The Seven Dials Mystery Novels & Stories

I had been in love with Leo, the Don of a Mafia family. For seven years, I was there with him through the darkest nights, cleaned up after him more times than I could count, and convinced myself that he would give me the ending I deserved. When word got back to me that Leo was planning a proposal, I could barely contain the tremble in my fingers. However, the woman he was proposing to wasn’t me. My eyes burned, and my voice was barely a whisper. “Why?” Leo pulled me into his arms in assurance, his chest warm against my skin, but the words coming out of his mouth were anything but. “Nina has cancer. Her only wish is to know what it’s like to be proposed to. I couldn’t say no to h

"Not now, not ever." ... I checked myself out of the hospital against medical advice, against all those soft instincts that had kept me chained to his side for seven years. The accident had taken my child and my love for Dante. I returned to the villa where I had lived for seven years. Seven years of memories were etched into every wall, every floor, every sheet that had been stained with our sweat. When I first met Dante, he was not yet a mafia Don. Back then, he had just taken over the Castellano family when it was on its last legs, hunted by countless enemies. Besides ambition, he had nothing.

Henry leaned back slightly, a faint smile forming at the corner of his lips. “That'll make it even fun,” he said, his tone steady. “Sometimes, the truth is more dangerous when it’s discovered piece by piece.” Martins studied him for a moment, clearly expecting a different reaction, but when none came, he simply nodded. “Understood, sir.” Back at the lab, Diana had just finished reviewing another set of reports when her phone buzzed, and as she glanced at the screen. She stepped aside to take the call, her voice low when she answered, “Yes?”

But my major interest was to get my double reward and maybe more as he said. The song bled into another, slower, filthier. I turned, hair swinging across my bare shoulders, and there it was—the circle he’d described. Seven men in the VIP pit, leather banquettes curved like a throne. No ropes, just an invisible wall of money. I recognized two faces from the kind of magazines that never made it to the stores I know. Silver at the temples, cufflinks catching the strobes, laughing low and careless. One of them lifted a glass in my direction, lazy approval. My pulse kicked.

Elias had gone completely still. "Dominick," she acknowledged. "You're a long way from home." Her youngest brother's smile didn't reach his eyes. "So are you. But home has a way of finding us, doesn't it?" "How did you find me?" Casie kept her voice steady, professional, though her heart hammered against her ribs. "I followed the scent of death," Dominick replied. "Five deaths, to be precise. Very specific deaths." Rick stepped forward. "You know something about our case?"

The detective said, I tried to remember the exact day, Kelvin had told me he had gone to the countryside for some work-related issues. He had told me his phone wouldn't go through, and he would call me when he was back. How the hell did he leave the country and lie about it? “I am thinking whoever this man is knows who might have killed your fiancé” The detective said. “I am coming with you”, I told him. “No, this could be dangerous. I will be back and will keep you informed, Miss Dante”, the detective quickly said.

My husband, Harrison Knight, was a workaholic. When stomach pain landed me in the hospital, he had his assistant send me medication. When my mother underwent surgery, he was abroad negotiating an acquisition. In seven years of marriage, he'd missed three of my birthdays and five of our anniversaries. He always said, "The company's still getting off the ground. I can't afford to slow down." I understood. Years ago, his first love, Celeste Foster, had left him because he was poor. Afterward, he'd sworn he would make something of himself. He went on business trips, had late nights, and worked himself to the bone. For seven years, Harrison had pushed himself relentlessly, going from a pen

Back in the private lounge at the airport, an assistant handed me a sealed dark wooden box, plainly wrapped, no name on it, nothing else at all. "Miss Ava, someone left this at the front desk just now. They asked that it go to you by hand." I gave a small nod and opened the box. The moment the lid came up, a cold metal sheen filled my eyes. A whole box of casings, polished clean and bright and neat, layered over each other, filling it to the edges. At the very center sat a folded slip of plain white paper, the handwriting forceful and ragged, worn through with exhaustion and longing, just one short line:

He did not trust me after seven years together. The clock on the wall struck three. It was the last day of my bet with Bailey. It was also the date that Jeremy had planned to propose to me.

The video on the phone showed security footage from an underground rogue bar. In the video, the sweet, innocent Chloe—who supposedly wouldn't even hurt a fly—was gracefully swirling a glass of wine. Sitting across from her were several vile, stinking rogues. Chloe pushed a heavy briefcase full of cash toward them, a sickening smile on her face. "Make sure you torture Freya well. Remember, no visible scars. Half a million dollars, that's your payment."