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Chapter 36: Judas Among Us

Penulis: Sydirae
last update Terakhir Diperbarui: 2025-05-05 13:36:59

Betrayal has a sound.

It isn’t loud. It doesn’t announce itself with crashing glass or bullets through walls.

It whispers.

And tonight, I heard it.

The whisper of footsteps where there shouldn’t be any. The creak of a hinge. The breath someone holds when they think they’re alone.

We had grown too comfortable. Too confident in our shadows and secrets. And now, those same shadows were bleeding.

It was Elias.

Matteo’s right hand.

The one who stood beside him in every war, every negotiation, every moment where death leaned in too close. The one who had once pulled Matteo out of a burning car with a bullet in his shoulder and a snarl on his face.

And he was the one leaking information.

I didn’t tell anyone at first. I watched.

I watched him excuse himself just before major meetings. I watched his phone light up in the middle of blackout drills. I watched him brush off questions with too muc
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  • Blood Roses And Bullet Vows   Chapter 35: The Last Line

    The silence was deafening. The kind that doesn’t just settle into your ears—it crawls into your bones. For the first time in weeks, no one spoke. No one dared to. We just stared at each other, faces half-lit by the low hanging bulbs of the safehouse, the weight of Matteo’s decision heavy in the air. He had snapped. Not loudly. Not with guns or fury. He broke quietly. Like glass left too long in a fire, beautiful until it just… cracked. “I’m done holding back,” Matteo finally said. I looked up from the blueprints spread across the table. “What are you saying?” He didn’t answer right away. He just walked over, placed Rafael’s video message in the center of the table, and hit play again. His brother’s muffled cries filled the room. Everyone flinched. “This—” Matteo pointed at the screen, “—this is the line. The last f*cking line.” No one argued. Not eve

    Terakhir Diperbarui : 2025-05-05
  • Blood Roses And Bullet Vows   Prologue: The Blood Promise

    (Ten years ago) There are things a child shouldn’t remember. Like the smell of burning flesh. The sound of bones cracking beneath a boot. Or the way her mother’s hand shook when she whispered, “Don’t make a sound, baby. Not even a breath.” I was nine when I saw my father die. Not the man who raised me. The man whose blood runs in my veins. The man who built empires out of bullets and betrayal. I didn’t know it then. Only that Mama always said he was “gone” in that vague way grownups say when they mean something deeper. That day, I learned what “gone” really meant. It was supposed to be a quick trip. We were supposed to be in and out of Manila in a day. Mama needed to meet someone. “Business,” she said. I was wearing my favorite sneakers. Bright red, scuffed at the toes from schoolyard games. I remember because I kept staring at them when the screaming started. Like if I focused hard enough, I wouldn’t hear the gunfire. But it didn’t work. You never forget the sound of your

    Terakhir Diperbarui : 2025-04-10
  • Blood Roses And Bullet Vows   Chapter 1: The Bride

    (MATTEO’S POV) They say a man should feel something on his wedding day. Joy. Hope. Nerves. Even guilt. I felt nothing. Not when I slid the cufflinks into place, black on black. Not when the housekeeper knocked on the door and told me the guests had arrived. Not even when I caught my reflection in the mirror. Sharp suit, sharper stare, and the ghosts behind my eyes who never stopped watching. I was a soldier marrying a stranger. A son honoring his family’s demand. A man with blood on his hands and no space in his chest for anything that didn’t taste like control. No, I wasn’t nervous. I was bored. “This is a mistake,” my cousin murmured beside me, low enough that only I could hear. “You don’t need her. You have the army. The routes. The respect.” I adjusted my tie. “I also have enemies. And her last name.” “Cruz,” he spat like it burned. “Your father would’ve—” “My father’s dead.” Silence cut between us. He didn’t say it, but I knew what he was thinking. That

    Terakhir Diperbarui : 2025-04-10
  • Blood Roses And Bullet Vows   Chapter 2: The House Of Glass

    (AMARA'S POV)The morning after my forced wedding, the sunlight felt fake. Like it was shining on the wrong people, on the wrong story. I opened my eyes to silence and unfamiliar air. Cold. Sterile. Not a single picture on the wall. Not even a crack in the marble floor. It was too perfect. Too polished. Like the kind of house that didn't want to be lived in.Just stared at.Just controlled.I sat up slowly, my head heavy from pretending. Pretending I wasn’t terrified. Pretending that the vows didn’t feel like chains around my throat. Pretending that Matteo Valerio hadn’t looked at me like he’d seen a ghost he wanted to bury twice.I checked the door.Locked.Of course.A maid knocked fifteen minutes later. Said nothing, just handed me a change of clothes and a tray of food like I was an exhibit behind glass. I almost asked her name. Almost.But then I remembered where I was.I was not here to make friends.I showered. Changed. Didn’t touch the food. I didn’t trust anything in this hou

    Terakhir Diperbarui : 2025-04-10
  • Blood Roses And Bullet Vows   Chapter 3: Paper Vows, Iron Chains

    The mansion never slept.Even at two in the morning, it breathed with a quiet menace—heels clicking against marble in the hallway, guards whispering over radios, shadows sliding beneath doors. I stood by the window in our so-called bedroom, staring at the driveway below. Two black cars. One motorcycle. The rest hidden somewhere, like everything else in this house.I hadn’t moved for over an hour. Couldn’t sleep. Couldn’t think past the man from the meeting.“You look like your mother.”The words looped in my head like static, like the kind of thing you don’t realize is dangerous until it’s already cracked open something inside you.My mother had died when I was ten. Hit-and-run, they said. Closed casket. I never saw her face again. Never asked questions. Not because I didn’t want to, but because people looked uncomfortable when I did.And now… now some stranger said her name like it was a weapon.I wanted answers. I wanted truth.Instead, I had a marriage contract and a door that didn

    Terakhir Diperbarui : 2025-04-12
  • Blood Roses And Bullet Vows   Chapter 4: Secrets In The Walls

    I didn’t expect much from a house built on blood, but I also didn’t expect the silence to be this loud.It wasn’t the kind of silence that meant peace. It was the kind that pressed against your skin like humidity. Heavy. Watching. Waiting.After the funeral, Matteo disappeared for the rest of the day. Not a word. Not a knock. Not even the echo of his boots in the hallway. Just gone. And in his absence, the house felt like a stranger again—walls too white, floors too clean, windows that didn’t open.I didn’t cry.I wanted to, but I couldn’t.Maybe because crying felt like surrender. And I wasn’t ready to lose again.So I walked.Not with a plan. Not even with hope. Just footsteps echoing through halls that weren’t mine, wearing shoes that didn’t belong to me, passing portraits of men with dead eyes and tighter suits.This place was built to trap people. Not with locks. With beauty. With secrets.And I was tired of being the only one without answers.Down one corridor, past a wing that

    Terakhir Diperbarui : 2025-04-12
  • Blood Roses And Bullet Vows   Chapter 5: The House that Watches

    I woke to the sound of something shifting. Not loud. Not sharp. Just enough to pull me out of sleep and make my heart start sprinting before my mind caught up.The red folder was still next to me, under the pillow where I’d shoved it last night like some kind of talisman. But no one was in the room. The door was still closed. Locked from the inside.Still, something felt… off.I sat up slowly, brushing hair from my face, the silence pressing against my ears again like it had weight. The kind that makes your ribs feel too tight and the air feel too thick.I wasn’t alone.Not in this house. Not even in this room.I turned toward the mirror.Nothing.But I swear something moved just at the corner of it. A shimmer. A breath. Something just out of reach.I forced myself up. Pulled on the thick robe someone had left folded at the end of my bed. Opened the door with steady hands that didn’t feel like mine.The hallway was still.Too still.I walked barefoot, each step a whisper against the p

    Terakhir Diperbarui : 2025-04-16
  • Blood Roses And Bullet Vows   Chapter 6: The Meeting

    My heart made a sound I didn’t know it could make.He asked to meet me.Not send a message. Not watch from afar. Not play some ghost game from the shadows.He wanted to see me.My real father.The man with the scar on his lip and the truth buried somewhere behind those cold eyes.“When?” I asked.Matteo didn’t look at me right away. He stared past me, through the window, like the answer was somewhere in the trees or the clouds or the quiet spaces in between.“Tomorrow,” he said. “Ten a.m. You’ll be driven there.”I blinked. “And you’re letting me go?”He finally looked at me.“I don’t want you to. But I won’t stop you.”That didn’t feel like permission.That felt like surrender.“Where?”“A neutral location. Old estate outside town. Used to belong to the Aragon family. He’s repurposed it.”I nodded slowly, even though nothing made sense anymore.“What’s the catch?”“There’s always a catch,” he said. “But you’ll have to figure that out yourself.”I wanted to scream.To throw something.

    Terakhir Diperbarui : 2025-04-16

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  • Blood Roses And Bullet Vows   Chapter 35: The Last Line

    The silence was deafening. The kind that doesn’t just settle into your ears—it crawls into your bones. For the first time in weeks, no one spoke. No one dared to. We just stared at each other, faces half-lit by the low hanging bulbs of the safehouse, the weight of Matteo’s decision heavy in the air. He had snapped. Not loudly. Not with guns or fury. He broke quietly. Like glass left too long in a fire, beautiful until it just… cracked. “I’m done holding back,” Matteo finally said. I looked up from the blueprints spread across the table. “What are you saying?” He didn’t answer right away. He just walked over, placed Rafael’s video message in the center of the table, and hit play again. His brother’s muffled cries filled the room. Everyone flinched. “This—” Matteo pointed at the screen, “—this is the line. The last f*cking line.” No one argued. Not eve

  • Blood Roses And Bullet Vows   Chapter 36: Judas Among Us

    Betrayal has a sound.It isn’t loud. It doesn’t announce itself with crashing glass or bullets through walls.It whispers.And tonight, I heard it.The whisper of footsteps where there shouldn’t be any. The creak of a hinge. The breath someone holds when they think they’re alone.We had grown too comfortable. Too confident in our shadows and secrets. And now, those same shadows were bleeding.It was Elias.Matteo’s right hand.The one who stood beside him in every war, every negotiation, every moment where death leaned in too close. The one who had once pulled Matteo out of a burning car with a bullet in his shoulder and a snarl on his face.And he was the one leaking information.I didn’t tell anyone at first. I watched.I watched him excuse himself just before major meetings. I watched his phone light up in the middle of blackout drills. I watched him brush off questions with too muc

  • Blood Roses And Bullet Vows   Chapter 34: Mercy’s Edge

    I had barely stepped into the damp, echoing silence of the abandoned warehouse when the weight of what was about to happen hit me. My breath caught, chest tight with something I couldn’t name. The smell of iron and old leather lingered in the air, mixing with the faint scent of gunpowder that had almost become synonymous with my life.Matteo Monteverde stood just a few steps ahead, his posture tense but resolute. His eyes were trained on the dark figure ahead of us, waiting. Watching. Calculating.Rafael Aragon.We had tracked him here. This was it. The moment we had prepared for. The moment Matteo had sworn would end with blood on his hands. Rafael had pushed too far this time. He had killed too many of us. Torn families apart, burned lives to the ground. There was no turning back now.But as I watched Matteo take a slow step forward, I saw something in his eyes. A hesitation. A flicker of something I hadn’t expected.“I thought this wou

  • Blood Roses And Bullet Vows   Chapter 33: The Wake Of The Living

    Rain tapped like soft whispers against the windshield, and the world outside the tinted glass blurred into shadows and smoke.The hearse ahead of us moved slowly, a dark carriage dragging Matteo Monteverde's name through the mud one last time. The streets were lined with umbrellas and whispers, mourners and monsters dressed in black.And somewhere in the crowd... was me.Draped in a long black veil, a wig darkening my hair, I stood still. Silent. My heart beating in sync with the thunder above. My heels sank into the softened earth, and my gloved hands clenched the umbrella handle so tightly I thought it might snap.I didn’t speak. I didn’t blink.I just watched.Watched Rafael Aragon walk up to the podium like a grieving brother. Like a man who didn’t have blood on his hands.He wore mourning well. Black suit, black tie, just a touch of red in his pocket square—because the devil never forgets his color.He look

  • Blood Roses And Bullet Vows   Chapter 32: The Ghost Letter

    The second envelope came at dawn. No knock. No footsteps. Just a soft thud, like a breath exhaled through paper, as it landed on the floor of Matteo's room. I didn’t notice it at first. I was dozing off, curled up in the chair, my fingers still loosely holding Matteo's hand. But the sound pulled me out of the fog. There it was. Another letter. Same yellowing parchment. Same shaky ink. But this time, it was addressed to Matteo. I didn’t touch it. Not right away. Something about it felt wrong. Like it breathed. Like it watched. I stared at it as the sun cracked through the slats in the window, slicing light across the tile floor. My heart hammered in slow, heavy thuds. I didn’t know if I was more afraid of what was inside it or the fact that it had gotten in at all. No one had come through that door. No one. And still, it sat there. I finally reached f

  • Blood Roses And Bullet Vows   Chapter 31: Shot Through The Heart

    The blood wouldn’t stop.It soaked through my fingers, warm and terrifying, as I pressed harder against Matteo’s chest. I couldn’t even tell where the bullet had entered anymore—only that the bleeding wouldn’t slow, and his breathing was getting shallower.“Faster!” I screamed over my shoulder, my voice cracking. “We’re losing him!”Emil didn’t reply. He just drove harder, weaving through the barely lit roads like every second could kill us.The safehouse wasn’t far now. A medical one—hidden deep in the hills, off-grid, fully equipped and used only for the most desperate moments.And this was desperate.I stared down at Matteo’s face. His lashes twitched against his pale skin, sweat dotting his forehead. His lips were tinted red.“Stay with me, please.”My voice was smaller now. I didn’t care about pride or anger or what happened yesterday. Not when his life was slipping through my hands.The van jolted

  • Blood Roses And Bullet Vows   Chapter 30: Bullet Vows Broken

    Amara’s POVI didn’t sleep that night.The cut on my palm had dried into a thin, ugly line, but the ache didn’t stop there. It spread through my chest like rot, thick and impossible to escape from. Matteo’s face wouldn’t leave my head—the way his eyes hardened, how his voice cracked when he said goodbye.It played on repeat. Every blink, every breath, it was there.“You don’t understand.”“Don’t.”“I trusted you.”“I’m done with you.”I could still hear it.I sat alone on the cold floor of the safehouse, the silence so loud it nearly screamed. Outside the window, dawn hadn’t even tried to break yet. Just black sky and heavier shadows.He didn’t even let me explain.But maybe he didn’t need to.I had cut myself open for Matteo—literally—and he still walked away like none of it mattered. Maybe to him, it didn’t.I wanted to scream.I wanted to smash something.But more than anythin

  • Blood Roses And Bullet Vows   Chapter 29: Crimson Pact

    Amara's POVThe night was too quiet, too calm, like the eye of the storm had passed over and now we were just waiting for it to rip everything apart. But there was no escaping. Not anymore.I stood in the dimly lit room, my fingers shaking as I stared at the blade in my hand. Lazaro’s voice echoed in my mind, his offer still ringing in my ears. I had no choice. None."Everything Rafael stole from me, I’ll give it to you," I had promised him, my voice steady despite the chaos in my heart. "In exchange for Matteo’s freedom."Lazaro had agreed, his eyes gleaming with that sick satisfaction that made my skin crawl. But there was a price. Always a price."A blood pact," he had said, his voice low, deliberate. "Sealed with loyalty."I had tried to push back, to make some kind of excuse, but Lazaro wasn’t a man who dealt in excuses. He was a man of demands, of terms I couldn’t refuse. And as much as it repulsed me, I knew I had to play

  • Blood Roses And Bullet Vows   Chapter 28: Kill her or be killed

    Amara’s POV"Tell me," I said.His silence terrified me more than any gun ever pointed at my head.Matteo stood in front of me, drenched from the rain, shoulders slumped like he’d just buried someone. There was something haunted in his eyes—something I hadn’t seen before. Not even when he thought I died.He opened his mouth. Closed it. And when he finally spoke, it wasn’t what I expected."He knows you’re alive."The breath left my lungs. I stepped back, the walls of the safehouse suddenly too close, too tight."Rafael?"He nodded once. "He showed me a picture. Said he’s known for a while. He’s just been waiting.""Waiting for what?"Matteo didn’t answer right away. He looked down at his hands, like they were covered in blood."He gave me a choice."His voice cracked. My heart did too."What kind of choice?"He looked at me then. Really looked. And I knew. I knew before he said it. I felt it like a scream in my bones."He wants me to kill you," Matteo said. "Seven days. Or he’ll kill

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