Novels by Author Al-Wahhab

Kevin stood outside the Meridian Club twenty minutes later with his hands in his pockets and his cheap jacket still carrying the smell of his mother's sickness and the prison yard dust that never quite washes out. The building rose above him like a glass tower built specifically to tell people like him they didn't belong, and the two security guards posted at the entrance looked at him the way people look at a stain on an expensive carpet.The first guard, a thick-necked man with a radio clipped to his belt, stepped directly into Kevin's path before he could reach the door."Stop right there." His lip curled. "Private event. Members only."Kevin looked at him."I need to get inside."The second guard, younger but trying just as hard to look important, laughed through his nose. "You need to get back to whatever Goodwill store you crawled out of. Look at yourself, man. You think we let people dressed like homeless junkies walk into a place like this?""My sister is inside.""I don't car

The grand ballroom of the Meridian Club looked like someone had taken a museum and decided to fill it with people who had more money than blood in their veins. Crystal chandeliers the size of compact cars hung from the ceiling, throwing light across marble floors so polished they could have been mirrors. Every surface gleamed. Every corner smelled like expensive cologne and even more expensive desperation.At the head table sat Blake Morrison, Harvard Company's investment director, a man whose word could turn a struggling business into a empire overnight or crush it into dust before lunch. Around him, executives from every corner of the city had gathered like moths circling a porch light, each one carrying a gift that cost more than most people's cars.A mahogany box filled with vintage wine from a French estate that no longer existed. A watch with diamonds where the numbers should have been. A sculpture carved from a single piece of jade that took three men to carry through the d

Tyler's face was turning purple. The bravery was gone. The smirk was gone. Everything was gone except the animal instinct to keep breathing, and that instinct won."Olivia gave her to them," he choked out, each word leaking through the gap Kevin allowed between his fingers. "Her and Damon. They sent her as a gift. There is an executive from Harvard Company, the one handling the investment deal. They delivered Lily to him. She is at the Diamond Club right now. The private lounge on the top floor."Kevin's hand tightened."We told them not to," Tyler gasped, his voice cracking into a whine. "But even if you go there it does not matter. You cannot touch those people. They are Harvard Company. They will destroy you. They will destroy your whole family. You are walking into your own grave, bro, I swear to God."Kevin released his throat and Tyler crumpled to the floor, gagging and coughing and curling into himself like a worm on hot pavement.Kevin looked down at him for one long, still se

"You think you can just take that old bag and leave?" Mrs. Reed's voice had gone shrill enough to cut glass, and she was pointing at him with a finger that shook not from fear but from pure hatred. "Go ahead. Carry her out. She won't survive the night. Not one hospital in this city will touch her. Do you hear me? NOT ONE."Kevin stopped in the hallway and turned his head just enough to see her face."Do you even know who my daughter is with right now?" Mrs. Reed was on her feet again, standing over Tyler like a hen over a broken egg, and her chin was lifted so high it looked like she was trying to smell something above the clouds. "Damon Whitlock. Young Master Whitlock. His family owns the Whitlock Medical Group. Every major hospital in this city, every specialist, every surgeon worth a damn, eighty percent of all medical care in this region belongs to them. If Damon says your mother does not get treated, she does not get treated. Period. You could carry that old sack of bones to eve

“I need to save her at any cost.”Kevin hurriedly knelt beside his mother and pressed two fingers against the base of her throat where the pulse had gone thin and uneven, barely there at all, like a thread about to snap. He closed his eyes. This was the only chance to save his mother, if he couldn't save his mom with the acupuncture then what's the use of learning this method. Three years of training under the old man's hands had taught him things no medical school on earth would ever put in a textbook.He quickly found the pressure points along her neck and spine, the ones his master had made him practice on wooden dummies until his fingers bled, and he pressed them in the exact sequence the old man had drilled into his muscle memory ten thousand times over.Her breathing was a bit steadied. The trembling in her limbs slowed and then stopped. The color in her lips crawled back from gray to lighter pink. This was his hope….She was not out of danger… not even close…. But she was no

A small, almost playful look crossed her face despite everything."And also, don't make me wait too long, Kevin Hale. I have been waiting three years already. Your future wife is not a patient woman.”He nodded once, and then he was moving.The streets blurred past him. He ran when his legs let him and walked fast when they wouldn't, and the whole way there the only thought in his skull was a single word beating like a second pulse. Mom. Mom. Mom.He reached the house in forty minutes. Olivia's house. The house his money had put the down payment on, the house his mother had scrubbed the floors of when Olivia was too busy building her empire to notice the woman on her knees in the kitchen.The front door was unlocked.The living room smelled like lavender candles and new leather, and the television was playing something loud and stupid. Olivia's mother was sitting on the white couch in a silk robe, spooning high-end collagen supplements into a crystal glass. The kind that cost three