot before it ate the whole house. About ending the war started with my name.Raul stood at the top of the stairs, his sling a dark reminder of the night we had lost Jul

The hallway outside Victor’s wing smelled of liquor before Robert even reached the door.Not surprising. Not disappointing.Simply expected.He did not knock. He opened the door and stepped inside.The room was dim, curtains drawn, clothes on the floor, the faint blue glow of a TV screen left running without sound. Victor sat slouched on the edge of the bed, one hand wrapped around a half empty bottle of whiskey, his hair a mess, eyes glassy and unfocused.The image would have bothered most fathers.Robert was not most fathers.He closed the door behind him. “Stand up.”Victor blinked slowly. Confusion, then something like irritation crossed his face. “Dad?”“Stand,” Robert repeated.Victor tried. He got halfway to his feet before his balance wavered and he sat back down, bottle clinking against the floor. He laughed once, humorless. “I’m fine.”“You’re intoxicated,” Robert said. Not an insult, just a fact. “And we do not have time for you to sober up.”Victor rubbed both hands over hi

The storm had only grown heavier, the wind pushing against the windows as though the world itself was warning him to stop. Return. Rethink.He didn’t.Killian stepped through the door of the safe house, the air inside warm in contrast to the cold rain that clung to him like a second skin. The lights were dim, quiet, the place too still. Too watchful.Ivy sat on the couch, waiting.Not pacing.Not anxious.Just waiting, like someone who had already made a decision.She looked up at him, eyes calm in a way that unsettled him more than fear ever could.“You came back early,” she said softly.Killian nodded once. He didn’t speak yet. He was still carrying the adrenaline of the call, the confirmation, the reality that the next hours would either save a man or end everything.He closed the door. Locked it.Then spoke.“I came to move you,” he said. “We’re switching locations. You’re not staying here.”Ivy didn’t flinch. “Where?”“Another house. More secure,” he replied. “Away from this. Away

The safe house was quiet in a way that didn’t feel peaceful.Not empty. Not abandoned.Just quiet in the way a heart becomes quiet after too much has happened and too much is still waiting to happen.Ivy stood where Killian had left her, her hand still resting on the doorframe even though he was long gone. It had been only minutes, but it felt longer. The echo of his departure clung to the air like smoke, warm, heavy, something that stayed in the lungs even after the source was gone.His voice still played in her head. "I’ll be back." A promise, said softly against her lips.She had nodded. She had held his face in her hands. She had looked him in the eyes like she believed him.But deep in her chest, beneath bone and memory, she knew something else:He was walking into something larger than both of them.Not fate.Not destiny.History.And history is never gentle.She crossed the living room slowly, as though the air itself was thick. Rain tapped against the windows at first like fin

The night pressed in like smoke, heavy, suffocating, and too still for comfort. Killian sat alone in the dim study, the low hum of the city outside swallowed by the storm that was breaking somewhere beyond the glass. His phone screen still glowed faintly with the call from his mother.Her voice lingered in his head. “Be careful, Killian… please.”He’d promised her he would be.But he knew promises like that didn’t belong in his world.Killian’s hand tightened around the phone until his knuckles turned white. He replayed every word Elena had said, every tremor in her voice, every pause that sounded more like fear than uncertainty.The location she mentioned.The file she “accidentally” found.A remote property, off the coast, long abandoned, supposedly under restoration by one of Robert’s companies.He could feel it in his gut.This was it.He rose from his seat and crossed to the side table, unlocking the small drawer beneath it. Inside lay the secure satellite phone, one that couldn’t

The rain hadn’t stopped since she left Robert’s study. It followed her back to her room like a ghost that refused to let go. Droplets slid down the wide glass panes, blurring the garden lights into trembling orbs. The house was quiet, heavy, as though it was listening.Elena sat at the edge of her bed, her mind racing with the information she just find. The words had burrowed into her chest like a heartbeat she couldn’t silence.She closed her eyes. Killian Jackson.She hadn’t spoken that name aloud in years. She could still see him, the man who once loved her before everything became politics and promises, before Robert Wolfe and the web he built around her life. Killian’s father. The man who’d disappeared from the world but never fully from her memory.Now, she had seen it, a trace, a location, a possibility. And the thought that her son, their son, might finally find answers stirred something reckless inside her.She reached for her phone, her hand trembling slightly.For a long mo

The estate itself was quiet, almost reverent, as Elena arrived in Robert’s study.Robert was already there, the large room filled with papers, folders, and carefully arranged documents. Every item, every sheet of paper, had been placed with intention.He moved deliberately, walking to the window to observe the rain over the city, leaving the desk, and the bait, within her reach.A single folder lay there, innocuous at first glance. Its edges were crisp, its cover unremarkable, but it contained precisely what he wanted her to see, a file that suggested the location of Killian’s biological father, a secret he had guarded for over three decades.He knew the moment Elena discovered it, she would tell Killian. And in doing so, she would unknowingly lead both Killian and Ivy directly into his trap.Robert allowed himself a moment to savor the inevitability. Every movement, every decision had been calculated. Elena would act as a messenger without realizing it. Killian, driven by curiosity, l