Fragments Beneath His Silence
Two years ago, Amaya Bennett witnessed a murder.
A powerful man was killed in cold blood, right in front of her. She should have died that night too.
Instead, she woke up in a hospital with no memory of what happened. No faces, no names and no clues. Just fragments, blurred images that slip through her fingers every time she tries to hold on.
Now, Amaya lives a quiet life, piecing herself back together. She works part-time, avoids trouble, and stays invisible. Until she lands a job at Twilight Global.
A company owned by Jake Anderson, the cold and untouchable CEO whose father was murdered the same night Aria lost her memory. Jake spent years searching for the only witness. But she vanished without any trace. Or so he thought.
But somehow, they cross path again, working under his roof, completely unaware of the truth she carries.
The killer is still out there.
And when Amaya starts getting flashes of blood, a voice, a ring glinting under the dim light, the hunt begins again.
But this time, she's not alone. Because even before he realizes who she is... Jake has already started protecting her. In the most relentless and dangerous way.
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Chapter 2
Morning came quietly.
Amaya stirred awoke before her alarm, eyes snapping open as if something had pulled her out of sleep. For a moment, she lay still, staring at the ceiling. Her breathing uneven.
The dream lingered longer than necessary. But none of it was clear. Only the heavy and suffocating feeling. It felt like she had been running... or hiding.
Intuitively, she pressed her lips together. Turning onto her side, as she pulled the thin blanket closer around her.
"It's just a dream," she murmured, though her voice sounded unconvinced even to herself.
At that moment, the phone buzzed on the bedside table. 6:12 AM, the alarmed displayed.
It was too early, but she had to get her day going. With a small groan, Aria pushed herself upright, running a hand through her slightly tangled hair.
The room was still dim, the soft gray light of morning filtering through the curtains. She swung her legs off the bed, stretching slowly as she stood. Her body felt stiff, like she hadn't rested at all.
Her daily routine had always been her go to.
It never disappointments. Standing at the kitchen, the kettle whistled softly. Amaya leaned against the counter, scrolling through her phone.
Job listings displayed once again.
She had been doing this every morning for the past three weeks. It had become part of her routine. She had expenses to cover. And her part-time shift at the convenience store barely covered rent. She needed something stable-something better.
After a few minutes, her thumb paused mid-scroll.
Blooms Global – Administrative Assistant (Entry Level)
A slight frown swept her face. That name again.
It had shown up more than once throughout her search.
It was a big company, corporate and competitive. Definitely out of her league. But Amaya tapped on the listing anyway. The Requirements, Responsibilities, Long hours and High expectations came to view.
Her lips pressed into a thin line. "Yeah... no." She exited the page once again, and set the phone down just as the kettle clicked off.
But as she poured the hot water into her cup, something nagged at her. That name, Blooms Global. It felt... familiar. Not in a clear way, nor something she could place her hand on.
It was just a faint tug at the back of her mind. Like a word on the tip of her tongue. Amaya shook her head, stirring her tea.
"You're imagining things," she muttered. Yet still, she picked up her phone again and saved the listing.
By 8:30 AM, the city was alive and buzzing with activities. Amaya stepped onto the bus, gripping the overhead rail as it lurched forward. The usual crowd filled the space. Students, office workers, and people half-awake and glued to their phones.
The ride roughly took twenty minutes. Just enough time for her to zone out. Watching buildings pass by the window in a blur.
As she got to her stop, she rang the bell and stepped off. Amaya walked the rest of the way to the convenience store. The moment she oushed the glass door opened, the bell chimed as she entered.
"You're early," the cashier from last night said, glancing up from behind the counter.
Amaya smiled. "Couldn't sleep."
He hummed. "Join the club."
He said, as Amaya moved behind the counter, tying her apron as she got to work. Restocking shelves, to organizing the drinks, and down to wiping down surfaces. It was a simple repetitive and grounding work.
For a while, the strange feeling from the morning had faded. Until the door chimed again. Instinctively, Amaya looked up.
Only to see a well dressed man, looking totally out of place as he stepped in. He sure wasn't here for snacks. That much was obvious.
His gaze slowly and deliberately swept the store and finally landed on her.
Amaya's fingers stilled on the shelf. She felt something tightened in her chest. The man smiled. But for some reason, it didn't reach his eyes.
"Good morning," he said casually, walking toward the counter.
"Morning," Amaya replied, forcing her voice steady.
He stopped in front of her, resting one hand lightly against the counter. "Do you work here every day?"
Amaya hesitated. "Most days."
His eyes flickered sharp, more like assessing. "Long shifts?" He asked.
" It depends." She muttered.
For the next two minutes, silence stretched between them. Then, he softly chuckled. "You must get tired."
"I manage." Amaya shrugged.
His gaze lingered on her face for a second longer than necessary. Then, just like that, he straightened. "I'll take a coffee."
Relief flickered briefly through her. "Sure."
She turned, focusing on the machine, as awareness of his presence hit from behind her. He was watching, and she knew that.
As she handed him the cup, their fingers brushed. Amaya flinched. The contact, somehow, spark something cold from within.
It came as a flash; a hand. A gold ring. Her breath hitched. And the cup slipped slightly in her grip.
"Careful," the man smoothly said, catching it before it fell.
In that moment, their eyes met. Just for a split second. And something dark flickered in his expression. Like recognition.
On an impulse, Amaya quickly pulled her hand back, her heart pounding heavily against her chest.
"Sorry," she murmured.
"No need." He paid, still watching her. Just like that, he turned and walked out.
He was gone in the next minute but the air he left behind felt... wrong.
"You okay?" her coworker asked.
Amaya blinked. "Yeah. Why?"
"You went pale."He explained.
"I'm fine," she quickly answered. But she clearly wasn't. The rest of her shift continued but she couldn't shake out the feeling that something had just changed.
Apart from that unusual encounter, the day dragged by with no special happening. That evening, Amaya retired home earlier than usual.
She sat cross-legged on her bed, her laptop open in front of her. The Blooms Global listing stared back at her. She had no reason to apply.
No qualifications that stood out. And no connections.
Yet, her fingers hovered over the keyboard. "Just give it a try," she whispered to herself. "What's the worst that could happen?"
Rejection was a normal thing to her. She exhaled slowly. Then, started typing.
·
.
.
~ ~ ~
The company had retired but Jake was still seated behind his desk. It was a sleek office bathed in cool light.
He flipped through a report. His expression unfazed. But the air around him felt heavy enough to suffocate.
"Run it again," he said.
His assistant stiffened. "Sir, we already-"
"I don't care." He cut him short, his voice still calm and controlled. "Run. It. Again."
There was a brief silence. "Yes, sir." He answered.
Jake leaned back in his chair. His gaze drifting briefly to the city beyond the glass. Something was off. He couldn't explain it, but he could sense it
And his instincts...were never wrong.
.
.
.
Meanwhole, the man from the convenience store stepped into a dimly lit office. He loosened his tie, his expression no longer pleasant. But cold and calculating.
He pulled out his phone. And a photo filled the screen. It was a blurry image from Two years ago. The girl looked young, frightened and covered in shadows. He stared at it. Then, a smile slowly spread through his face.
"I found you."
Amaya on the other hand, hit the submit button.
Sending out her application on an instant.
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9.7
Clarissa rushed into a crowded nightclub for one simple reason: to save her wildly drunk best friend.
But her ruthless billionaire husband, Giovanny, was watching from the VIP room. After effortlessly ruining a man just for grabbing her wrist, Giovanny punished Clarissa for breaching their public image contract with an impossible curfew.
When she inevitably arrived back at his penthouse late, he didn't just yell. He forced her to her knees by his bathtub to wash his back, making her watch an explicit, humiliating video as punishment.
A sudden family medical emergency dragged them to his parents' estate. Still in her soaked, transparent dress and his misbuttoned shirt, Giovanny's mother caught them. She joyfully assumed they had been passionately intimate.
Instead of clearing her name, Giovanny pulled Clarissa close and lied to his mother's face.
"We are working very hard on the family's future, Mother."
He locked her in the guest suite, tossed a sheer silk nightgown on the bed, and literally shattered the tablet holding their "no-contact" prenuptial agreement. He then slapped a file against the window—he had secretly bought all her father's toxic debt.
Clarissa was terrified. They were supposed to be business allies bound by a strict contract. Why was he suddenly acting like a predator determined to own her body and soul?
"Give me an heir, or your father goes to federal prison," he whispered.
Stripped of all choices, Clarissa picked up the white silk. She would surrender tonight to save her family, but as his shadow swallowed her, she made a silent vow to survive this monster, and one day, tear his empire to the ground.
9.7
"Sign it. You're no woman if you can't give me an heir."
Niamh gave Marcus two years of her life, her unwavering loyalty, and her silent love. In return, the billionaire CEO served her divorce papers and a one-way ticket to the gutter.
Cast out into a rainy night with nothing but the clothes on her back and twelve dollars, Niamh’s story should have ended there.
Instead, she stumbled on a stranger in the rain.
In an attempt to save him, he kisses her senseless. He is the last Lycan King standing, and a man of terrifying power, yet he is haunted by a seven-century curse.
When the king has a taste of Niamh in the pouring rain, he knew he had to keep her for himself, even though she was human and it was against the laws of their kind not to mingle with humans.
The King needs her essence and Niamh realizes she could use her body to get what she wanted; revenge on Marcus and his mother for humiliating her and making her waste her time.
Now, the woman Marcus discarded is rising as a global conglomerate queen and a Divine Enchantress as assigned by the Moon Goddess.
While her ex-husband’s empire crumbles into bankruptcy and his body rots with a shameful curse, Niamh is learning that being "claimed" by the King is much more than the contract she'd initially made with him.
He wanted to use her as his cure. She wanted to use him for her revenge.
But in the Lumina Realm, the Goddess has other plans.
9.6
Haylie waited nervously at the Wall Street charity gala for her boyfriend Bryan, but a spiked drink hit her hard, leaving her stumbling into a VIP lounge.
There, Chester Steele, the ruthless CEO of Steele Industrial, found her—drugged and vulnerable. What started as a frantic claiming in the shadows ended with him whispering she was his.
But moments later, a security alert shattered everything: data breach traced to Haylie's terminal. Chester's fury exploded. He saw her brush past a Logan Group rival on footage and dumped her in the rain, firing her as a corporate spy.
Bryan answered her desperate call with ice: "It's over." Reporters swarmed her door, branding her a traitor. Arrested at the office by FBI agents, she watched smug coworker Erin wave goodbye.
Thrown in a cell, chained and grilled with fake evidence—offshore accounts in her name—Haylie learned the worst: charges now included her sick father, Ernest, framed for laundering the leak money. Plead guilty or he dies in prison.
Innocent and raging, she couldn't fathom who planted it all—the gala bump, the logs, the forgeries. Why her? Who hated her enough to destroy her life?
Chester burst in, posting unlimited bail but forcing her signature on a slave contract: live in his penthouse, serve him 24/7. As she collapsed in his arms, trapped in his gilded cage, Haylie vowed silently—she'd uncover the real traitor and make them pay.
7.2
Elmore Thomas rushed into the emergency room, clutching his feverish seven-year-old son, Buddy, tightly to his chest.
When the privacy curtain was pulled back, the air in Elmore's lungs vanished. The attending physician standing under the harsh lights was his wife, Kendal—the woman everyone believed had burned to death eight years ago.
But there was no tearful reunion. Kendal looked at him, and her eyes froze into impenetrable ice. She treated him like a biohazard, strictly referring to him as the family member.
Worse, she didn't recognize Buddy. She comforted their crying son with the same gentle warmth she used to reserve for Elmore, completely unaware she was soothing the baby she thought had died.
Days later, Elmore watched from the shadows as she picked up another boy outside a prep school, her left hand flashing a massive diamond engagement ring.
When his butler accidentally recognized her, Kendal shielded her new stepson with pure disgust in her eyes.
"Tell that psychopath to sign the divorce papers immediately. I have a new family now."
The words 'new family' echoed in Elmore's skull, tearing him apart. For eight years, he had lived in a hell of guilt and madness, raising their son in the shadow of her ghost. How could she just erase their past? How could she give her tender smiles to a stranger and look at him with absolute revulsion?
Standing in a luxury ballroom, Elmore squeezed his hand until his crystal champagne flute shattered, thick blood dripping onto the rug. The murderous obsession in his dark eyes returned as he called his lawyer.
"Freeze her divorce application. Use every dirty trick in the book. She isn't leaving."
7.6
I was once the untouchable heiress to the Schroeder empire, until a corporate fraud conviction stripped away my life and threw me into federal prison for five brutal years.
On the day of my release, I stepped out into the freezing rain only to realize I had been utterly abandoned by everyone I loved.
My family sent no one. My former best friends blocked my number, and high-society women took photos of my shivering, pathetic state for laughs. To survive, I made a desperate deal to act as the fake fiancée of Kayden Washington, a ruthless, disgraced billionaire fighting his own blood. But the moment we joined forces, the nightmare escalated. Our safehouse was ransacked, we were hunted by tactical hitmen in the dark, and my adoptive brother stole my dead mother's diary just to bribe me into leaving New York forever. Worse, the digital trail of my framing traced back to a top-tier operative manipulating both our families from the shadows.
I didn't understand why my own family had sacrificed me like a worthless pawn to ignite a massive, invisible war. What dark secret was I actually taking the fall for?
Just as Kayden and I prepared to burn both empires to the ground, a mysterious courier dropped a package at my door. Inside rested the Schroeder Patriarch's solid gold ring—the ultimate symbol of absolute power—sent directly to me, the disgraced exile.
"They took your past, but I will give you the power to forge a new future."
The game hadn't just changed. The board had been flipped, and I was going back to take the throne.
9.0
Seventeen years after going missing, Brooklyn was finally brought back to her ultra-wealthy biological family.
But instead of a tearful reunion, her parents and sisters treated her like infectious garbage, mocking her cheap clothes and calling her a country bumpkin.
They dumped her into a remedial class to hide her away, cut off her allowance, and threatened to lock down her trust fund to force her into absolute submission.
One night, Brooklyn stood in the shadows of the estate and overheard a conversation that shattered everything.
She hadn't wandered off as a child.
Her parents had deliberately thrown her away because a fake fortune teller claimed her birth chart was a jinx to the family's wealth.
They felt zero remorse, only plotting to banish her again the moment she turned eighteen.
Her biological father thought he was putting a leash on a helpless, uneducated girl by cutting off her pocket change.
He had no idea that Brooklyn was the anonymous VIP who casually dropped sixty million dollars on an emerald at the city's most exclusive auction.
He didn't know she was the elusive medical genius that the world's most powerful billionaires were currently tearing the city apart to find.
The last microscopic shred of hope for a family withered into cold ash in her chest.
"Lock down my trust fund?"
She pulled out her encrypted phone and activated her shadow networks, severing herself entirely from their pathetic surveillance.
Since they believed she was a jinx, she was going to show them exactly what a real curse looked like.