All Chapters of VOWS OF DECEPTIONS: Chapter 1
- Chapter 10
10 chapters
CHAPTER 1 — The Driver Who Dared
Rain hammered London like it wanted to wash the city clean. The Vaughn mansion’s driveway shimmered under the storm, its marble tiles reflecting blue flashes of lightning.Christopher Ford’s hands rested on the steering wheel, calm, deliberate. The silver Bentley purred, idling outside the grand ballroom entrance where the last of the guests were leaving in jeweled laughter.In the back seat, Ariella Vaughn was fury wrapped in silk. Her gown glittered, her expression didn’t. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done?” she snapped, her voice sharper than the storm outside.Christopher didn’t turn. “You asked me to wait outside the gala, ma’am. I did.”“You did,” she bit out. “Except you blocked the service entrance instead of the main one. I walked past the caterers, for God’s sake! Photographers caught it, me, the Vaughn heiress, paraded out like a maid!”He spoke evenly. “The main entrance was cordoned off by the police for a brief moment. There was no safe lane to pull into.”“That’s n
CHAPTER 2 — Shadows at the Gate
The rain hadn’t eased. It came down harder, heavy enough to turn the Vaughn estate’s courtyard into mirrors of black glass.Christopher’s coat was already soaked through by the time he reached the outer gates. He didn’t run. He never ran.The woman under the umbrella watched him approach. The lamp above the gate caught her face, pale, rain-specked, lips painted a careful red. He knew her before she spoke.“Hello, Mr. Ford,” she said. Her voice carried a hint of amusement and warning. “Or should I say, Christopher Alden-Ford?”The name hit him like a bullet through water, muted, but fatal. He stopped just short of her. “You shouldn’t use that name.”“Oh, I think I should,” she replied. “It’s the one you were born with.”Her umbrella tilted, revealing eyes the color of steel. “Six years, Christopher. Six years pretending to be a driver. Don’t you think it’s getting old?”He glanced toward the security booth. The guard pretended to look busy, but his radio light blinked red, recording. C
CHAPTER 3 — THE EDGE OF SILENCE
Rain blurred everything into motion, light, sound, fear. Lila froze where she stood. The whisper had come from behind her, quiet, deliberate, too close to be the wind.She spun. Nothing. Just the curtain of rain and the faint flicker of the mansion’s backup lights. “Christopher?” No answer.Her breath misted in the cold. Every instinct screamed to run, but she couldn’t tell which direction was safe.A shape moved in the garden maze, tall, fast, almost silent.Then a hand clamped around her wrist. “Don’t scream,” came the voice she knew. Christopher.He pulled her down behind the stone railing of the terrace. His face was soaked, eyes burning with focus. “You were supposed to stay hidden,” he whispered.“I heard someone,” she whispered back. “They’re in the garden, two of them, maybe more.”He peered through the rain. The intruders’ silhouettes shifted near the broken gate, flashlights slicing through the mist. They were organized. Searching.“Crowe sent them,” Lila murmured. “He wants
CHAPTER 4 — THE WOMAN IN THE STORM
The east corridor was drowned in red light. Emergency strobes pulsed against the marble, stretching shadows long and thin like ghosts.Christopher moved fast, his reflection fragmenting across the rain-slicked windows. Each flash of lightning painted his face in white relief, sharp, controlled, unreadable.He reached the junction where the camera feed had gone dead. No movement. Only silence, heavy as breath before a lie. Then, a voice. Soft. Familiar. “You shouldn’t have come here, Mr. Ford.”He froze. The voice came from the far end of the corridor, calm, precise, and too composed for someone breaking into a billionaire’s home.A woman stepped forward through the haze of red light. She wore a dark coat, rain beading on her shoulders, her hair pinned in a sleek knot. Her heels made no sound on the marble.“Lila,” Christopher said quietly.Her mouth curved. “Still using that name?”“Still using mine,” he replied.For a moment, neither moved. Only the soft thrum of the storm filled the
CHAPTER 5 — BLACKOUT
Darkness swallowed the corridor whole. No light, no sound but the rain hammering against glass and Ariella’s sharp, uneven breathing. “Christopher?” she gasped.“I’m here.” His hand found hers in the dark, warm, steady, grounding. “Stay low. Don’t make a sound.”“Who are they?”“Not friends.”From the far end of the hall came the echo of boots, deliberate, synchronized. The kind of sound that carried discipline, not panic. Ariella whispered, “They’re inside the house.”He squeezed her hand once, a silent warning. “Move.”They slipped along the wall, guided by the faint glow from the storm outside. Every flash of lightning cut the world into snapshots, overturned chairs, rain pouring through shattered windows, Lila’s silhouette now vanished.Ariella’s mind spun. Her husband, her driver, was leading her through her own home like a man who’d broken into it before. Every word, every lie, every moment they’d shared collided inside her like shrapnel.“Christopher,” she whispered, her voice
CHAPTER 6 — FRACTURE
Silence settled like smoke after the storm. The rain had passed, leaving only its ghosts, drops sliding down the window, the faint hiss of water dripping from the eaves. The room smelled of wet stone and electricity.Christopher sat in the half-dark, wrists bound to a chair with cable ties. His shirt clung to him, streaked with mud, but his posture was calm, too calm, the kind that came from years of hiding behind masks.Across from him, Lila stood by the window, her back to him, phone pressed to her ear. “No, he’s secure,” she said softly. “Yes. Alone. No, she ran.”A pause. Her voice lowered. “Crowe wants what he always wants. But this time, he’s not the only one watching.”She ended the call and turned. The room was lit only by the soft glow of a single lamp, casting her face in gold and shadow. The contrast made her eyes look almost kind, until she spoke.“You’re quieter than I remember,” she said.“Observation, or complaint?” he asked.“Both.”She crossed the room, her heels sile
CHAPTER 7 — THE COST OF SECRETS
The city was still asleep when the car slipped through its backstreets, headlights dimmed, rain whispering over the roof.Christopher sat in the back seat, hands still red from the cable ties that had held him hours ago. Lila drove, wordless, her reflection fractured in the mirror.Neither of them had spoken since the power went out. Since he walked in. Crowe. The name felt like a shadow that didn’t belong to just one man.It clung to everything, the air, the silence, the faint scent of gun oil that still lingered in Christopher’s coat.He watched the streets roll by: shuttered shops, sleeping windows, a neon sign flickering over a closed café. Ordinary London, painted in midnight and fear. Finally, he broke the silence. “He let us go.”Lila’s grip tightened on the wheel. “He wanted us to go.”“Why?” She didn’t answer.Christopher leaned back, voice low. “If he wanted me dead, he wouldn’t have wasted the theatrics.”“That’s exactly why you should be scared,” she said. “He doesn’t wast
CHAPTER 8 — THE EDGE OF TRUTH
The tires screamed against wet asphalt as Lila sped through the empty streets. Rain had returned, falling harder now, sheets of water blurring the city into streaks of silver and black.The video feed’s last frame burned in both their minds: Ariella’s terrified face, Crowe’s calm shadow behind her.Christopher hadn’t spoken for a full minute. When he finally did, his voice was cold and deliberate.“Where is she?”Lila’s eyes stayed on the road. “We don’t know yet.”“You mean you don’t know.”Her grip tightened on the wheel. “If I knew, we’d already be there.”He leaned closer, tone sharp. “Don’t lie to me now.”“I’m not”“Lila.” His voice cut through hers, quiet but final. “You’ve been one step ahead of me since the night I met you. Don’t tell me you don’t know where he’s keeping her.”For a heartbeat, the only sound was the engine’s growl and the rhythmic thud of the wipers. Then Lila said, “You don’t understand how Crowe works.”“Try me.”She shot him a quick glance, then back to th
CHAPTER 9 — THE LONG WALK
Rain thickened into fog as Christopher left the car behind. The streets bled light; sodium lamps flickered in pale halos, reflections trembling on the slick pavement.His breath clouded before him, matching the rhythm of his steps. measured, deliberate, unstoppable.He checked the address again on the glowing phone screen. NORTH DOCK. WAREHOUSE 17. Every part of him said trap, but traps were just truths waiting to be exposed.The wind carried the low hum of the river, metal against metal, the groan of ships moored in the dark. Somewhere far off, thunder grumbled like a warning.Lila (over comm): “You’re still on the grid, Chris. You sure you want that?”Christopher: “If I go dark, he’ll think I’m hiding. Let him watch.”She sighed softly through the line. “There’s a difference between bait and martyrdom.”“Funny,” he said. “You never minded the first when it wasn’t your neck.”A pause, static crackled with unspoken tension.The old dock road curved toward the river. Ahead, the warehou
CHAPTER 10 — ASHES AND ECHOES
Smoke clawed the air like a living thing. The blast had gutted the upper level, glass raining down in molten shards as Christopher hit the floor, rolling beneath a fallen beam.The ringing in his ears blurred sound into chaos, shouting, footsteps, the staccato hiss of fire meeting rain. Ariella’s voice cut through it all. “Christopher!”He blinked through the haze, vision swimming. The office was half-collapsed, fire licking its edges. She was still tied to the chair, but the ropes were scorched, half-burned through.He dragged himself up, blood streaking his temple. “Don’t move!”“I wasn’t planning to,” she rasped, coughing. “What the hell did you set off?”“Something I hoped I wouldn’t need.”He reached her just as a metal beam gave way behind them, crashing through the glass wall. The shockwave knocked them both forward. He landed hard, half-shielding her with his body.“Untie me,” she gasped. “Now!”He cut the ropes with a fragment of steel. “You can thank me later.”She shot him