All Chapters of Blood Roses And Bullet Vows: Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

(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

(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

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

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.

The mansion didn’t feel like it missed him.Matteo’s absence didn’t echo through the halls or cling to the walls like I thought it would. Instead, it felt like he’d never been here to begin with. Like the shadows were used to swallowing people whole and forgetting their names.But I remembered.I remembered the way his voice dropped when he was tired. The way his fingers flexed like he was holding onto the edge of something invisible. The way his anger looked a lot like grief.I wasn’t here to mourn him, though.I was here to find out why I ever met him in the first place.The library door creaked as I pushed it open. The room smelled like smoke and dust and faintly of violets. I didn’t sit this time. I walked straight to the shelf I’d ignored the first night—tall, cold, too symmetrical. The one Rafael had mentioned without really meaning to.Behind the third row, just beneath a row of encyclopedias, I found it.A thin stack of old notebooks. Leather-bound. Faded. Smelling of old perf