LOGINShare
Chapter 43: Secrets Wrapped in Silence
Last Updated:
2025-05-01 13:27:15
Related chapters
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
Last Updated : 2025-05-01Scarred 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
Last Updated : 2025-05-01Scarred 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
Last Updated : 2025-05-02Scarred 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
Last Updated : 2025-05-02Scarred 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
Last Updated : 2025-05-02Scarred 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
Last Updated : 2025-05-03Scarred 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
Last Updated : 2025-05-05Scarred 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.
Last Updated : 2025-05-05
Latest chapter
Scarred Hearts: A Mafia Billionaire Romance Chapter 52: No Crown Is Given Twice
The house remained silent. But utterly differently. This was a different sort of silence. One that felt… intentional. As though the very quietness had been orchestrated—like flowers at a funeral. Leya leaned against the railing at the end of the second-floor hall, squeezing out a dripping rag along the banister. Water dripped down the oaken rails, tapping the marble below it like a metronome. She no longer felt the jaggedness of her spine. Or perhaps the scent of bleach was still in her fingernails. All she could feel was shadows. Stationary chairs. Rumbled rugs. Open books on tables that no one was going to take the trouble to pick up. > She was being watched. But this time, as opposed to the first, they weren't intimidating her with power. They were watching her to see if she'd break. If the shame would at last take root. If the mask slips. Leya smiled to herself as she buffed a brass doorknob until it shone. Let them watch. She had learned as a child how to become
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
