The Silent Man Book Novels & Stories

Lucian Velmore had mastered the art of silence. In boardrooms, silence made men squirm. In negotiations, silence broke enemies before words did. But tonight, silence was his prison. He stood alone on the balcony, the cool wind brushing against his face, yet his blood simmered like fire. Caliste Winslow.

I waited, just for fun, then let the silence draw out. Jack squirmed, like he thought I was about to say no. I was about to say yes when my eyes caught on a movement at the corner table by the emergency exit. A man sat there, alone, reading a book with a matte black cover. He was tall even while seated, with sharp cheekbones and hands too elegant for anyone under forty. His hair was dark and perfect. His jacket—expensive, probably custom-tailored—was so out of place in The Morgue it felt like he’d been CGI’d into the scene.

"He did what to you on the stairs?" Noa froze. A half-eaten slice of pepperoni pizza stayed in the air, inches away from her mouth. Her eyes were wide with shock against the white clay face mask drying on her skin. Selene groaned, burying her face into a giant velvet pillow on the rug of Noa’s living room. "Keep your voice down." "I don't care about being quiet! Selene, are you losing your mind?" Noa dropped the pizza back into the box. “Cassian Vale? The man who has treated you like a total ghost for years, put his actual hand inside your dress?"

I'll be back. I know. You better be. I will. She set the phone down. The room was quiet. The street below was quiet. She picked up the book. Clara's book. The one she didn't understand. Opened it. Read the first page. The words still blurred. She kept reading.

Silent. Staring at her with those dead eyes. More seconds passed. The air in the room felt wrong. Too thick. Too cold. Carmina took a step backward without meaning to. Then another. Her back hit the door. "Killian," she whispered. Nothing. The silence was worse than shouting. Worse than violence. It was the silence before something terrible happens. Carmina's heart was hammering in her chest. Her hands shaking so badly she could barely hold her cane. "Say something," she said.

Tall man, dressed all in black from head to toe, face hidden in deep shadow under a hood, holding a gun with a long silencer still smoking faintly in the cold. He walked forward without hesitation or word, boots silent in the snow, aimed again with steady, practiced hand. One clean, silent shot to the head. The attacker went still forever, dead in the red-stained snow, eyes open to the falling flakes. The man in black knelt beside me quickly, strong arms wrapping around my shaking, broken body with surprising gentleness, lifting me from the freezing ground into warmth and safety, cradling me close. “E-Eli…” I managed to whisper, voice barely there, recognition hitting through the pain and da

“I’m… somewhere. I can’t talk right now. It’s not safe.” I stared straight ahead at the man in the dark coat. He was still walking. He was not talking on a phone. His hands swung empty at his sides. His head didn’t tilt. The voice in my ear whispered, “Scarlett? Are you there? You shouldn’t be calling me. It’s too dangerous.” But the man walking twenty yards in front of me was completely silent. He hadn’t moved his lips. He hadn’t made a sound. The truth crashed into my mind with the force of a truck.

If Edith hadn't protected him, he probably wouldn't have survived to meet the female lead at all. Reading those comments made my chest tighten. I picked up my smartwatch, added him as a contact, and typed a message. 'I'm fine. Stop crying.' When I looked at Elias, my gaze held more than a hint of complexity. In a world like this, it seemed our fates were never fully in our own hands. I had selective mutism. He had been plagued by bad luck since childhood. Past life or present, it seemed neither of us ever caught a break.

“You’re awake? I’ll get the doctor.” I blinked, confused by everything around me, unable to grasp why I was here. “You were attacked by a wolf pack,” he explained softly. “They pushed you off the second floor, and you hit your head. How are you feeling now?” My head throbbed, my thoughts a haze. “Who am I? Do we know each other?” I had lost my memory, and the man said he was an Alpha from the Southern Whitebush Pack. He was the one who had taken me in.

"Grace? Is that you?" I froze. That haggard, drunken man in front of me was Philip. "Grace, you're alive! You finally came back to me." He pulled me into his arms, choking on his words as he cried. "I missed you so much. I was wrong. I'll kick Laila and her pup out right now, okay? Please stop being mad at me. You have no idea what these days have been like for me—please don't leave again." He seemed to have completely forgotten they were holding a Marking Ceremony today.