All Chapters of The Billionaire's Hidden Vows: Chapter 131 - Chapter 140

The corridor narrowed until the walls seemed to press inward, their concrete bones etched with veins of rust and condensation. Pipes overhead moaned faintly in the cooling air, as though the facility still dreamed in its mechanical sleep. Savannah trailed her fingers along the cold wall, feeling the tiny ridges where paint had peeled and flaked away. It felt less like entering a laboratory and more like stepping into the ribcage of some colossal, long-dead creature.The steel door ahead bore no label, no lock in the conventional sense—just a black console with a glass panel that glowed faintly in the half-dark. Julian approached it like a priest before an altar, his breath barely stirring. His hands, though steady, betrayed their history: knuckles whitened by too many closed fists, a faint scar crossing the middle finger where a blade had once kissed him.With a quiet series of keystrokes, the panel came to life, bathing their faces in an eerie blue wash. A mechanical sigh followed, l

Weston’s hand slipped from the doorframe, leaving a thin smear of blood on the cold steel—dark and glossy under the vault’s sterile light. He stepped forward with the slow, uneven gait of a man walking barefoot on fractured glass, each movement deliberate, as if one wrong shift might shatter him entirely. His breath came shallow and jagged, every inhale sounding like it had to fight its way past broken ribs.Savannah’s first instinct was to retreat, to put as much steel and shadow between herself and him as possible. But she didn’t move. This was not the Weston she had faced in the echoing boardrooms or in the dim-lit sanctums of power. This was a man whose empire had bled out somewhere on a distant floor, leaving only the fragile scaffolding of flesh.He stopped three feet from her, close enough for her to smell the acrid tang of dried sweat and the copper of his wounds. His voice rasped, cracked raw by blood and exhaustion. “You erased it.”She didn’t answer. Behind her, the black c

The wind was soft that evening, brushing the last of autumn’s gold leaves across the vineyard hills like slow-moving embers. Savannah stood on the porch of the guesthouse, her arms around Eva, feeling the girl’s small heartbeat against her own ribs. The question still hung in the air—raw, uncertain—Can we stop running now?Savannah tilted Eva’s chin up until she could see the child’s wide, searching eyes. “We never have to run again,” she said, and her voice carried the weight of a promise she’d thought she would never be able to make. The words were both armor and release.Colton stood behind them, one hand on the railing, his gaze fixed on the horizon as though watching for threats that might never come. For the first time in years, there was no sharpness in his expression—just a quiet, weary kind of relief. It was as though the air between them had shifted, no longer crackling with danger, but with something softer, unfamiliar.Eva nodded slowly, but Savannah saw it—the hesitation

The rain had not stopped since afternoon. It clung to the glass in long silver rivulets, distorting the city lights beyond like oil paintings left in the drizzle. Savannah sat at the edge of her bed with the lamp turned low, its shade casting the room in sepia warmth, as if the world itself had been rubbed thin by age.The photograph lay before her on the duvet, the edges curling like old petals. Magnolia at seventeen. Her hair was darker then, the soft fall of it brushed over one shoulder. She was standing barefoot on the steps of some sun-drenched porch, arms wrapped about herself—not shy, but holding something in, guarding it.Savannah could not stop looking at the eyes.They were not exactly her eyes—Magnolia’s were a shade lighter, closer to amber than brown—but there was a tilt in the outer corners, a way the lower lashes feathered down. The jawline, too, bore that subtle slope she had seen in the mirror all her life.She told herself it was coincidence. There were only so many

The parking garage smelled of rain-soaked concrete and motor oil, the kind of damp, claustrophobic air that made sound travel strangely—every footstep a hollow echo, every breath too loud. Jaxon waited by a concrete pillar painted with a faded yellow B2. His coat collar was turned up against the draft, his eyes flicking between the exit ramps and the rusted chain-link fencing that caged in the far wall.The private investigator emerged from the stairwell door like a shadow detaching from the darkness. He was wiry, with a smoker’s cough and a face that seemed carved from leather. The brim of his cap cut a sharp shadow over his eyes, obscuring any readable intent.“You brought it?” the man asked, voice low enough to be swallowed by the garage hum.Jaxon produced a manila folder, swollen with a thickness that wasn’t paper. Cash. The edges peeked out like the frayed leaves of a dangerous book. He held it out without ceremony.The investigator didn’t open it, didn’t even glance inside. He