Novel-novel oleh Chithority.

Ana’s POVHappiness isn’t loud.It doesn’t arrive like a storm or crash into your life demanding to be noticed. It doesn’t shake everything around it until you’re forced to acknowledge that something has changed.It’s quieter than that. Softer.It settles into the spaces that once felt empty, into moments that used to feel heavy, into silence that once carried tension and now simply… exists.And somehow, that makes it more real.Life had changed.Not suddenly. Not in a way that erased everything we had been through, but slowly, steadily—in a way that didn’t demand attention, yet stayed long enough to become permanent.The house no longer felt unfamiliar. It wasn’t something I was still adjusting to.It felt like home.Not because of the walls or the space or the quiet that surrounded it, but because of what existed inside it now.Us.Our child slept peacefully in the room down the hall, her soft breathing grounding everything, reminding me in the simplest way that some things had surv

Japhet’s POVThere was a time when I believed love had to be overwhelming to be real—loud, consuming, something that took over everything until nothing was left untouched, nothing left unchanged. It was something that demanded, claimed, and held so tightly that losing it was never an option.That was the only version I understood.The only version I knew how to give.And it had nearly destroyed everything.Now, standing in front of her—in a space that no longer felt like a cage, in a moment that carried no weight of control or fear or expectation—I realized something I had never allowed myself to see before.Love didn’t have to take.It didn’t have to break.It didn’t have to force itself into someone’s life just to exist.It could wait.It could learn.It could change.Ana stood a few steps away, the evening light soft around her, the quiet of the house settled in a way that no longer felt unfamiliar. It wasn’t something we were still adjusting to—it had become ours in its own slow,

Ana’s POVSome losses don’t fully happen.They almost do. They linger at the edge, close enough to feel, close enough to leave a mark without ever completely taking form. And somehow, that makes them heavier—because you see them, you understand them, and you realize just how easily everything could have slipped away while you were too lost to notice.I had lived in that space for too long—that thin, fragile line between holding on and losing everything.And now, standing here, watching him… watching us, I felt it again.Not as fear, but as awareness.Our child looked impossibly small in his arms. Too small, sometimes it seemed, for a world like ours—like something so fragile shouldn’t exist in hands that had once known only control, violence, and destruction.And yet, there he was.Holding her.Carefully.Not with confidence, not with the instinctive certainty of someone used to possessing what he touched, but with caution—like he wasn’t entirely sure how to do it, like he was afraid

Ana’s POVPeace is a strange thing when you’ve lived too long in chaos.It doesn’t arrive loudly or announce itself, and it doesn’t force you to notice it. It simply settles—quietly, almost carefully—like it isn’t entirely sure it’s allowed to stay.For the longest time, I didn’t trust it.I didn’t trust the silence that stretched through the house without breaking into something sharp. I didn’t trust the absence of tension, the lack of conflict, the way everything existed without the constant push and pull I had grown used to—the kind that demanded reaction, demanded emotion, demanded something to happen.Now, nothing was happening.And somehow, that felt unfamiliar.Japhet and I lived in the same space again—not as captor and captive, not as enemies, not even as something clearly defined. Just two people under the same roof, moving around each other without colliding, without forcing interaction, without turning every moment into something heavy.There were no fights, no raised voic

Ana’s POVFreedom feels strange when you’ve forgotten what to do with it.For days—maybe longer, I stopped counting—I moved through this place without anyone stopping me, without doors closing behind me, without footsteps trailing close enough to remind me that every movement was being watched, controlled, measured.I could leave. That was the truth.The gate wasn’t locked. The guards didn’t block my path. No one stood there waiting to drag me back inside if I took one step too far.And yet, I hadn’t left.Not because I couldn’t, but because something inside me wasn’t ready to make that choice yet.That realization unsettled me more than anything else. For so long, everything had been about survival—enduring, waiting for the moment I could finally break free. And now that the moment was here, now that nothing physical was holding me back, I found myself hesitating.Not out of fear. Not out of weakness.But because things had changed.He had changed.Not in a way that erased what he ha

Japhet’s POVI used to believe that if something mattered, you took it—no waiting, no hesitation, no standing at a distance hoping it would come to you on its own. You claimed it, held it, and made sure it stayed exactly where you wanted it to be.That was how I built everything I had. It was how I survived, how I became the man people didn’t question—the man who didn’t ask, the man who didn’t lose.But none of that worked here. None of it applied to her.For the first time, I understood that taking something didn’t mean keeping it. Sometimes, it meant destroying it.So I stopped taking, and I started learning something I had never needed before—how to earn.It didn’t come naturally. There was no instinct guiding me, no clear path, no certainty that what I was doing would matter, or reach her, or even be noticed. But I did it anyway, not because I expected something in return, but because it was the only way forward that didn’t repeat the same mistakes.The first time was simple—too s

CHAPTER 27 the gym is gone Liana’s POVThe USB drive had given me answers.But answers without context were just more questions wearing different clothes.I knew what Matteo had done. I knew the shape of it now the debt, the transfer, the correspondence that referred to me as the subject like I was a line item in a budget. I knew my marriage had been a transaction completing itself and that I had walked into it believing it was a choice.What I didn’t know was what Maxwell had intended to do with any of it.And that gap that specific gap between what I knew and what I didn’t was where everything lived. Where the anger lived. Where the something-that-wasn’t-quite-hope-but-wasn’t-quite-dead-yet lived.I needed more.I started small.Careful. Methodical. The way you move when you’re searching inside a house that watches you.I had a name the holding company that had purchased the gym. The attendant had been tight lipped but the sale of a business left records. Public records. The kind

Damon’s POVI stepped slightly aside, away from the prying curiosity in my mother’s eyes and the suffocating tension that clung to the hospital walls like dust. The fluorescent lights hummed overhead, the scent of antiseptic sharp in the air, the weight of fear heavier than any crown.I lifted the phone to my ear.“Father.”His response was brisk, clipped, already strained by the unravelling chaos of a kingdom at breaking point.“Damon, where are you? You need to get back to the palace immediately. We’re preparing a press release. The people are panicking. The riots are escalating ”I closed my eyes briefly, inhaling through the tightness in my chest. Of course. One crisis was never enough. Eldenwald had a talent for bleeding in every direction at once.I paced a few slow steps down the hall. “Is the food reserve being released? What am I supposed to tell them if there’s nothing tangible to offer?”“Not yet,” he answered, irritation hardening into frustration. “I’m still assembling a

Damon’s POVThe doctor’s footsteps echoed down the corridor long before he reached us slow, steady, unforgiving. In the suffocating quiet of the hospital wing, each soft tap against the polished floor struck my nerves like a hammer. Nothing in this place moved quickly except fear, and fear had already wrapped itself around all of us like a noose.When the doctor finally appeared, his shoulders were squared with practised calm. But there was a heaviness behind his eyes that made my stomach clench. He bowed lightly.“Your Highness. Your Majesty.”My mother straightened instantly, slipping into her queenly posture as naturally as breathing. Regal. Composed. Unreadable. I could barely manage a nod. My spine felt rigid, my lungs tight — as if one wrong inhale would shatter the fragile thing holding me together.“How is he?” I asked, though the words scraped out of me like broken glass. “My son.”The doctor didn’t answer immediately. He clasped the clipboard to his chest, fingers tightenin

Damon’s POV“So tell me,” I continued, stepping closer close enough that the harsh fluorescent lights carved brutal honesty across both our faces “since when did spending time with a son become an obligation, Mum?”Her lips parted, ready to defend herself, ready to twist the entire situation into something convenient and clean.I didn’t give her the room. Not anymore.“You created this mess,” I said quietly.Too quietly. The kind of quiet that shook even me.“And I will stick to the terms we agreed on. Once the children are healthy, Rachel returns to Erinville. Permanently. My life is already in ruins from every way I let you meddle.”Rachel’s crying intensified at those words, her sobs ricocheting through the sterile hospital corridor like shards of broken glass, slicing through the tension, the guilt, the accumulated regret hanging thick in the air.But as her face crumpled and her shoulders shook, something terrifying dawned on me.I felt nothing.Or not nothing. Something closer

Ch 66: Stop Right ThereANA.“What do you mean?” I crawled backwards, making a visible distance from him. “I’m not going anywhere, I need to go back to Saint Petersburg. My flight is already booked, so tell your so-called boss I have no fucking time.”Saying that, I got up from the floor and started to walk out when suddenly Alex grabbed my right wrist and dragged me inside. Tossing me on the floor, he casually shrugged off his shoulders and scratched his head with the tip of the gun.“I think you are misinterpreting my words, Miss Ana.”“What do you mean?” I knitted my eyebrows in seriousness, but I was tipsy and barely holding myself together. “Alex, you better take care of the mess you created,” I said, pointing at the dead bodies of John and his bodyguards.To which Alex laughed. Taking steps towards me, he kicked the bodies out of his way.“That’s not the problem here, but if you refuse to go with me then it could become a problem…”“I will call the cops and say you were the one

CHAPTER 23Liana’s POVThe first thing I noticed was the cold.Not the room — the sheets. His side of them. I pressed my palm flat against the space beside me before I fully opened my eyes, the way you reach for something in the dark without thinking.Cold. Completely.I opened my eyes.Empty.I lay there for a moment looking at the ceiling. Listening. The house had a particular quality of silence at this hour — thick and undisturbed. No movement. No water running. No footsteps.I sat up.The note was on the pillow. Small. Folded once. My name on the outside in his handwriting — neat, controlled, exactly like him.I picked it up with the easy hands of someone who wasn’t worried yet. Maybe he had an early call. Maybe something with Alex. Maybe—Liana —Something came up. I had to leave.Take care of yourself.— MI read it once.Then I set it on the nightstand and got up to shower.Something came up. That was fine. Things came up. He was a busy man — calls, business, the investigation,

CHAPTER 27 the gym is gone Liana’s POVThe USB drive had given me answers.But answers without context were just more questions wearing different clothes.I knew what Matteo had done. I knew the shape of it now the debt, the transfer, the correspondence that referred to me as the subject like I was a line item in a budget. I knew my marriage had been a transaction completing itself and that I had walked into it believing it was a choice.What I didn’t know was what Maxwell had intended to do with any of it.And that gap that specific gap between what I knew and what I didn’t was where everything lived. Where the anger lived. Where the something-that-wasn’t-quite-hope-but-wasn’t-quite-dead-yet lived.I needed more.I started small.Careful. Methodical. The way you move when you’re searching inside a house that watches you.I had a name the holding company that had purchased the gym. The attendant had been tight lipped but the sale of a business left records. Public records. The kind

Liana’s POVThe USB drive had given me answers.But answers without context were just more questions wearing different clothes.I knew what Matteo had done. I knew the shape of it now the debt, the transfer, the correspondence that referred to me as the subject like I was a line item in a budget. I knew my marriage had been a transaction completing itself and that I had walked into it believing it was a choice.What I didn’t know was what Maxwell had intended to do with any of it.And that gap that specific gap between what I knew and what I didn’t was where everything lived. Where the anger lived. Where the something-that-wasn’t-quite-hope-but-wasn’t-quite-dead-yet lived.I needed more.I started small.Careful. Methodical. The way you move when you’re searching inside a house that watches you.I had a name the holding company that had purchased the gym. The attendant had been tight lipped but the sale of a business left records. Public records. The kind accessible to anyone who kn

Liana’s POVThe USB drive sat on my nightstand for two days before I touched it again.Not because I forgot it was there.Because I was afraid of what it contained.Or worse, afraid of what it didn’t.On the third morning I woke up before five, lay in the grey dark staring at it, and decided that fear was a luxury I was done affording.I took my laptop to the bathroom. Locked the door. Sat on the cold tile floor with my back against the tub the same position I had found myself in more times than I could count in this house, the floor being the only place that ever felt honest and pushed the drive in.One folder.Titled with a date from eight months ago.I opened it.It took me a long time to understand what I was reading.Not because the language was complicated, it wasn't. Whoever had compiled this had been thorough and precise. Dates. Names. Transaction records. Correspondence. A paper trail laid out with the patience of someone who had been building toward something specific.I r

Liana’s POVThree days passed.Then four.Then a week.And somewhere in that week I made a decision — not dramatic, not announced, just a quiet internal shift — that I was not going to fall apart over a man who had packed his bags before I woke up.I was not going to be that woman.I had already been too many versions of broken in this house. I was not adding Maxwell Reyes to the list of men who had reduced me.So I got up every morning.I ate.I moved through the house with the practiced composure of someone who had been performing fine for years and could do it for a few more weeks without breaking.I was fine.I was absolutely fine.The visitor arrived on a Tuesday.I heard him before I saw him — a heavy voice in the hallway below, the particular boom of a man who assumed every room wanted to hear him. Matteo’s response was warmer than usual which meant this was someone who mattered in whatever world Matteo actually inhabited.I came downstairs composed. Dressed appropriately. The

Liana povA baby?A woman in London?Pregnant.I looked at the book in my lap.The words on the page had stopped meaning anything several seconds ago. They were just shapes now. Just marks on paper.Some woman he’s been with.I thought about the night. About his hands and his voice and the way he had looked at me afterward, are you okay, like it mattered. Like I mattered.I thought about something came up on a folded piece of paper.Something came up.A baby came up.A whole woman in London came up.A whole life I knew nothing about came up.I pressed my fingers flat against the page of the book.“Liana.” I looked up.Matteo was watching me with mild irritation. “I said, did he eat before he left? Maria mentioned the kitchen was used late.”I held his gaze.“I don’t know,” I said evenly. “I was asleep.” I knew he was asking silly questions to understand my mood He studied me for a second longer than felt comfortable.Then shrugged. “Doesn’t matter.” Back to his phone.I looked back a

Liana’s POVI had forgotten what this felt like.Not the heartbreak, I knew heartbreak. Matteo had introduced me to that in the first year of our marriage and refined it steadily ever since. I knew heartbreak the way you know a recurring illness, its patterns, its duration, how long before it became manageable again.This was different.This was the specific pain of someone who had been starving for a long time, who had finally been handed something real and warm and nourishing, and then had it taken back before they had finished.That kind of hunger doesn’t return to where it was before.It returns worse.Because now it knows what it’s missing.I moved through the morning like a woman underwater. Slow. Muffled. The edges of everything are slightly blurred. Maria brought breakfast and I sat in front of it and ate some of it because my body required it, not because I tasted anything.I kept thinking about small things.Not the night, I couldn’t think about the night yet. That was st

Ronon’s POVElsa was hiding something from us. I could tell. She thought it would be better for us not to know, like she was shielding us from some truth that could break us. I prayed—deeply—that whatever she was holding back wasn’t something too awful, something that would shatter what little we had left.“I just need the spirits to give us a sign,” Keal murmured, his voice thick with grief as tears rolled down his cheeks.That was all we really wanted—a sign. A clear path. We needed something solid, something real to hold onto in this dark, suffocating fog.Elsa’s face remained calm as she replied, “I’ve already told you—the spirits say to form an alliance with the West. They are pointing west.”Seaside.But I shook my head, frustration edging into my voice. “Not for the war, Elsa. I need a direction to find Lyra.”She lowered her head, sadness flickering across her expression. “I don’t have that kind of magic, Alpha. I only know what the spirits choose to share with me. But I’ll te

Ronon’s POVThe room was swallowed by a heavy, suffocating silence. My heart sank as the truth settled in.Lyra was out there—exposed, vulnerable—lost in a state that made her a target for any predator, any Alpha. And we had no idea where she was… or how to reach her.Yet somehow, she had tried to reach us.And something was keeping her away.The silence after Elsa’s words pressed down on my chest like a weight. Her gaze carried a sorrowful understanding, as if she could see through all the bitterness and regret we carried… all the damage we had done to Lyra.Keal suddenly surged to his feet and slammed his fist into the wall. The crack echoed through the room as his knuckles split open, blood staining the surface. I felt the anguish radiating from him—it mirrored my own.“I’m sorry,” Elsa said softly.But her words brought no comfort.They only made everything worse.I forced a breath into my lungs, steadying myself enough to ask the question clawing at my mind.“So… is she being car

Ronon’s POV“I’m sorry, Keal,” I murmured, desperation clawing at my voice. “I swear, I’ll do whatever it takes to make things right.”He looked at me, his face streaked with tears, his eyes hollowed by sorrow and anger. “You can’t bring her back, Ronon,” he whispered, his voice shaking. “You can’t… you can’t fix it. Don’t you see that?” He buried his head in his hands, the weight of grief pressing down on him until his shoulders slumped forward, defeated.“We took everything from her,” he continued, his words choked with guilt. “She had nothing, Ronon—no money, no security, no one. We stole it all. Nikolay was right to keep her from us… he saw what we were, what we’d do to her.” His voice cracked, and he wept openly, raw and broken.“Please, Keal,” I urged, grasping for anything that might bridge the chasm between us. “I know you felt it too. She’s out there somewhere, and we can find her. I’ve been praying, and I believe… I believe fate will help us.”At that, he let out a bitter, h

Lucian's POVThe memories twisted inside me, vivid and merciless. I thought of the day Maxwell and I came home and made her wear those damp, uncomfortable clothes because we refused to let her use our things.The cold - heartedness of it sickened me now, yet she had never complained. She just bore it all, quietly, with a strength we didn't deserve to witness. And even after everything, she had opened her heart to us.She allowed herself to love us, to see something good in us when we gave her every reason not to.I clenched my fists, feeling the fire of anger and guilt burn within me. How could we have allowed people like Bianca, Stasia, and Gregory to treat her with such contempt?We favored the pack, protected their pettyfeelings over the well-being of the one who was supposed to be our mate, our equal.And now, we were paying for it. This mess was ours, a twisted reflection of everything we'd allowed and encouraged.The image of Timothy and Tasha flashed in my mind, and I felt a w

Ronon’s POVLiving without Lyra felt like drowning in darkness. Every day was an empty, colourless stretch, filled with nothing but sorrow. There was no joy left in my life, no light, no purpose. I spent most nights with a bottle in hand, numbing myself until I felt nothing at all. But even that brought no relief—it only deepened the void she left behind.Dax hadn’t given up, though. He clung to hope like it was the last shred of light in a world swallowed by shadows. He showed her photo to everyone he met, asking, pleading for any sign of her. He offered rewards, desperate promises, anything to find her again. But the days passed, and there was no news. His eyes looked more hollow with each passing day.And Keal… he was barely a man anymore. I saw the emptiness in his eyes, a haunting vacancy that mirrored my own. At first, he’d lash out, his anger finding no other place to go. Bianca and her child bore the brunt of his rage, but even he realised that hurting others wouldn’t bring Ly

Lyra’s POVThe car came to an abrupt stop, and Keith pulled away, stepping out quickly and rounding the vehicle to open my door. He lifted me out with ease, holding me as if I weighed nothing, his arms steady and unyielding. I clung to him, my body pressed against his as he carried me into the mansion.“All male workers—leave the premises immediately!” he called out, his voice echoing through the grand halls. The urgency in his tone left no room for argument, and as we moved deeper into the house, I felt the space around us empty, leaving only the two of us alone in our need.He laid me gently on the bed, and I couldn’t tear my dress off fast enough, the fabric ripping under my hands, desperate to feel his skin against mine. The ache inside me was unbearable, like a burning hunger that wouldn’t be sated. Keith’s touch was the only thing that grounded me, the only thing that eased the frantic beat of my heart.He touched my forehead, his fingers gentle, his gaze full of concern even in