Novels by Chithority

Evelyn woke to the faint light of dawn seeping through the curtains. The house was quiet, save for the occasional shuffle from the kitchen where Liam was already preparing breakfast. The calm morning felt almost unreal after the past few days of chaos—Kent’s kidnapping, the ambush, the lies, and threats surrounding her family. The contrast between the stillness of the house and the storm that had raged through her life the night before made her chest ache. She rubbed her temples, trying to focus, willing the fog in her mind to lift.The memory of Sebastian sitting across from her the night before lingered like a soft ache. His presence had been grounding, a quiet reminder that she wasn’t entirely alone. But even as she thought of him, her heart twisted with conflict. Trust was fragile; love even more so. She had spent years building walls so thick that even she sometimes forgot the shape of her own heart. And yet, he had stayed—quietly, deliberately, offering support without overstepp

Evelyn shook her head, exhaling sharply, the sound a mixture of frustration and exhaustion. “I have to,” she said, voice low but firm. “No one else can. Not Kent, not the others. I can’t… I won’t let anything happen to them. Not ever.”Sebastian’s expression softened, but he didn’t push further. He knew her too well—knew when to prod and when to let the storm rage unchecked. “You’ve been carrying it all yourself for too long,” he said quietly, stepping closer, careful not to crowd her space. “You don’t have to—”“I do,” she interrupted, her voice sharper now, cutting through the weight in the room. “I can’t risk it. Every second I take my eyes off them… I think of what almost happened. And I… I can’t forgive myself if it happens again.”Sebastian’s hand hovered near hers, almost instinctively, but he held back. “I understand,” he said, softer, almost a whisper. “I just… don’t want you to burn yourself out before you even get to fight.”Evelyn’s eyes flicked up, meeting his. There was

Silence had a different texture now. It felt tactical, purposeful — like the quiet before a tide that would sweep everything away. I sat at the kitchen table with a thin lamp casting a pool of yellow over the papers I’d spread out: names, dates, fragments of conversations, an ugly web that traced back in ugly, familiar lines. The ink on the paper looked small and sane, but the things written there were not. They were seeds of war.After last night I had slept maybe two hours in fits, propped in a chair, hand over hand on the phone, calling people I’d kept at arm’s length for years and some I had never had reason to call until now. I’d always run my company like a general: contingency plans, exit strategies, redundancies. This was the same muscle; the stakes were different. This was no longer about quarterly reports or hostile takeovers. This was about my children, and that made the calculations sharper, meaner.I picked up my pen and circled a name I kept returning to: an old private

Evelyn’s POVWhen the children were finally back in their beds, their breathing even and soft, I stood in the doorway for a long moment, watching them through the dim glow of the nightlight. Their small bodies were curled beneath the blankets, their faces serene, untouched—for now—by the ugliness threatening to seep into their world.The sight broke something inside me. I pressed a hand to my mouth to muffle the sob that threatened to escape, my chest tightening until it felt like the air itself was turning against me. I wanted to stay there forever, to stand guard over them, to be their shield, their wall, their everything. But walls could crack. Shields could shatter. And fathers—fathers could become monsters.I closed the door quietly and leaned back against it, my knees giving way as I slid down to the floor. My pulse thudded unevenly, a hollow drumbeat echoing in my ears. The house was silent again, save for the whisper of wind against the windows and the faint ticking of the clo

The room felt colder somehow after I’d said it out loud — the sentence that should have ended things: No reconciliation. No forgiveness. Only justice. The words hung between us like a steel bar, immovable, absolute.Abbas’s face crumpled in a way I had not expected. For a beat there was a flicker of the man who’d once been kind, who had guided me through boardroom storms and smiled with the kind of warmth that made me think of family. Then the hardness came back. The part of him that had always been negotiated with, the part that measured loyalty like currency.“Evelyn,” he whispered, the plea thin and small. “Please. Let me explain. Let me try. Don’t walk away before you know why—”“You want me to listen to excuses?” I cut in before he could find the words that might soften the stone under my feet. “Do you think time erases the fact that my child’s life was ripped from the house he sleeps in? Do you think a handful of words will fix kids who woke up in a hospital? You abandoned us. Y

Evelyn’s POVAbbas’s shoulders sagged, the weight of his confession settling on him like a shroud. “Evelyn,” he said quietly, his voice rough with regret, “you have every right to hate me. I deserve that. But I need you to understand—it wasn’t that simple.”I stared at him, the sterile lights turning everything too bright, too clear. “Not that simple?” My voice broke, bitter laughter spilling from me again. “You left me to rot in a world that chewed me alive, and you call it not that simple?”He took a step closer, his limp more pronounced now, every movement deliberate—as though afraid I’d bolt. “If I had stayed, they would’ve killed you,” he said, the words coming fast now, desperate. “Your mother was already in danger because of me. I thought leaving—disappearing—was the only way to keep you safe. To keep her safe.”Something twisted inside me at the mention of my mother. The air around us thickened. I could almost see her face, fading in memory, her voice, the warmth of her arms—a