Novels by Jeane

Emily giggled, her tiny toes digging into the soft grains, squealing every time the water splashed against them. River held her securely in one arm while Jace held River’s hand with the other, creating a perfect circle of warmth, love, and protection. The three of them had been through so much, fought so many battles, and yet here they were, alive, whole, and together.River looked down at Emily’s small, cherubic face, her eyes wide with wonder as she pointed at the waves. “Look, Daddy! Water!” she squealed. Her little voice made River’s chest tighten with love. He bent slightly to kiss her forehead.“You love the water, huh, baby girl?” River whispered. Emily responded with a squeal and clutched his neck tighter, making him laugh softly.Jace watched the scene unfold and felt a warmth fill his chest. He couldn’t help but smile at how natural this felt. “You’ve got her wrapped around your finger already,” he said teasingly, ruffling River’s hair.River chuckled, careful not to disturb

Mirinda paced around her small living room with slow, angry steps. Her hands trembled even though she kept telling herself she had done the right thing. Emily was asleep on the couch, wrapped in a soft blanket Mirinda had found in her closet. She hadn’t hurt the baby. She couldn’t. Emily was innocent. But every time Mirinda looked at the child’s small face, something twisted inside her chest.“That baby should have been mine,” she whispered to herself, voice shaking. “River should have been mine. We were supposed to start over.”But River had chosen Jace. And Mirinda could not accept that.She knelt beside the couch and stared at Emily again. The baby exhaled gently and moved one of her tiny hands. Mirinda softened a little.“I’m not a monster,” she whispered. “I took care of you. I fed you. I kept you warm. I didn’t hurt you.”Her words didn’t comfort her. Deep inside, she knew she had crossed a line she could never return from. But she was lonely, broken, and desperate. And desperat

The morning started so peacefully it almost felt unreal. Jace was in the living room feeding Emily her oatmeal, humming quietly while she kicked her tiny feet. The apartment was warm from the sunlight coming through the wide glass windows. River was upstairs taking a quick shower before heading to a meeting.Everything was calm.Everything felt safe.And Jace had no idea that danger was already standing outside his door.A soft knock echoed from the front entrance.Jace frowned. “Who could that be…?”He wasn’t expecting anyone. Sasha and Leo always texted before coming. The cleaners weren’t due until next week. He wasn’t ordering anything.Emily babbled, smearing oatmeal on her face.“Hold on, baby,” Jace said gently.He carried Emily in his arms and walked toward the door. He looked through the peephole.A woman stood there. Tall. Slim. Pretty. Long dark hair. Serious eyes. She held a small purse in front of her and looked calm, almost too calm.Jace unlocked the first latch but kept

As the weeks passed, River noticed something else too, he missed Jace.Not the man holding bottles, not the man panicking about diapers, not the man humming lullabies at 3 a.m.He missed his husband.The man he kissed slowly. The man who made him blush. The man who whispered things that made his heart race. The man he married with so much love he thought he might explode from it.And every night, when they finally collapsed into bed, Emily asleep in her crib beside them, they were both too tired to even talk. Sometimes River reached out to hold Jace’s hand, but even that tiny movement felt heavy.One evening, after Emily finally drifted off, River lay on his back staring at the ceiling. Jace lay beside him, eyes half-open, looking like a very tired angel.“We need time alone,” River said suddenly.Jace blinked. “What time?”“Some time. Any time.”Jace rubbed his face. “River, I haven’t slept properly in two weeks. If we get alone time, I might just pass out.”River let out a small lau

River thought he had faced hard things in his life. He had survived military missions, gunfire, pain, and even long nights alone in strange countries. But nothing prepared him for waking up at 3 a.m. to the high-pitched cries of a tiny baby with lungs stronger than a siren.He shot up from the bed, disoriented at first. The room was dark. The city lights glowed faintly through the curtains. Beside him, Jace groaned, rolling over and pulling the pillow over his head.“It’s your turn,” Jace mumbled, voice muffled.River snorted. “My turn was two hours ago.”“…Are you sure?” Jace asked weakly.“Yes,” River said, already standing.He was still half-asleep when he made it to the nursery. Emily’s face was red, scrunched like she was furious at the whole world. Her tiny hands waved in the air as she screamed.River lifted her gently, patting her back. “Hey, sweetheart. It’s okay. Daddy’s here.”Emily did not care. She kept crying as if she was telling the house a dramatic story.Jace entered

The morning sun streamed into the penthouse, warm and soft, and Jace woke up slowly with River’s arms wrapped tightly around him. Married life made River even more clingy in the mornings, and honestly, Jace loved it. He turned a little, facing River, and brushed his fingers gently against his cheek. River’s eyes blinked open instantly.“You’re staring again,” River murmured, voice rough with sleep.“I’m admiring,” Jace corrected with a shy smile.River kissed him softly. “Good. Admire your husband all you want.”They stayed like that for a moment, warm and quiet, before Jace finally took a deep breath. “River… can we talk about something important?”River sat up, suddenly alert. “Are you okay?”“Yes. I’m perfect,” Jace said quickly. His fingers played nervously with the bedsheet. “I was just thinking. About… our future.”River’s face softened. “Tell me.”Jace breathed out. “I want us to build something bigger. More… complete. Something that belongs to us both.”River reached out, hold

KIERAN'S POVEight years after the treaty, I made a decision about the Alpha position.It came to me quietly, not as crisis or dramatic revelation, but as the simple understanding that I'd been running the territory for twenty years and I was ready to do something else.I was sitting in a governance board meeting when Director Draven asked about territorial succession planning and I realized I didn't have an answer because I'd never let myself think about stepping down.That evening, I mentioned it to Eli without preamble."I want to transition the Alpha position," I said. "Within the next few years."He looked up from his curriculum notes. "To who.""I don't know yet. That's the work I need to do." I paused. "But I don't want to do it forever. I want to do it until it's stable and then step back.""The way I did with the regional oversight.""Yes," I said. "Except I want to have already trained my replacement before I hand it over. I don't want to just leave it for someone else to fi

ELI'S POVSeven years after I came back to the territory, I stood in the new education center and looked at what we'd built.Three classroom spaces. An administrative office. A library of enforcement frameworks and territorial implementation guides. The building was designed to be accessible to pack members from multiple territories, with housing available for those who needed to stay while taking courses.Reina and I had designed it together. Cole had helped establish the curriculum standards. Kieran had secured the funding from the territorial governance board.It was the first permanent structure dedicated entirely to education and enforcement coordination in the northern territories.I walked through the empty classrooms and understood that this was completion in a way the treaty signing hadn't been. That had been the legal framework becoming real. This was the framework becoming something that would teach and sustain itself beyond any individual person's involvement.Kieran found

KIERAN'S POVSix years after the treaty, I received a call from Alpha Reina Cross asking for a private meeting.Not in her territory or mine — she requested neutral ground, which meant she wanted to discuss something that required confidentiality. We met at a small restaurant outside pack territory and she ordered coffee and looked at me with the direct assessment that had characterized her since the beginning."I'm stepping back from the western territory," she said.I set down my coffee. "Why.""Because I've been running it for twelve years and I want to do something else." She paused. "I want to move into education. I'm interested in what Eli's built with the curriculum and I want to help expand it."I understood immediately what she was saying. Reina was one of the strongest Alphas in the region and she was proposing to step back from active leadership to focus on teaching."Does this have anything to do with the treaty," I said."Everything to do with it," she said. "The treaty c

ELI'S POVThe first month as territorial counsel felt different than every other position I'd held.Not because the work was harder or more complex — it was actually simpler than the regional oversight had been. But because I was doing it as part of the territory's structure rather than as someone operating in parallel to it.I had an office in the administrative building. I attended governance meetings. I reviewed territorial decisions from a legal perspective. It was work I'd been doing informally for years, just now with a title and formal authority.Reina came to my office the second week."I need your opinion on something," she said without preamble. "The pack member who filed the bonding dispute last month wants to appeal the ruling. The appeal came through the regional enforcement office, but it's originated from someone in our territory."I pulled up the case file. "This is a clear violation of the appeals protocol. The appeal should have come through the territorial coordinat

KIERAN'S POVFive years after the treaty signing, the territory was stable in ways that felt permanent.Reina was managing the Beta position better than Cole had, which was not a criticism of Cole — it was just that she'd brought her own innovations to the work and the territory had evolved because of it. Eli was teaching four days a week and handling appeals coordinator work two days a week and had stopped trying to fill the remaining hours with additional projects.We'd built a life that actually resembled a life instead of a series of professional obligations.It was Sienna who brought up what nobody had explicitly discussed yet.She came to the administrative building on a Tuesday when Eli was there teaching a curriculum session and asked to speak with both of us privately. When we were in my office with the door closed she said:"I want to formally acknowledge something that's been happening quietly for years."I looked at her."Eli is bonded to you, which means he's part of this

ELI'S POVFour years after the treaty signing, I received a letter from the governance board requesting my presence at a formal ceremony.The Supernatural Rights Act was being recognized as the foundational framework for five regional territories. The enforcement mechanism was being held up as a model for how other regions should structure their implementation. My name was going to be publicly credited as the architect of the system.Kieran read the letter and looked at me."How do you feel about it," he said."Overwhelmed," I said honestly. "The work was never supposed to be about recognition. It was supposed to be about making the system work.""The system does work," he said. "And part of why it works is because you built it." He paused. "You can accept recognition without that changing what the work means."The ceremony was held at the governance board's main office, which had been expanded three times since I'd taken the appeals coordinator position. The building was packed — ter

Thirty years after Vienna, Luca sat in the garden writing the final pages of what would become his last book—not about trafficking this time, but about recovery itself, about what it meant to build an entire life on the other side of catastrophe.Dante, seventy-one now, sat across from him doing crossword puzzles with the same focused intensity he'd once brought to running a criminal empire."Seven letters," Dante said. "Lasting beyond expectation.""Survival," Luca offered."Doesn't fit. S-U-R-V-I-V-A-L is eight letters.""You're hopeless at crosswords.""I'm excellent at crosswords. I just enjoy your company while doing them."Luca smiled and went back to writing. The final chapter, the one he'd been avoiding for months because finishing it meant acknowledging the story actually had an end, at least on paper.People often ask me when healing finishes, he wrote. They want a timeline, a finish line, proof that someday the work stops and you simply arrive at wholeness. I used to want t

Lorenzo Salvatore died in prison the same year Zara turned twenty-five. Dante received the notification with the same emptiness he'd felt the day they arrested him, no grief, just the closing of a door that had been shut for a long time already."Do you want to attend anything?" Luca asked. "Burial, anything?""No. He stopped being my father the day he held a gun to your head." Dante folded the letter and set it aside. "I'll arrange a burial. Quiet, no announcement. That's all the obligation I owe him.""You're allowed to feel something. He was still your father.""I feel relief that he's no longer a variable I need to account for. Is that terrible?""No. It's honest."They handled it quietly, as Dante wanted. No ceremony, no announcement to the press that occasionally still tracked the Salvatore name from its old criminal associations. Just paperwork and a small plot in a cemetery outside Palermo.Marco's death, years earlier, had hurt in a complicated way—grief tangled up with betra

Zara graduated top of her class four years later, then took a position with the EU Commission's anti-trafficking division in Brussels. She called twice a week, always with strong opinions about whatever policy was failing somewhere."They're moving too slow on the Balkans corridor," she said one Sunday. "I told my supervisor we need mandatory cross-border task forces, not 'recommended cooperation frameworks.'""How did that go?""He said I remind him of someone he used to know. Very intense, very stubborn." Zara paused. "I think he meant it as a compliment.""It probably was.""Tomás got a job offer in Brussels too. Banking regulation." Another pause, more careful this time. "We're thinking about getting an apartment together.""That's wonderful, Zara.""You're not going to ask if we're being responsible or if I'm too young?""You're twenty-three. You've survived worse than cohabitation."She laughed, the easy laugh she'd grown into over the years. "Dad would ask if Tomás's intentions

Zara started university in September studying political science. She attacked it the way she attacked everything—with focused intensity and zero tolerance for anything she considered pointless.Two weeks in, she called Luca from campus."My professor is an idiot," she said."That's a strong opening.""He spent the entire lecture explaining why systemic change in trafficking policy is unrealistic. I argued with him for twenty minutes.""How did that go?""He told me I was naive. I told him his tenure was making him complacent." A pause. "Then I was asked to stay after class.""Zara.""He actually apologized. Said I made good points but could work on my delivery.""He's not wrong about the delivery.""You sound like Dr. Patel.""Dr. Patel is smart. What did you do after?""Went to the library and wrote a twelve-page counter-argument to his lecture notes.""Did anyone ask you to do that?""No. But it needed doing."Luca hung up and immediately called Dante. "Our daughter got into an argu

Zara had been with them for six months when she asked about the adoption paperwork.Luca was in the garden reading when she found him. She sat across from him and said, without preamble, "Are we doing this officially or not?""Do you want to do it officially?""I asked first.""Yes," Luca said. "We want to. But only if you do."Zara looked at her hands. "I've been adopted before. When I was nine. It didn't work out.""I know. Dr. Patel told us, with your permission.""They gave me back. Literally returned me like a broken appliance." Zara's jaw tightened. "Said I was too difficult.""You're not too difficult. You're exactly who you are and that's enough.""You say that now.""I'll say it in ten years too. And twenty." Luca set down his book. "We're not going to return you, Zara. That's not something we're capable of. You're already family.""You can't promise that.""Watch me."She was quiet for a moment. Then she said, "What would it change? Legally, I mean. I'm almost eighteen. I'll

Marco died four months later. Elena told Luca over the phone, simple and direct. Luca said thank you and hung up.He sat with it for a day. Waiting to feel something significant. Grief or relief or closure. But mostly he just felt the quiet satisfaction of a chapter finally ending.He didn't go to the funeral. He went to dinner with Dante instead, at the same restaurant where they'd had their first date twenty years ago."Is this weird?" Dante asked. "Celebrating while Marco's being buried?""We're not celebrating. We're just living. There's a difference." Luca ordered wine. "He died. I'm sad about it in the way I'd be sad about anyone dying. But I'm not going to pretend it's more than that.""Fair enough."They ate dinner and talked about other things. The Tokyo house Rebecca had just opened. Dante's plan to finally sell the last of his illegal business interests. The painting class Luca had enrolled in that he was somehow getting worse at despite two years of practice."How do you g