All Chapters of Shattered Vows : Chapter 41 - Chapter 50

ElenaThe snow was thick beneath my boots, but I barely felt it. My legs moved on instinct, fueled by panic, by pain, by raw, unfiltered rage. Every branch that whipped my face reminded me—Kate was gone. Shot down by the very man who once pretended to be a benefactor. A mentor. A protector.Victor Thorne.I don’t remember how long I ran. The woods blurred. My breath left white clouds in the freezing air. Behind me, I could still hear the echo of gunfire, though I didn’t know if it was memory or real. Noah whimpered in my arms, his cheek pressed to my shoulder. I whispered soothing things I didn’t believe.When I stumbled out of the trees and onto a winding back road, a pair of headlights nearly blinded me. The driver slammed on the brakes. I waved frantically, cried out, and begged. And somehow, despite everything, the car stopped.The farmhouse was old but warm. The woman who took us in was quiet, stern, her face lined with suspicion and wisdom. She didn’t ask q

ElenaThe video haunted me.Jason’s hollow confession replayed in my mind like a broken loop. His voice, ragged and stripped of charm, was the voice of a man hunted—not by law, but by something darker. Something that still lived in the shadows Victor Thorne left behind.“It’s not over. Not yet.”Those words stayed with me long after Lucas and I left the estate. Neither of us spoke during the drive back. There was nothing to say that could make sense of any of it.But I wasn’t scared anymore.I was angry.Tired.Done being a puppet in someone else’s game.Back at the cottage, I paced while Lucas sat on the couch, watching me like I might snap at any moment.“I need to find him,” I said.“Elena—”“I don’t mean to save him,” I cut in. “I need to understand what the hell is still going on. If Jason’s alive, then someone’s protecting him. Someone worse than Victor, possibly funding this entire operation.”Lucas sighed, rubbing his jaw.

ElenaEvery breath I took felt like borrowed time.We drove for hours through the French countryside, silent but wired, the kind of silence that thrummed with urgency. Lucas kept checking the rearview mirror, his knuckles white around the steering wheel. I held the flash drive like it was a beating heart. Jason was gone. Again. But this time, I wasn’t mourning him—I was carrying his final redemption.Or maybe it was mine.By dawn, we were tucked into a remote villa outside Avignon, owned by one of Lucas’s old clients—someone rich, paranoid, and long vanished from the public eye. The kind of person who knew how to disappear.The villa was surrounded by high stone walls and olive groves. There were security systems, encrypted routers, and enough backup generators to last weeks. A fortress.“You’ll be safe here,” Lucas said. “At least until we decide what to do with that.” He nodded at the flash drive in my hand.I sank into a chair by the window and stared

ElenaI always wondered what it felt like to lose your mind.I imagined it was chaos—screaming, sobbing, clawing at the walls of your sanity.But I was wrong.Losing your mind is quiet. It’s subtle. It’s when you sip your coffee and realize you’ve gone numb to the taste. It’s when you stare into a mirror and can’t recognize the woman blinking back. It’s when you see your husband’s mistress on television claiming to be a victim, and the world eats it up like gospel.And you don’t scream.You just… smile.Because the rage has moved somewhere deeper.And that, I was learning, is when you become truly dangerous.“Are you sure this is smart?” Lucas asked, watching me lace up my boots by the front door of the farmhouse.“No,” I said. “But it’s necessary.”I zipped my coat, shoved the flash drive into my pocket, and tucked a knife into my boot. Just in case. A habit now.Lucas stepped closer. “At least let me go with you.”“No. If I go al

ElenaThere’s something terrifying about silence after survival.Not the peaceful kind, not the stillness you feel after a long day—this was the kind that echoed. The kind that whispered, “It’s not over.”Noah was asleep in the next room, his small breaths the only proof that innocence still existed in my world. I stood in front of the mirror in the safehouse bathroom, my face bruised, eyes hollow, hair wild. The woman staring back at me looked nothing like the doctor, the wife, the woman who once believed in forever.She looked like someone who had been burned alive and chose to walk out of the fire.My fingers grazed the edge of the sink. I remembered the blood on my hands from the night Kate fell. From when I held her. From when I ran.Victor Thorne’s face haunted me now. The eyes that didn’t blink when he pulled the trigger. The casual cruelty. He wasn’t just working with Jason—he was the devil Jason invited to dinner.I had to end this.Not just