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Chapter 21: Where Hunger Doesn't Hurt the Worst (Continued)
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2025-04-19 12:21:28
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Scarred Hearts: A Mafia Billionaire Romance Chapter 22: The Visitor, the Voice, and the Weight of Staying
The voice went on. Soft. Measured. Familiar—and not. "Leya…" She winced in the darkness, her body contorting against the air. Shoving her head back, fists on the bed. No one came in. They did not knock again. They just waited. Not like Harrison. Not like Eleanor. This. this was no threat donning silence. It wasn't that. More, somehow. Doubt. She did not respond. She never blamed the voice. But she recalled—uttering them uttered them back. Clanking footsteps shattered the silence. No squeaking door creaked open. No voice answered. But something within Leya shrieked. Someone still had her name on their lips. Someone spoke it like an object. And that was an object. That was lethal. Because now she remembered why she struggled. Flashback – Weeks Ago The sun was low in the west that afternoon when Leya disembarked from the train, coat pulled tightly around her shoulders as fingers of autumn curled into its folds. The college campus stretched out before her, red-brick
Last Updated : 2025-04-19Scarred Hearts: A Mafia Billionaire Romance Chapter 23: And Then the Door Opened
The door creaked open slowly.Slow.Creaking.Intentional.Leya did not move.Not yet.She was curled tight in the bend of the bed, turned away from the door, towards the wall. She was motionless, breathing even and deep, the only sound in a room still heavy with the scent of silence and stale air.Then there were footsteps.Two sets.Heavy. Deliberate.Harrison.And—Nathaniel.She had their pace now. The way they moved. The way one moved like he owned the world and the other like he never wanted to ever hit the ground.Harrison's feet first on the ground. Closer to the center of the room.Nathaniel is close by the door.Not a sound.Leya didn't turn. She didn't even blink. She let them gawk.Let them know what they have done.She didn’t need to perform pain. It was written on her skin. It bled into the room from the pale blue under her eyes, from the sharp edge of her cheekbones, from the chapped split of her lower lip.She had wasted away beautifully.Harrison’s voice broke the sil
Last Updated : 2025-04-20Scarred Hearts: A Mafia Billionaire Romance Chapter 24: The Undoing Begins
The sound of Leya's footsteps had echoed down the corridor for a seriously good long period since she'd gone.Neither of them stirred.Not Nathaniel.Not Harrison.Not yet.Between them was space—it was charged, a fuse waiting for a spark to light.Nathaniel was gritted, eyes on the open door, jaw so tight the muscle was shaking. Fists white on his hips, fists he didn't even realize he'd made."She's not the same," he whispered.Harrison spoke not a word.Because he knew.He saw it.It wasn't the cuts to her lip or the bruise to her cheek nor the shudder in her arms or the quiver in her voice.It was the way she walked away.As if the world beneath her weren't sufficient, naturally."She lived," Nathaniel interrupted, voice sour. "And that's going to cost us.""She was never in that bargain," Harrison paced now—furiously, agitated paces up and down along the carpet.Nathaniel grinned nastily. "And whose brilliance suggested hiding it in the safe in the study, yeah? Behind a painting l
Last Updated : 2025-04-20Scarred Hearts: A Mafia Billionaire Romance Chapter 25: Vultures in Velvet
Nathaniel closed the door, and Harrison was left standing by himself in the vacant room that had been overrun by them.He did not stir.There was a smell of rose soap that still clung to the air with an unforgiving hold.It was not her fragrance that lingered, however.It was her silence.She never pleaded.She never cried.She never even regarded him as a man.She left him in the sunlight.And did not mind if she might as well murder him. But at least.There was a fist on either side of him.Harrison Blackwood, for the first time in his life, did not have that feeling of the presence of a hunter in the room.He did have the feeling of the quarry.---Meanwhile – East Wing, Vivian's Private Sitting RoomThe drapes were drawn. The fire was burning low. And the brandy in Vivian Blackwood's snifter was older than most of the servants.She stood at the mantelpiece, stiff as a cathedral.Eleanor sat across from her, still on the velvet chaise—cross-legged, unspotted, like an over-indulged
Last Updated : 2025-04-20Scarred Hearts: A Mafia Billionaire Romance Chapter 26: The Cost of Silence
Leya sat in the cold of her bedroom, on the floor, all balled up, knees to her chest, shaking hands hovered over a sheet of paper.A copy of her brother Dalton's school fee invoice.The week after next is when it needs to be paid.$14,200.She stared at the figure as if it was written in an alphabet she didn't understand. That figure might have been a million.She had begged Harrison.Once.Only once.She'd approached him after dinner, pride furrowed in the fold of her dress. She stood before him in the study, speaking softly, eyes lowered.And she'd asked."Harrison… I know you don't want to get involved, but… school fees for my brother must be paid. I thought maybe you could pay them. Just once."He didn't even look up at his scotch."I am not your charity fund, Leya."Her throat was dry. "It's only this once. I swear—"He cut her off with a cold laugh."Of course it is. You people take that oath, don't you? 'Only this once.' Until the hand is left out.'"Her face burned. "They're m
Last Updated : 2025-04-21Scarred Hearts: A Mafia Billionaire Romance Chapter 27: The Double Life
The Crystal Lantern flickered, not so much as flared.Fatigued bar wedged between broken-down buildings and broken sidewalks, it was the kind of neighborhood most women shunned after nightfall. The kind of neighborhood Leya Anderson—Blackwood wife, convict bride, painted china doll of a poisoned manor—shouldn't be a part of.And yet… it was where she lived.She was alone on the sidewalk for a minute before her first shift, fingers buried in coat, the spinning neon sign beating a hard red throb overhead. It throbbed like something sick and terrible.She didn't fit.Not because she'd never fit anywhere anyway. Not since everything.Inside was sticky with spilled whiskey, burnt orange peel, and bodily fluids. Glasses broke. There was a flash of too-obvious laughter. Music thumped through the boards.The bartender—a man named Reed, early forty, tattooed hands and cigarette voice—greeted her with a jerk of his chin."You Leya?" he said, his eyes running over her like a checkpoint scanner.
Last Updated : 2025-04-21Scarred Hearts: A Mafia Billionaire Romance Chapter 28: Nights That Burn Quiet
The house was dark already at nine. The pacing of the guards had finally ceased. The hallways were silent. And all that remained was the creaking of settling old wood. That's when Leya departed. Night after night, for three weeks running. Hair back. Blue jeans, unmarked. Two-sizes-too-big hoodie. She slipped out the back servants' door—where the cameras hadn't worked in decades and nobody cared enough to replace them. She didn't stay in Blackwood's home. But she did stay at The Crystal Lantern. --- Week One: Pain in the Bones The first shift nearly killed her. The floor sticky. The glasses are never quite clean. The customers are never quite so nice. One spilled whiskey along her wrist and winked. Another pushed his fingers too far down her hip as she walked by. Somebody whistled when she bent to retrieve a fallen coaster. And still, she worked. She flowed like water—silent, quick, with eyes that never met anyone's for longer than a second. Reed, the bartender, said litt
Last Updated : 2025-04-21Scarred Hearts: A Mafia Billionaire Romance Chapter 29: The Night That Should Have Been Boring
The house slept. That deep, heavy sleep money buys. No bedlam. No alarms. But only endless corridors with silent sconces and floors that shone without a creak. Leya was rigid in the center of her bedroom. She spent there once a minute or two—or so—rigid, inaccessible, just staring at the spread on her bed. Same hoodie. Same jeans. The same black sneakers that never creaked on marble. Her ritual. Her uniform for the other existence. The one she had. --- Getting Ready Slid out of her silk nightgown and into jeans with the knees worn soft at the frayed hems. Pulled the hoodie over her battered shoulders. Tied back her hair in a tight braid. Stuffed the crumpled money into her sock—never her purse. The purse got grabbed. She'd learned that. And she looked in the mirror. No makeup. No perfume. No hint of the woman Harrison used to know. A face carved out of determination. Eyes that wouldn't blink. She stuffed the pocket knife into her sleeve and closed the drawer. Just in c
Last Updated : 2025-04-22
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Scarred Hearts: A Mafia Billionaire Romance Chapter 51: The Servant's Silence
The bell rang.Not the ring of breakfast in the east dining room. Not the soft rustle of linens and silver spoons.This was the servant's bell.Cold. Hard. Cruel.It rang at six-fifteen every morning. Before birds fluttered. Before lightening the curtains. Before the family even stirred in their beds.This morning, it rang for her.Leya did not move.She was already awake.Already wearing a grimy apron and loose filthy brown dress. Too tight around the arms and too loose around the waist.There were no dresses left. There were no laces to fasten, no silk.They had been taken.Off her closet floor where she had been sleeping.Instead, stiffened fabric and a crumpled piece of paper in pretty script:"No maid will be sent to assist you anymore. You are to do all the regular housework of the caretaker of this home. That is floors, washing, bedroom, and west garden. – Vivian Blackwood"No battle.No conflict.No voice redefining.She had been dismantled quietly.Gone, as ink from the page.
Scarred Hearts: A Mafia Billionaire Romance Chapter 50: Under Every Floorboard (Part II)
Night threw its dark shadows over the east windows, staining the walls of the mansion with bruises of dying light.The halls were too quiet.Again.Leya had grown accustomed to hearing differently now—not to the noises, but to silences.And there was a new one following behind every door she walked through.A silence with teeth.She remembered it most clearly when she was summoned—not by Harrison, not by Eleanor—but by Vivian herself.Diplomatic knock on the Leya door. Not Clara. One of the other domestics. Downtrod head."Miss Vivian wishes to see in the garden parlor."Leya did not hesitate.She stored the crumpled-up piece of paper she had discovered in an envelope and stored the envelope under a lifted floorboard and walked quietly to where she lay in concealment.She didn't possess the phone.She didn't require it.Not today.--- Garden Parlor – Just After DuskVivian posed in front of the French doors, bone-colored robe, bony waist cinched tightly by a belt of silk. Sunlight gl
Scarred Hearts: A Mafia Billionaire Romance Chapter 49: Under Every Floorboard
The house whispered differently now.There was something in the air. Something that had slept but had opened its eyes.Leya could feel it each time her bare feet touched the shining floor.Each time her fingertips touched the banisters.Each time her eyes met a servant's and stayed one second too long.She was being watched.But not all eyes were unfriendly anymore.Some were curious.Some were scared.And one set… had saved her life.No word was spoken, though. Silences like gold and worth more than lies here.---Leya's Room – MorningShe was sitting by the window, lap full of notebook, fingers clasped around the pen.She was not writing. Not yet.She was thinking.Joining up.Relating.The Clara visit. The note on the door. The fares are tucked away. Nathaniel's refusal of everything. Harrison's rage. The whisper down the corridor.And most of all—The silence.The ominous silence which had descended upon the house since Harrison's outburst.Vivian hadn't summoned her in.Eleanor h
Scarred Hearts: A Mafia Billionaire Romance Chapter 48: A House Built on Doubt
Harrison's research sparks flew with as bad an attitude as his own spat and crackled.He paced back and forth. Couldn't sit still.There was too much flame licking under his skin. Too much agitation behind his eyes.Nathaniel pushed into the room uninvited.That was not unusual.Tonight, however, his quiet had not been unintentional.It had been calculated.By intention.As though he was preparing himself for something that neither of them could afford to overlook."You paid it," Harrison cut in, hard and brusque.Nathaniel said nothing. "Yes.""You were told no.""I was aware she asked you.""And you went out and paid, just like that."Nathaniel shrugged off his coat and let it fall over the chair arm.He did it all the same reliability that Harrison had once loved—before it had started to feel like everything he'd lost."She never asked me for money," Nathaniel said to his brother. "She never mentioned it again. I had to figure it out myself."Harrison's eyes went icy. "You think th
Scarred Hearts: A Mafia Billionaire Romance Chapter 47: What Silence Begins to Destroy
The door closed on Leya.Not slam. Not shudder.But the quiet kind of finality that shattered in more vigorously than rage ever could.She did not cry.Not as she went down the corridor.Not as she went by the gilded mirrors that had unsettled her with faces she barely recognized.Not even when she arrived at her door.She bolted it.Fair and right. Top bolt. Bottom latch. Handle in position.And she just stood there for a moment or so, leaning against the cold wood, her body trembling due to the poison Harrison had injected into her like venom.The words would still have been echoing in her mind, over and over and over—not because they hurt—But because they meant something.Something real.> "Perhaps they should have finished what they started."It ought to have crushed her.Ought've crushed what remained of the girl who'd entered into this home with borrowed strength and muffled appetite.But it didn't.Something was shattered instead.Not her.The illusion.The illusion that Harri
Scarred Hearts: A Mafia Billionaire Romance Chapter 46: The Fire Beneath Her Silence
The hallway beyond Harrison's study was chillier than normal. Leya caught wind of it before she'd even made it there—so to speak as if the walls had sensed that something would crack soon. She'd only just pushed the door open the whole way when already she could see him. Harrison sat slumped beside the fire, legs apart, one fist clenched, the other around the mantelpiece. His cheek was turned away, half-shrouded in darkness under flickering firelight. It cast a shadow over the lines of his face. Made his face graver. She stayed in the doorway. He had not noticed. Not yet. "Close the door." The words dropped like the blade of a guillotine into silence. She did, reluctantly. The clack of the latch shutting her in echoed out, but louder than necessary. ### He turned at last. And something in his eyes cinched her skin. "You attended the university." A statement, not a question. Leya's jaw dropped. "I—yes." He moved one step closer. Not hastily. Not loudly. But each step was
Scarred Hearts: A Mafia Billionaire Romance Chapter 45: Smoke in the Walls
The rest of the day dragged like molasses-slow, heavy, too heavy. Leya did not eat. Could not. Not because there was nothing to eat—but because she could not assure it was safe. Every bite is a risk. Every shadow, a killer. Every glance from a servant, a secret message. She walked barefoot across her room in stealthy steps, ticking off the planks on the floor from the force of habit. She had done it before, the all-nighters in solitude. It was how she did not slide—how she kept count on herself when the world around her conspired to scrub her out. > And the door stood now a fraction of an inch open. Worst of all. Because it signaled they wanted her to float. To converse. To tumble. To believe she was free. --- Evening – Dining Hall Vivian sat back at the head of the table, ivory shawl draped on her shoulders in cobweb folds. She filled her glass with wine daintily, her very narrow fingers struggling to close the glass. Eleanor is on Vivian's left. Harrison is on Vivian's
Scarred Hearts: A Mafia Billionaire Romance Chapter 44: A Cage With Questions
The sun that streamed in behind the curtains was soft-close that morning—but never in the Blackwood house.Leya woke up early or hadn't slept. Her body was too used to the pain, cold sheets, and dreams. She stretched out on the bed, running cold motions through her hair with the movement slower than vanity than habit.She'd returned from their St. Delacroix yesterday afternoon. She'd been disappointed more than she'd wanted to be by the "anonymous" gift report.She'd have to strain to believe Nathaniel'd won.And in her mind was a question: If so, then why not for himself? Why send them away so soon?And worse than to ask, was hope.Hope she'd fought with, and someone noticed and done—it for goodness' sake.There was some hope of a kind somewhere like this somewhere.And she would know why not.---East Wing – MidmorningThere was the pressure on her back, low. Low. Sighing too much itself.Leya's body bristles up.She did not say a word. She was born not to talk.The door opened dari
Scarred Hearts: A Mafia Billionaire Romance Chapter 43: Secrets Wrapped in Silence
The campus breathed the bite of early fall.Leya leaned in the bursar's office, her fingers clenched around the miserable envelope of torn bills she'd fought to gather together in months of vicious night shifts. Her heart pounded, pride and humiliation tangled in her chest. Every tip, every penny, every extra hour she'd worked—the exhaustion that seeped around her bones—had brought her to this counter."For Dalton Anderson," she said curtly but courteously, pushing the envelope forward.The woman across the glass from her scowled behind bifocals, fingers flying across her keyboard, fingernails clattering with each letter she typed.Time passed.A scowl furrowed the woman's brow.Leya's stomach dropped.Had she waited too long? Had they already expelled him?The woman kept on typing. Scratching. Then straightened to her feet."Oh," she said, lighter now. "The account's paid. Paid in full two days ago."Leya's eyes scanned."What?"“Yes, Miss Anderson. Tuition, housing, fees. Everything
