Novels by Jhumie_writes

The streets were unrecognizable.Buildings burned, the acrid smoke curling into the sky like black fingers. Screams tore through the night, echoing off walls that had once held ordinary lives. Lucien moved through it all, calm, controlled, and terrifyingly deliberate.Every man, every house, every whisper of rebellion against him was met with swift, brutal retribution. Blood flowed freely. He didn’t just punish, he erased. Names, faces, families, futures, gone.“Where’s the next one?” he barked over the roar of chaos.His men scrambled, terror in their eyes, but they obeyed instantly. Fear had sharpened their reflexes, but it was nothing compared to the predator moving among them. Lucien’s boots struck the pavement hard, echoing in time with his pulse.One man tried to run, thinking his survival might be an option. Lucien saw him first.A single step. A single gesture. The man stopped. Frozen. His knees buckled. Lucien’s presence was enough to make him collapse into a heap of his own

The first thing Emilia noticed was the silence.Complete, suffocating silence.Her eyes struggled to adjust to the darkness, but it was no use, there were no windows, no cracks for light. Only shadows that stretched endlessly, swallowing the walls. The room smelled faintly of damp concrete and something faintly metallic.She tried to stand, but her legs were stiff, weak from being bound too long. Her hands ached from the restraints, they weren’t tight enough to cut off circulation, but tight enough to remind her every second that she was powerless.Footsteps echoed in the hallway outside.Food. Water. Both were slid under the door, just enough to survive, just enough to remind her that someone, somewhere, wanted her alive.She swallowed. Dryly. Slowly.A day passed like this. The air shifted subtly, but not enough to count time by. There were no clocks, no voices, no warning. Only the cold, the dark, and the slow, steady thrum of her own heartbeat.Anger coiled in her chest. She had b

Lucien’s voice cuts through the war room like a blade.“Shut down the ports. Every one of them. I want eyes on every shipment that moved in the last forty eight hours,” he snaps, fingers braced against the table. “If someone paid for her, money moved. Find it.”His men scramble, voices overlapping, screens lighting up with maps, manifests, intercepted calls. The room hums with urgency, controlled chaos.Lucien doesn’t look up when the door opens.He already knows who it is.Kira steps inside quietly, one hand resting instinctively on her stomach. She pauses just inside the doorway, watching him for a moment, the hard line of his shoulders, the fury barely leashed beneath command.“Lucien,” she says.He lifts a hand without turning. “Not now.”“I won’t take long.”That makes him look.Their eyes meet across the room.The men feel the shift instantly. Lucien gestures sharply. “Give us the room.”No one questions it. Chairs scrape, boots move, doors close. Within seconds, it’s just the t

Lucien watches Emilia’s father. The man is chained to a metal chair in a concrete room that smells of rust, damp, and old fear. His wrists are bound tight, his ankles bolted to the floor. He looks thinner than Lucien remembers. Older. But his eyes, sharp, mocking, defiant, are exactly the same.Lucien steps forward slowly.The sound of his shoes against the floor echoes like a countdown.Emilia’s father lifts his head and squints, then smiles.“Well,” he says hoarsely. “If it isn’t the devil himself. Took you long enough.”Lucien stops directly in front of him.“Where is she?” he asks calmly.The calm is the most dangerous part.Emilia’s father chuckles, then coughs. “Straight to business. No ‘hello,’ no more threats yet? You’re slipping.”Lucien doesn’t react.“I’ll ask once more,” he says. “Where is Emilia?”The man tilts his head, studying him like this is some twisted game. “You really think I’d know?” he asks. “If I had that kind of access, do you think I’d be rotting here?”Luci

Lucien did not raise his voice.That was how they knew it was bad.The estate had transformed into a war room within minutes, screens lit, phones ringing, men moving at a pace that bordered on panic. Lucien stood at the center of it all, still as stone, eyes sharp and burning, his mind already three steps ahead of everyone else in the room.“Shut down the ports,” he said calmly.“Freeze all air routes within a hundred mile radius.”“Every house that breathed Santiago’s name in the last six months, I want their doors kicked in.”“Yes, boss.”“Yes, boss.”“Yes, boss.”Fear moved faster than loyalty ever could.Lucien turned toward the wall of monitors. Footage replayed again and again, two men, clean, professional, efficient. This wasn’t a random grab. This wasn’t reckless.This was planned.“She was taken to send a message,” he said quietly.One of his lieutenants swallowed. “To who?”Lucien’s jaw tightened.“To me.”His hand clenched at his side, knuckles whitening. Emilia had been al

Lucien stepped fully into the bedroom.The lights were off. The curtains were half drawn, letting the faint glow of the estate lamps bleed through the glass. The room smelled faintly of her, soft, warm, familiar, but it felt wrong. Not empty. Not abandoned.Disturbed.Something in his chest tightened the moment he crossed the threshold, a subtle constriction he ignored at first. He had walked into rooms filled with blood and death without hesitation, but this silence felt sharper. More personal.His eyes moved first, scanning the space the way they always did when he entered a room, out of habit, out of instinct, out of survival. He catalogued everything in seconds.The bed was untouched.No indentation on the mattress. No crease in the sheets. No sign she had been there recently.His jaw tightened.A flicker of irritation crossed his face, quickly smothered. Emilia was unpredictable when she was upset. She could be stubborn. Withdrawn. Cold when she wanted to be.“She must be in the

The phone felt heavier than usual in my hand. Taking a shaky breath, I pressed the call button.It rang once. Twice. Three times. And then, the familiar voice.“Ivy?” Andrew said, low, cautious. There was tension in his tone, the kind that told me he sensed everything even before I spoke.“Andrew…” My voice was soft, strained. I had to steady myself before the words came out. “You need to come see me. Mom… everyone. I need you guys. I know it sounds insane, but you need to see me, Victor is acting so insane.”There was silence on the other end. Longer than I expected. My chest tightened. Panic rose unbidden.Then, finally, his voice came again. Shaken. Quiet. “Ivy… you… you did the right thing. We will come see you soon. Thank you."I froze.“I did?” I asked, disbelief coating my words. “I went back… to him. I...”“Yes,” he interrupted softly. “I know you didn’t go back because you wanted to. You did it to protect Killian. To protect yourself, and maybe even… to protect us all. Thank

The hallway was long and sterile, the walls painted in muted tones that made the air feel heavier than it should.Two of Robert Wolfe’s men flanked me on either side, their presence a constant, silent reminder that this wasn’t just a temporary stay. Every step I took echoed in the cavernous corridor, every creak of the floorboards a countdown. Everywhere felt like a prison here, a decorated prison. Ivy, stay calm, I whispered to myself. Every instinct screamed to run, to scream, to resist, but I had learned long ago that panic solved nothing. Survival required patience. Strategy. Silence.The door at the end of the hallway was heavier than expected. When it opened, I saw the room that would be my prison for the foreseeable future. Not a prison in the traditional sense, spacious, pristine, even comfortable, but the weight of restriction pressed in immediately.Two maids waited inside, bowing their heads politely. And around the room, strategically placed, were men. Not just any men. H

The door shut behind me, and the room felt smaller, heavier, suffocating.Victor was pacing, eyes wild, fists clenched so tight the knuckles were white. I could see the veins in his neck, the shake in his jaw, the fire that had been building since the moment I returned.“Where is she?” he roared, voice cracking, a mix of fury and desperation. “Where is she?! I know she’s here!”I froze, trying to shrink into myself, my hands clasped so tightly I thought they might bleed.Robert stepped forward, calm but firm. “Victor, enough.”Victor’s eyes snapped to his father. A dangerous flicker of something I couldn’t name crossed his face. “Enough?!” he shouted, spinning toward him. “You think you can stop me? You think you get to tell me what to do?! She’s mine! You hear me?! Mine!”He lunged, moving faster than I expected. Before I could react, two of Robert’s men grabbed him by the arms, restraining him.Victor thrashed and screamed, trying to break free, but they held him like iron. His rage

The room was quiet, almost deceptively so.After the chaos of finding Ivy gone, after the screaming, the throwing, the panic that had left my chest aching for hours, a slow calm had finally settled. Not peace. Calm. A brittle, tense kind of calm that felt like waiting for the next explosion.I sat across from Killy, my father, and Uncle Mark at the large wooden table in the kitchen table. “I’ve thought about it,” I said quietly, running a hand through my hair. “She went back… willingly.”Killy’s eyes, dark and serious, met mine. “That means something, son. Something bigger than her fear. She doesn’t walk back into that man’s life unless there’s a reason we don’t yet know.”Mark nodded slowly. “Exactly. This isn’t a mistake. This isn’t hesitation. She made a choice.”I swallowed, the weight of it pressing against my chest. “She made the choice to protect me, I know that. But if she went back willingly… someone has leverage over her. Or she knows something we don’t.”Killy leaned back,

The cab slowed near the estate gates, my hands gripping the door handle as if it could stop everything that awaited me. Every step toward the house felt heavier than the last. My chest constricted, every breath a sharp reminder of what I was doing.I am walking back into a storm.The gates opened automatically, and I was barely inside when the man from security approached. He didn’t even glance at me as he motioned me to follow him. Something was off. The usual hierarchy, the usual rules, they weren’t being applied.Then I saw him. Robert Wolfe, Victor’s father. His eyes narrowed as he studied me through the estate’s CCTV feed. He didn’t wait for Victor. He didn’t wait for protocol.“Take her to my office. Now,” he ordered. The security guard’s eyes widened but obeyed instantly.I froze. “Mr. Wolfe… I..."“Do not speak,” Robert snapped. “You’re safer in my office first, and you will not see him until I say so.”Fear twisted my stomach, but I had no choice. I followed silently, the ech

The city blurred past the taxi window, but I barely noticed. Lights streaked into long lines, cars honked, people shouted, but none of it reached me.I was somewhere else entirely.The road had never felt lonelier.Not with Killian’s warmth gone, not with his hands still lingering in my memory, not with the sound of his voice still echoing in my ears.I was going back. Back to Victor. Back to the engagement, back to the life I had rejected when I met Killian. But this… this was different. This wasn’t about obligation or tradition. This was survival.For him. For us.Victor’s name burned in my mind, and with it, all the things he could do if I did not return. He knew secrets. He knew Killian. And if I faltered, if I hesitated for even a second, everything would unravel.And I won't have killian go down or jailed because of me. Every mile in the cab felt heavier than the last. My hands clenched the seat, knuckles white. Every instinct screamed at me to run, to call Killian, to escape.