Novels by Anthony Wyles

The rain had just stopped.Soft mist clung to the windows of the Ciel's mansion east wing, blurring the sunrise into watercolor hues, lavender, gold, and pale blue. Inside, the world held its breath.And then came the cry.High, clear, and so small.Roxanne exhaled, sinking back into the bed pillows, damp curls stuck to her forehead. Her fingers trembled, her body ached, but her heart… her heart had never felt so full.The midwife smiled gently and whispered, “You did beautifully.”Ciel had arranged for her safe delivery at home to avoid the press trying to have a glimpse of his baby's new life.Across the room, he stood frozen, one hand covering his mouth, the other gripping the edge of the chair like he needed something solid to hold onto. His eyes were rimmed red, glistening with disbelief.Then the doctor turned, gently placing a small, wriggling bundle into his arms.Ciel cradled the baby as if holding the sun.“Hi,” he said hoarsely. “Hi there.”The infant blinked up at him

At Ciel's mansion, the atmosphere was in a celebratory mood.There were lovely fragrance sprayed across the whole area of the mansion.Although out of sight, there was a string quartet playing with a low, steady and reverent sound.Everything was planned out to be spectacular for her.Roxanne stood at the edge of the corridor, one hand resting lightly on the swell of her stomach, the other clutching a bouquet of ivory peonies and olive branches. Her gown shimmered like moonlight, simple silk, no train, no veil. Just her. Powerful. Radiant, and Free.“I feel like I’m going to drop the rings,” Finn whispered beside her.She looked down at him and smiled. He was dressed in a navy-blue tuxedo, his hair slicked to one side, trying so hard to look grown. He clutched the velvet ring box in one hand and held her arm with the other, eyes wide with the kind of solemn joy only a child can feel at moments that feel bigger than life.“You won’t drop them,” she whispered. “You’ve already car

At the Bellamy headquarters, the morning air was slightly cold, but with enough breeze to rustle the new massive silk banner that is draped over the building.Roxanne just got there.She was wearing a very tailored ivory suit.It has gold embroidery along the sleeves.It looked regal.Her hair was pulled back in a sleek knot, and her eyes gleamed with elegance and raw beauty.She looked very inch a powerful woman by her looks.And truly, she was.She is the CEO of the Bellamy Couture.Ciel was standing beside her.Tall and poised, with his hand resting gently at her back.Crowds were gathered around them, outside the company.There was a Pavilion, and different people were there.Journalists,ambassadors,designers, philanthropists, and board members from three continents.The company's name glimmered under the new leadership.Only this time, the name belonged to Roxanne.She stepped forward, her voice amplified and commanding, yet warm.“Years ago, my mother built something extraordina

For some reason, Devian was arrested and charged to Court.Ciel had a hand in it.He wanted to make him fall for real this time.What he did with Reina's phone may have helped him in his plan, but he figured if he could do something like that, then he was capable of much more madness.And he could not afford to let him live free.Since his detention didn't help matters, he decided to use the law.On the day of his hearing, the police brought Devian to the court.It was raining slightly.Cameras flashed before him like lightening.He was a part of the high society, and a scandal like this definitely makes the juicy news.He didn't flinch, nor blink as he was led into the Court room.His hair was damp, his once-pristine suit wrinkled and clinging to his frame. The arrogance he once wore like armor had been stripped away, piece by piece.He looked smaller now.Inside the courtroom, the silence was almost sacred. The judge had already reviewed the files.It was over 400 pages of cybercr

Evelyn drove her car towards Roxanne's house.The drive was slow, and almost reverent.It was as if she was going for something that would make or mar her.She was putting on a plain black coat, and heels.And also had with her a leather bag, which contained just one item.A letter.As she drove, the streets blurred past her window like a memory she does not want to go after anymore.Her phone buzzed in her lap, but she didn’t check it. There was no one she wanted to hear from. Not anymore.By the time she reached Roxanne’s building, the late afternoon sun had sunk low, casting long shadows across the pavement. She pulled over, and came out of the car, with the letter tucked into her coat.She walked towards the door and stood by it for a minute before she rang the bell.Then the door opened slowly after some few minutes.Roxanne appeared before her.She was dressed in a gray lounge wear.There were some faint bruises beneath her eyes.A testament of sleepless nights, and stress.H

The house where James was hiding was walled up.He have had his men also take Reina down there to stay with him.Reina had grown used to living among them. But this one cut deeper.Living with them means different things.It means she was now privy to their private dealings and discussions.And since they got there, she had been listening to their cries of frustration.Soon, she heard James and one of his men having a low conversation. “She’s unstable,” James said coolly. “She’s a risk now. We can’t afford to keep her in the loop.”“What about the plan?”“The plan is salvaging what’s left of our network,” James snapped. “She can rot in this house or disappear. It doesn’t matter now. She’s expendable.”The word rang in Reina’s skull like a gunshot.She was Expendable!!She backed away from the door like it had burned her. Her pulse thundered. Her palms itched. Her father was ready to throw her away like garbage. After everything. After all she had gone through.All this while, s

I used to think a home was something you were given.A house with your name on the deed, a ring on your finger, a title that told the world exactly who you belonged to. I spent eight years believing that, married to a man who built me a beautiful cage and called it love, who looked at me every single day and somehow, impossibly, never actually saw me at all.I understand now that I had it backward the entire time.---I'm sitting in my garden as I write this, the one behind the house Julian and I chose together, nothing grand about it, nothing meant to impress anyone who might walk past. My mother helped me plant the roses along the back fence, the same kind, she told me once, that used to grow outside the house where I was born, back before any of this, back before a single quiet man's greed set a chain of events in motion that would take decades, and the courage of people I hadn't even met yet, to finally untangle.I think about all of them often, now that I finally have the space t

Seraphina stood in front of her easel, morning light pouring through the windows of the house she and Julian had moved into six months earlier, a small, honest space neither of them had chosen for appearances, simply for how it felt to actually live in.The painting taking shape beneath her brush was a garden, roses in careful bloom, the particular light of a childhood memory she'd finally felt ready to capture. Her father, in the distance of the canvas, a figure more impression than portrait, exactly the way she remembered him now, present without needing every detail perfectly rendered.---"You're up early," Julian said, appearing in the doorway with two cups of coffee, settling beside her to watch her work the way he often did now, a quiet, comfortable ritual they'd built together over the past year."I couldn't sleep. I kept thinking about this piece.""How's it coming?""Good," she said, studying it. "I think it's almost exactly what I wanted it to be."---Across the city, Lydi

The morning of the wedding, Seraphina woke before her alarm, the particular quiet of a day she'd been waiting for without quite admitting how much she'd been waiting for it.No coordinator barked instructions through a headset. No stranger adjusted her hair into something that photographed well but didn't feel like her own. The small venue Julian had chosen, a garden not far from the one where he'd proposed, held barely forty guests, every single one of them someone who had actually earned a place in the story that had brought her here.---Diana arrived early, as promised, armed with coffee and the same bluntness that had carried Seraphina through every hard year of the last two."You look terrified," Diana observed, settling into the chair beside her."I am, a little.""Good terrified, or bad terrified?"Seraphina considered the question honestly, looking at her own reflection, simpler than her first wedding dress had ever allowed, something she'd chosen entirely for herself rather

Diana arrived at Seraphina's apartment on a Thursday evening, the particular easy familiarity of someone who no longer bothered knocking, carrying her usual bag of takeout and an opinion about something before she'd even crossed the threshold."You haven't picked a wedding date," she announced, setting the food down on the counter. "It's been weeks. I need something to plan."Seraphina laughed, pulling down plates. "We're in no rush, Diana.""I know. I'm the one in a rush. There's a difference."---They ate together at the small kitchen table, the easy rhythm of a friendship that had carried both of them through everything, the divorce, the investigation, the slow, careful rebuilding of a life worth living."Can I tell you something?" Diana said, after a while, something more serious settling into her expression."Always.""I've been thinking about moving. Not far. Just somewhere closer to you, actually, now that things have settled. I spent so long being the friend who showed up in

The canvas had sat unfinished in the corner of Seraphina's apartment for months, exactly where she'd left it, the first clumsy, honest attempt she'd made after years away from something that used to feel like breathing.She found herself looking at it more often lately, now that the engagement had settled into something steady and real, now that the fear that had once consumed every quiet moment had finally, mostly, loosened its grip.One evening, without quite deciding to, she picked up a brush again.---Julian found her there hours later, paint on her hands, her hair pulled back carelessly, the particular focus of someone who had entirely lost track of time."You're working," he said softly, careful not to disturb whatever had finally pulled her back to it."I think I finally understand what it needed," she said, not looking up from the canvas. "It's been sitting unfinished because I didn't know yet what I was actually trying to say with it. I think I finally do."---He watched qu

Daniel stood in the doorway of the small warehouse office, the same space where he'd spent so many evenings over the past year, poring over files, chasing fragments of truth that had taken this long to finally assemble into something whole.It felt strange, standing there now with nothing urgent left to chase.---He'd been offered the consulting position again, formally this time, a steady salary, respectable work, the kind of life most people would have been grateful for after everything he'd survived. He turned it down, politely, the decision arriving easier than he expected once he actually sat with it."Why not?" Julian asked, when Daniel told him over coffee one morning. "It's good work. Stable. You'd be excellent at it.""I know I would be," Daniel admitted. "I think that's exactly the problem. It would just be another version of hiding, honestly. Using the same skills I used to survive four years as a dead man, except now getting paid comfortably to keep using them instead of