
The Ghost Bullet
Augustina Hardstone · Ongoing · 45.8k Words
Introduction
Selena Rossi knows two things: her mafia don father’s empire is built on corpses, and her mother’s killer walks free.
He’s the ghost in her nightmares.
Rook. Her father’s deadliest shadow. A name whispered in fear. An assassin without a face… until he’s forced into her light as her 24/7 bodyguard.
Mutual hatred is their shield.
Trapped together as bullets fly, Selena sees the flicker of pain behind his ice-cold eyes. He sees the crack in her armor. When chaos erupts, a savage, stolen kiss ignites a fire neither can control.
Then she uncovers the truth.
Security footage. A masked killer removing his disguise.
Rook’s face.
Pulling the trigger.
Her world shatters. Trust bleeds out. She vanishes into the night, leaving only betrayal behind.
Three years. Three lifetimes.
Selena is a ghost now too. But her father’s empire is crumbling. Enemies close in. A senator is dead. The FBI’s net tightens.
He walks back into her war.
Rook. Broken. Haunted. He carries a digital bomb – evidence that could save her family… or bury them.
“Your mother’s death wasn’t my mission. It was my damnation.”
But the shadows hold darker truths. The real puppetmaster pulls the strings.
As bullets tear through a warehouse of ghosts, loyalties shatter.
Her father faces a traitor’s gun.
Rook takes a bullet meant for her.
A recording holds the key to salvation… and damnation.
He thrusts the evidence into her hands.
“Save them… or let it burn.”
Sirens wail. Blood pools. One choice remains.
But the deadliest secret isn’t who pulled the trigger.
It’s why the gun was loaded.
Justice has a price. Is love the bullet… or the shield?
Chapter 1
Selena's POV
The computer screen exploded with error messages.
"No, no, no!" Selena slammed her fist on the desk. Three hours of work, gone. The police database had kicked her out again.
Her fingers flew across the keyboard, trying to get back in. Sweat dripped down her face. She had been so close to finding something about Mom's case. So close to the truth.
The apartment felt like a prison. Bulletproof windows. Steel doors. Guards everywhere. Dad called it protection. Selena called it a cage.
She rubbed her tired eyes and tried a different password. Her mother's birthday. Her mother's favorite song. Her mother's—
BANG!
Something crashed in the kitchen. Selena froze. The guards were supposed to be outside. No one should be in here with her.
She grabbed the gun from her desk drawer. Her hands shook as she checked if it was loaded. Dad had taught her to shoot when she turned sixteen. "Never trust anyone to protect you," he had said. "Not even family."
Footsteps moved across the marble floor. Slow. Careful. Like a hunter stalking prey.
Selena's heart pounded so loud she was sure the intruder could hear it. She crept toward the kitchen, gun raised. The lights were off. Shadows danced everywhere.
"Hello, princess."
The voice came from behind her. Cold. Calm. Like death itself was speaking.
Selena spun around, finger on the trigger. A man stood by her computer. Tall. Dark hair. Eyes like winter ice. He wasn't pointing a gun at her. He didn't need to. Everything about him screamed danger.
"Who are you?" Her voice cracked. She hated how scared she sounded.
"Someone who knows what you're looking for." He nodded at her computer screen. "Information about your mother's murder."
Selena's blood turned to ice. "How do you—"
"Know about your little hacking hobby?" The man smiled, but it wasn't friendly. "I know lots of things, Selena Rossi. Like how you break into police files every night. How you've been searching for three years. How you're getting close to something that could get you killed."
"My father will—"
"Your father sent me."
The words hit her like a punch to the stomach. Dad knew about her searching? Had he been watching her all this time?
"I don't believe you."
The stranger pulled out his phone and dialed. "Tell her yourself."
Selena heard her father's voice through the speaker. Rough. Tired. "Selena, baby, listen to me. There are people coming for our family. Bad people. This man is going to keep you safe."
"Dad, I don't need—"
"You do need this. They know you've been digging into the past. They know you found something." Her father's voice got quiet. Scared. She had never heard him sound scared before. "Pack a bag. You're leaving. Now."
The call ended. Selena stared at the phone, then at the stranger.
"Pack a bag?" She laughed, but it sounded crazy even to her. "I'm not going anywhere with you. I don't even know your name."
"Names don't matter in my line of work."
"What's your line of work?"
His smile got colder. "I solve problems. Permanently."
Selena's stomach dropped. This man was a killer. Dad had sent a killer to protect her. Or maybe to silence her forever.
"The files on your computer," the man said, walking closer. "What did you find?"
"Nothing." The lie came out too fast.
"Try again."
Selena backed toward the window. "I said nothing."
He moved like a cat. Silent. Deadly. Before she could blink, he was right in front of her. His hand covered hers on the gun. Not fighting for it. Just holding it steady.
"I'm not here to hurt you," he said softly. "But others are. And they'll be here soon."
"What others?"
"The same people who killed your mother."
The world stopped spinning. Selena couldn't breathe. "You're lying."
"Am I?" He let go of her hand and walked back to the computer. "You found a name in those police files, didn't you? Someone who was supposed to be investigating the murder but wasn't."
How did he know? Selena had only found that information tonight. Detective Marcus Webb. He had been assigned to Mom's case but never filed a single report. Like he was being paid to stay quiet.
"Detective Webb," the stranger continued, reading her face. "He's dead. Killed two hours ago. Shot in his car outside a diner."
Selena's legs felt weak. She sat down hard in her chair. "That's impossible."
"Three bullets to the chest. Very professional. The same style that killed your mother."
Tears burned her eyes. "Why are you telling me this?"
"Because whoever killed Webb knows he talked to someone recently. They're cleaning up loose ends." He looked right at her. "You're a loose end, Selena."
Sirens wailed in the distance. Getting closer.
The man tensed. He pulled out a gun that looked like it could stop a truck. "They're early."
"Who's early?"
"The people coming to kill you." He grabbed her arm. "We need to go. Now."
Selena jerked away. "I'm not going anywhere with you! I don't even know if you're telling the truth!"
The sirens got louder. Then stopped. Right outside her building.
The man's phone buzzed. He looked at it and cursed under his breath. "Your guards are down. All of them."
Fear crashed over her like a wave. Those guards had families. Kids. And now they were dead because of her.
"This is your fault," she whispered.
"No. This is your father's fault for letting you dig where you shouldn't have dug." He grabbed her laptop and shoved it in a bag. "But I'm not letting you die for his mistakes."
Heavy footsteps echoed in the hallway outside. Men's voices. Angry. Getting closer to her door.
The stranger moved to the window and looked down. "Twelve floors. Too high to jump. They've got the elevators blocked." He turned to her, and for the first time, she saw something that might have been worry in his cold eyes. "There's only one way out."
"What way?"
He pulled a small device from his pocket. It looked like a garage door opener. "The hard way."
"What does that do?"
The footsteps stopped right outside her door. Someone was picking the lock.
The stranger looked at her with those winter eyes. "Hold on to something."
"Wait, what are you—"
He pressed the button.
The world exploded.
The apartment shook like an earthquake. The lights went out. Emergency alarms screamed everywhere. In the darkness, she felt the stranger's hand grab hers.
"Trust me," he said. "Or die here."
The door burst open. Men with guns poured in, flashlights cutting through the smoke and darkness.
"Go, go, go!" someone yelled.
Selena couldn't see anything. Couldn't breathe. The stranger pulled her forward, and she stumbled after him because she had no choice.
They ran through the smoke toward... nothing. Just the blown-out window and a twelve-story drop to the street below.
"You're crazy!" she screamed.
"Probably."
And then he jumped.
Still holding her hand.
They fell into the darkness together as bullets whistled over their heads and sirens wailed like the end of the world.
Selena screamed all the way down, wondering if the man holding her hand was saving her life...
Or ending it.
Last Chapters
#30 The Encrypted Video
Last Updated: 1/24/2026#29 Marco's Move
Last Updated: 1/24/2026#28 The FBI Watches
Last Updated: 1/24/2026#27 Rook's Warning
Last Updated: 1/24/2026#26 The Warehouse Clue
Last Updated: 1/24/2026#25 Getting Closer
Last Updated: 1/24/2026#24 The Club Attack
Last Updated: 1/24/2026#23 Watching Eyes
Last Updated: 1/24/2026#22 The Password
Last Updated: 1/24/2026#21 Almost Human
Last Updated: 1/24/2026
You Might Like 😍
A Queen Among Darkness (Book 4 in the Gods' Saga)
For centuries, she has been on the run, helping the supernatural community under the cloak of anonymity while she works to clear her name and save the very people after her from destruction.
Enemies are closing in, but an unexpected complication befalls her when she realises she’s been fated to someone who wants her species exterminated. After all, an evil chance seldom comes alone.
A Queen Among Darkness is the 4th book in the Queen Among Series/The Gods' Saga. This is an interconnected series. To see how it ends, I recommend reading the full series.
Books in the series in order:
A Queen Among Alphas - Book 1
Bite-Size Luna - A Queen Among Alphas Prequel (available under book 1)
A Queen Among Snakes - Book 2
A Queen Among Blood - Book 3
A Queen Among Darkness - Book 4
Whole Again - A Queen Among Alpha's spin-off (available under book 1)
A Queen Among Tides - Book 5
Valor, Virtue, and Verve - Tides Prequel Spin-off (will be available under book 5)
A Queen Among Gods - Book 6
Runaway Empress - A Queen Among Snakes Prequel (will be available under book 2)
A Queen Among Tempests - Book 7
Dark Vocation - Darkness spin-off (will be available under book 4)
A Court of Arcane Souls Anthology (side character short stories exclusive to Ream)
Royal Shadow Series (Next Generation Coming Soon)
Let Them Kneel
Cast out by her pack. Forgotten by the Lycans.
She lived among humans—quiet, invisible, tucked away in a town no one looked at twice.
But when her first heat comes without warning, everything changes.
Her body ignites. Her instincts scream. And something primal stirs beneath her skin—
summoning a big, bad Alpha who knows exactly how to quench her fire.
When he claims her, it’s ecstasy and ruin.
For the first time, she believes she’s been accepted.
Seen.
Chosen.
Until he leaves her the next morning—
like a secret never to be spoken.
But Kaelani is not what they thought.
Not wolfless. Not weak.
There is something ancient inside her. Something powerful. And it’s waking.
And when it does—
they’ll all remember the girl they tried to erase.
Especially him.
She’ll be the dream he keeps chasing… the one thing that ever made him feel alive.
Because secrets never stay buried.
And neither do dreams.
Game of Destiny
When Finlay finds her, she is living among humans. He is smitten by the stubborn wolf that refuse to acknowledge his existence. She may not be his mate, but he wants her to be a part of his pack, latent wolf or not.
Amie cant resist the Alpha that comes into her life and drags her back into pack life. Not only does she find herself happier than she has been in a long time, her wolf finally comes to her. Finlay isn't her mate, but he becomes her best friend. Together with the other top wolves in the pack, they work to create the best and strongest pack.
When it's time for the pack games, the event that decides the packs rank for the coming ten year, Amie needs to face her old pack. When she sees the man that rejected her for the first time in ten years, everything she thought she knew is turned around. Amie and Finlay need to adapt to the new reality and find a way forward for their pack. But will the curve ball split them apart?
The mafia princess return
The Alpha & The Vampire Queen
Whips crack against her skin, blood pooling on the cold stone floor, while her mother's pleas fade into silence, abandoning her to the monster's wrath. Xander's protective cries turn to accusations under Penny's dark spells, fracturing their sibling bond into shards of mistrust and isolation.
Where The Ice Gives Way
Blake Atlas scents his mate the moment Charlotte arrives. The bond hits hard and unmistakable, but Charlotte doesn’t recognise it. She doesn’t know why her chest keeps pulling toward the one boy she absolutely cannot afford to want. Blake is Charlie’s new hockey captain. Charlie’s chance at making something good. Charlie makes it clear; his sister is off-limits and Blake tries to do the right thing, but secrets don’t stay buried forever. Rogues prowl the edges of town. The ice cracks. The bond tightens. Then Charlotte’s rare white wolf awakens, the very thing that makes her powerful, also makes her a target.
Shanti needs Shakti. (Peace needs strength.)
Where the Ice Gives Way is a slow-burn YA paranormal romance filled with fated mates, protective alpha energy, fierce sibling loyalty, found family pack bonds, hurt/comfort, and quiet, aching tension. It’s a story about first belonging, learning to be cared for, and what happens when the girl who has always held everyone else up finally falls, and someone catches her.
The Princess's Revenge
Alpha Logan is an illegitimate son whose mother disappeared when he was 10 years old. He grew up suffering from humiliation and lacking maternal love.
Alpha Logan saves Valencia at Marcus's funeral, which seems to be destined by fate—part of the Moon Goddess's grand plan.
As Valencia accidentally discovers prophecies in Logan's mother's diary that seem to be related to her, the truth gradually surfaces. Valencia appears to be merely a tool in a princess's revenge plot. How will Logan and Valencia navigate their path amid the national war and pack politics?
First Taste in a Century
But Lysander’s arrival spells disaster. In a clumsy accident, he doesn't just ruin dinner; he obliterates her state-of-the-art scientific instruments. With her life’s work destroyed and her synthetic supply cut off, the scent of his living blood overwhelms her engineered senses. Forced to break a century-long abstinence, she takes what she needs, only to find herself addicted not just to his taste, but to the man himself.
Using the equipment as a flimsy excuse to lure him back, Vivienne battles a terrifying new obsession. She craves his body despite believing he’s taken, despising her own weakness. Meanwhile, Lysander’s initial terror curdles into a forbidden fascination. Can a relationship survive when one person feels everything, and the other only hungers?
Pawn of the Starless God
Instead, a god found me.
One moment, I was bleeding beneath the neon glow of the city, my life slipping through my fingers. The next, a glowing blue screen appeared before my eyes, offering me a choice that was never really a choice at all.
Accept the Summoner’s Mark. Or die.
Now I belong to the Death Game — a brutal cosmic system where ordinary people are turned into Players, thrown into impossible missions, and forced to survive horrors designed for the amusement of gods.
Every trial has rules.
Every monster has a weakness.
Every victory comes with a reward.
And every reward makes me less human.
My name is Nerissa Valehart, and I refuse to be anyone’s pawn.
But surviving the Game means trusting the one man everyone warns me to fear.
Veyren Ashford is ruthless, powerful, and dangerously beautiful — a veteran Player with blood on his hands and secrets in his soul. He says attachment will get me killed. He says love is a weakness the Game always punishes.
Yet when death comes for me, Veyren is the one standing between us.
In a world where gods gamble with mortal lives, monsters hunt from the shadows, and desire may be the deadliest weakness of all, I have only one goal:
Survive long enough to cross the board.
And make the Starless God regret choosing me..............
Falling for my boyfriend's Navy brother
"What is wrong with me?
Why does being near him make my skin feel too tight, like I’m wearing a sweater two sizes too small?
It’s just newness, I tell myself firmly.
He’s my boyfirend’s brother.
This is Tyler’s family.
I’m not going to let one cold stare undo that.
**
As a ballet dancer, My life looks perfect—scholarship, starring role, sweet boyfriend Tyler. Until Tyler shows his true colors and his older brother, Asher, comes home.
Asher is a Navy veteran with battle scars and zero patience. He calls me "princess" like it's an insult. I can't stand him.
When My ankle injury forces her to recover at the family lake house, I‘m stuck with both brothers. What starts as mutual hatred slowly turns into something forbidden.
I'm falling for my boyfriend's brother.
**
I hate girls like her.
Entitled.
Delicate.
And still—
Still.
The image of her standing in the doorway, clutching her cardigan tighter around her narrow shoulders, trying to smile through the awkwardness, won’t leave me.
Neither does the memory of Tyler. Leaving her here without a second thought.
I shouldn’t care.
I don’t care.
It’s not my problem if Tyler’s an idiot.
It’s not my business if some spoiled little princess has to walk home in the dark.
I’m not here to rescue anyone.
Especially not her.
Especially not someone like her.
She’s not my problem.
And I’ll make damn sure she never becomes one.
But when my eyes fell on her lips, I wanted her to be mine.
Tango with the Alpha's Heart
“He met her at the Alpha training camp,” he said. “She is a perfect suitor for him. It snowed last night, indicating that his wolf is happy with his choice.”
My heart sank, and tears made their way down my cheeks.
Alexander took my innocence last night, and now he is taking that thing in his office as his Luna.
Emily became the laughingstock of the pack on her 18th birthday and never expected the Alpha's son to be her mate.
After a night of passionate love, Emily finds out that her mate has taken a chosen mate. Heartbroken and humiliated, she disappears from the pack.
Now, five years later, Emily is a respected high-ranking warrior in King Alpha’s army.
When her best friend invites her to a night of music and laughter, she never expects to run into her mate.
Will her mate figure out it is her?
Will he chase after her, and most of all, will Emily be able to keep her secrets safe?
Bella and Her Beast
.
Locked in her frozen tower, Bella dreamed of warmth, of touch, of freedom and of love. Cursed with the power of ice and snow, she’s spent her life alone. A secret they tried to protect the world from. Her only escape comes in the form of the books she reads. Stories of heat, desire, and the kind of love that could melt even her frostbitten heart.
Damien is the Beast. A dragon King with a temper forged in flame and a soul hollowed by duty. The world fears him. The people call him a monster. But beneath the scales and the rage lies a man who has never been touched by love.
When frost meets fire, the world shatters. She was never meant to leave her tower. He was never meant to find her. But destiny doesn’t bow to kings or care for cages and now the question burns through them both: Can Bella have her Beast? Or will the girl of snow melt in the heat of his desire?
.
"I’m keeping her."
"What?"
Before I can react, he scoops her up. Her small body fits easily in the cradle of his talons. For a split second, she looks startled, but not afraid. Her hand rests against one scaled finger, and she stares up at him with that same curious wonder, as though she’s already forgotten she was ever meant to fear me.
"Put her down," I try to command, panic threading through my thoughts. "You’ll hurt her."
"She’s ours," the beast insists, possessive and fierce. "Our snowflake."












