ห้องสมุด
ค้นหา
หน้าหลัก / Romance / Shattered Vows / Chapter Sixty-Two The Return

แชร์

Chapter Sixty-Two The Return

ผู้เขียน: Jane James
last update ปรับปรุงล่าสุด: 2025-05-24 00:32:00

Elena

The moment the wheels touched down in London, something shifted in my chest.

Not fear. Not excitement.

Resolve.

It had been nearly five months since I left this city behind—since I ran with Noah, covered in bruises and betrayal. And now I was walking straight back into the lion’s den, not as prey, but as someone who had studied the beast.

Noah tugged at my coat as we stepped through customs.

“Will I see Daddy again?”

I knelt beside him, brushing a curl from his cheek.

“Maybe,” I said softly. “But only when it’s safe. And only when he remembers how to be kind.”

He nodded, understanding in that eerie, intuitive way only children do. My son wasn’t the same little boy who used to wait by the door for his father to come home. He had changed too. We both had.

Lucas met us outside Heathrow in a black car with tinted windows.

“Nice to see you in one piece,” he said, but his voice was strained. He looked thinner, paler—haunted. “You ready for
อ่านหนังสือเล่มนี้ต่อได้ฟรี
สแกนรหัสเพื่อดาวน์โหลดแอป
บทที่ถูกล็อก
บทที่แล้ว บทต่อไป

บทล่าสุด

  • Shattered Vows    Chapter Sixty-Three The Trap

    The morning the second leak went live, the city felt colder.Not in temperature—but in tension.I sipped my coffee by the window, watching the clouds roll over the skyline like bruises swelling across the sky. Lucas had left at dawn, chasing another lead. Noah was at school, safe for now. And I?I was waiting.For what, exactly—I wasn’t sure.The storm, maybe.Or the man who’d created it.By noon, Victor Thorne’s name was officially under federal investigation. The audio from the Zurich drive had gone public—raw, grainy, undeniable. He spoke plainly, as if experimenting on dying patients was just business.I didn’t smile when I saw the headlines.Because men like Victor didn’t go down without dragging others through the mud.Lucas called around 2PM.“They’ve frozen three of his offshore accounts. And MI5 is involved now. He’s being boxed in.”“Good,” I said quietly. “It’s time he learned what cornered animals do.”“Elena,” Lucas’s

  • Shattered Vows    Chapter Sixty-Two The Return

    ElenaThe moment the wheels touched down in London, something shifted in my chest.Not fear. Not excitement.Resolve.It had been nearly five months since I left this city behind—since I ran with Noah, covered in bruises and betrayal. And now I was walking straight back into the lion’s den, not as prey, but as someone who had studied the beast.Noah tugged at my coat as we stepped through customs.“Will I see Daddy again?”I knelt beside him, brushing a curl from his cheek.“Maybe,” I said softly. “But only when it’s safe. And only when he remembers how to be kind.”He nodded, understanding in that eerie, intuitive way only children do. My son wasn’t the same little boy who used to wait by the door for his father to come home. He had changed too. We both had.Lucas met us outside Heathrow in a black car with tinted windows.“Nice to see you in one piece,” he said, but his voice was strained. He looked thinner, paler—haunted. “You ready for

  • Shattered Vows    Chapter Sixty-One Shadows Don’t Die

    ElenaZurich was supposed to feel safe.But even surrounded by reinforced walls and security systems, I felt exposed.It was subtle at first. A car parked two days in a row across the street. A man with a newspaper who never seemed to read it. Then the call—silent on the other end—just breathing.They hadn’t forgotten me.Victor hadn’t forgotten me.And deep down, I knew it was only a matter of time before the shadows reached out again.I met with Miriam again at a small café off the Bahnhofstrasse. She wore dark glasses and a scarf, like we were extras in some Cold War film. It would’ve been ridiculous if it wasn’t so terrifyingly real.“We’re making progress,” she said, sliding me a small encrypted phone. “But it’s not enough. Too many hands still in the pot.”She hesitated.“There’s someone you need to talk to. Someone from Victor’s past.”I stiffened. “Who?”“A woman. Former associate. She was in hiding for years. She reached out a

  • Shattered Vows    Chapter Sixty Loose Ends

    ElenaThe news cycle moved on.That’s what shocked me the most.One day I saw the headline: “Whistleblower Wife Exposes Billion-Dollar Corruption.” The next, a pop star’s divorce and a political scandal swept me off the front page.The world forgets fast.But trauma doesn’t.It lingers—in the quiet, in the dark, in the way I still flinch at sudden sounds.Noah, at least, was smiling again. He colored on the safehouse floor, drawing crooked houses and sunshines with stick figures that made my chest ache with hope.And yet, I couldn’t relax.Because one name still haunted me.Victor Thorne.He had vanished.No charges.No arrest.No closure.And if I knew anything about men like him—it was that they never disappeared without a plan.Miriam called me three days later. Her voice was steady, but I heard the tension underneath.“We traced a signal from an encrypted device connected to Victor’s offshore accounts,” she said

  • Shattered Vows    Chapter Fifty-Nine False Redemption

    ElenaA week passed.Seven long, agonizing days with no word from Sophie.I checked the burner phone every hour. Slept in clothes. Ate next to nothing. Every sound outside made my skin prickle. I was waiting—for a signal, for a betrayal, for the reckoning.The silence was louder than anything else.Until it wasn’t.The message came at 3:14 a.m.Meet me. One hour. Westbridge Inn. Room 512. Come alone. –SNo greetings. No explanations. Just coordinates to what could either be the end—or the beginning.I didn’t wake Noah.Didn’t leave a note.Just slipped the second drive into my coat pocket and left the safehouse like a ghost.The Westbridge Inn used to be a hotel for honeymooners back in the day. Now it was a crumbling husk—peeling wallpaper, flickering hallway lights, the faint scent of mildew clinging to the walls like regret.Room 512 was at the end of the hall.I knocked once.The door creaked open.Sophie stood ther

  • Shattered Vows    Chapter Fifty-Eight The Bait

    ElenaI didn’t sleep the night Lucas left.Not because of fear—but because of clarity.The kind that only comes when the last mask drops.Lucas wasn’t the man I once loved. Not anymore. Or maybe he never was. That was the most sobering part. What if I’d fallen in love with yet another illusion?My entire life had been shaped by the lies of men who swore they loved me.First Daniel.Now Lucas.And Victor… he never lied. He made no promises. He simply took.But I was done being taken from.That morning, as dawn broke over the coast, I sat in the sunroom with my laptop open, staring at a folder labeled: Operation Mirror.Inside were audio files, photographs, financial statements, private messages—everything Kate had compiled before she died. Her insurance. Her revenge.And now, mine.I transferred the files to three encrypted flash drives. One would stay with me. One I’d send to Miriam. The third? That was the trap.The bait.

  • Shattered Vows    Chapter Fifty-Seven The Spy in the Mirror

    ElenaI should’ve known there was always someone watching.There always is.It’s the cruel irony of betrayal—you never see it coming until it’s already behind your back, holding the knife.After Victor’s call, I paced the cabin floor for nearly an hour, trying to piece together how he knew where I was. The location was private. Secure. Not even Lucas knew the exact address—I’d told him only that I was heading to the coast.Which meant someone else had leaked it.But who?My circle was already razor-thin. I’d cut ties with everyone who’d sided with Daniel, distanced myself from reporters, and only spoke to Miriam, the journalist, through encrypted channels. That left only a handful of people who knew anything at all.Lucas.My assistant from the clinic, Grace.And… my mother.A cold knot formed in my stomach.It couldn’t be Grace—she was young, idealistic, scared of confrontation. She barely understood the depth of what was happening. M

  • Shattered Vows    Chapter Fifty-Six The Secrets We Bury

    ElenaI should’ve known peace wouldn’t last.It never does.Not in this story.Not for women like me.I’d just put Noah to bed when Lucas asked to speak with me privately. He stood in the kitchen, shoulders squared, hands braced on the marble counter like he was preparing for a confession—or a confrontation.“You’re scaring me,” I said carefully.“It’s about Victor,” he said.My blood turned to ice. “What about him?”Lucas’s gaze was steady. “I didn’t just know him. We worked together… a long time ago. Before Westbridge. Before you and I ever reconnected.”Silence fell so sharply, I swore I could hear my heartbeat.“You what?”He exhaled through his nose, the weight of guilt darkening his features.“Years ago, I was fresh out of law school, ambitious, reckless. Victor took me under his wing. He saw potential… used it. He had connections, Elena. The kind most people spend decades building. I didn’t ask questions. Not then. But I kne

  • Shattered Vows    Chapter Fifty-Five The Return

    ElenaI didn’t cry on the flight back.Not when the plane took off. Not when I watched the clouds swallow the earth. Not even when the captain said we were nearing Westbridge—the town I once called home, and now saw as the epicenter of my undoing.There was nothing left to mourn. Only loose ends to tie.Only ghosts to face.Lucas picked me up from the airport.He didn’t speak for the first ten minutes. Just drove, hands tense on the wheel, glancing at me like I might shatter.“You found her,” he said finally.I nodded.“And?”“She’s exactly who I thought she’d be. And somehow… less.”He didn’t push. He never did. That was part of why I could still stand him. Lucas Grey never demanded answers—he waited until I was ready to hand them over, piece by bloody piece.“You didn’t use the file,” he said, glancing at my bag.“No.”“Why not?”“Because destroying her won’t fix me. And I don’t want to be another person playing God.”

บางทีคุณอาจจะชอบ

สำรวจและอ่านนวนิยายดีๆ ได้ฟรี
เข้าถึงนวนิยายดีๆ จำนวนมากได้ฟรีบนแอป GoodNovel ดาวน์โหลดหนังสือที่คุณชอบและอ่านได้ทุกที่ทุกเวลา
อ่านหนังสือฟรีบนแอป
สแกนรหัสเพื่ออ่านบนแอป
DMCA.com Protection Status