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 3
Sleep came but Amaya couldn't get any proper rest. She had woken up three times during the night. Each with the same lingering unease sitting heavy in her chest. There were no clear dreams, just fragments of emotion she couldn't explain.
By morning, she gave up trying. The alarm hadn't even gone off yet when she sat up, rubbing her face tiredly. "Great," she muttered. "Another long day."
Just then, the phone buzzed. Amaya blinked, immediately reaching out for it. And there it sat, an email notification. She slightly frowned, unlocking the screen. But then, froze.
Subject: Interview Invitation – Blooms Global
Her heart skipped. She had totally forgotten about the email she skeptically sent.
"What...?" She jerked up as she sat straighter, quickly opening it.
Dear Ms. Bennett,
We are pleased to invite you for an interview for the Administrative Assistant position at Blooms Global...
"Sh*t..." Amaya stared at the screen like it might disappear."They actually replied...?" A nervous laugh slipped out.
That wasn't supposed to happen. She had applied on an impulse. No expectations, no hope.Her stomach twisted, paying attention to the details.
The interview was scheduled at 11:30 AM. "Today?!" she groaned, scrambling out of bed.
Swiftly, she carried out her basic routine and hurried out. By 10:45 AM, Amaya stood across the street from the company's Headquarters. A sudden regret taking roots with her thoughts.
The building towered above the city in its intimidating perfection. People moved in and out with purpose, dressed in sharp suits and confidence she definitely did not have.
Amaya looked down at herself. She appeared decent in her Simple blouse, coupled with a Black skirt and a Low heels. But that was just not... it.
"Too late now," she whispered. It's not like she could easily go back and change. Taking a deep breath, she crossed the street.
What made the whole experience overwhelming was, was even more overwhelming, was the lobby. It's marble floors, high ceilings and clean lines everything screamed power.
Amaya hesitated just as she passed the entrance, unsure where to go.
"Interview?" a voice asked. She turned to see a receptionist smiling politely behind a sleek desk.
"Oh-yes. Um, Amaya Bennett." The woman typed quickly, then nodded. "You're expected. Take the elevator to the 18th floor."
"Thank you." She said.
Amaya walked toward the elevators, her steps a little too careful. As her reflection followed her in the mirrored walls, nervous.
The elevator's door slid open, she stepped and pressed 18. It instantly set into motion. The ride somehow felt longer than it should be as she waited in anticipation.
She was so anxious that, every ding at each floor made her chest tighten a little more. By the time the doors finally opened at her destination, her palms were slightly damp.
"Okay," she whispered. "You've got this." Those words felt empty but she tried to positive as she stepped.
The waiting area was already occupied when she got there. Three other candidates were already seated in a neat row of chairs, all dressed impeccably.
One woman glanced up at Amaya, then back down at her phone. Amaya swallowed and took the last empty seat. Her hands folded neatly in her lap.
As she waited, she just kept watching and observing. A habit she didn't realize she had. The room was quiet until the elevator doors behind them clicked open again.
A firm and measured footsteps immediately followed. Amaya felt it even before she saw him.
The subtle shift in the room was real. One by one, the other candidates straightened. The tension sharpened.
Amaya slightly frowned as she turned, at that moment, everything... slowed. Dressed in a perfectly tailored dark suit, he walked past without looking. His tall figure and heavy prescence, spark command and control.
Like the entire space belonged to him without question. Lucien Blues. Amaya had no idea who he was yet. But something inside her reacted anyway. A strange pull umfamiliar and unsettling pull. Her breath caught.
For just a second, he paused. Just enough for his gaze to slightly shift almost in her direction.
Amaya's fingers instinctively tightened in her lap.
And justblike that, he strolled off. Disappearing down the hallway.
The moment broke, and the hallway broke into ruckus. "...That's him," one of the candidates whispered.
"The CEO."
Aria blinked. "CEO?" The words sounded in her mind as her chest tightened slightly.
"That's... Lucien Blues?"
The name settled in her mind. Heavy, important and strangely familiar.
~~~~
Lucien on the other hand, didn't slow down until he reached his office.The moment the door shut, the silence returned. Just the way he liked it. But then, something lingered.
An unwanted and unexplained feeling. He slightly loosened his cuff, his expression unchanged. Yet his mind- clouldn't move on from that face. Though it was a brief and fleeting moment.
His jaw tightened. "Who was that?" he suddenly asked.
His assistant looked up. "Sir?" He muttered, obviously confused.
"The girl in the waiting area." He explained. There was a subtle silence.
"I'll check." He answered.
Lucien said nothing as moved toward the window. The city stretched endlessly below as he gazed outside. But his focus wasn't there.It was... elsewhere. Something about her, didn't sit right with him.
Back in the waiting, Amaya snapped out of her thoughts the moment her name called. "Yes."She muttered.
"Please come with me."
Amaya jerked up, smoothing her skirt before following the interviewer down the hall. Her heart was racing . But not just from nerves.
That man- Lucien .Why did it feel like she had just walked past something important?
The interview room was simple as they stepped in. A clean and professional setting.
She sat across from two managers, answering questions, and trying her best to stay composed.
"Tell us about your previous experience."
"Why Blooms Global?"
"What are your strengths?"
They were all normal questions.Which Amaya answered honestly and carefully. Slowly, she relaxed. Just a little untile a sharp pain hit her head.
It came suddenly but intense. Her fingers tightened around the edge of her chair.
"Ms. Bennett?" one interviewer asked.
"I-I'm fine," she quickly mumbled. But she wasn't.
Flashes of something unclear blurred her vision.
A room. Then..., Darkness.
A man standing. Then...
Another man- Falling. Then...
Blood-
Amaya sucked in a breath. And just like that, it was gone.
"...Would you like some water?" the interviewer asked. The words felt distant at first, then it suddenly became clearer.
"Yes. Thank you." She answered. Within a minutes, a bottle of water was rushed over. Her hands trembled slightly as she took the glass.
"Sorry. I just... didn't sleep well."
They nodded politely. But she could feel the something shift in the air. And somewhere behind the glass wall, Lucien watched.
His expression unreadable.But his eyes was
Sharp, focused, and locked on her.
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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.