All Chapters of Vows of convenience Hearts in Collision : Chapter 21 - Chapter 30

POV: SaphiraThe cold press of steel against my temple made every heartbeat sound like a countdown.Lucien’s breath ghosted over my ear, calm and steady despite the inferno raging across the bridge. He wasn’t rattled by the gunfire, the flames, or the chaos. No he was enjoying it.“Your pulse,” he murmured. “It’s racing. Delicious.”I jerked against his grip, but his arm was like an iron across my chest, pinning me in place. His gun dug harder into my skull.Across the smoke-choked asphalt, Caelum staggered forward, blood streaking down his temple. His shirt was torn, his coat burned at the sleeve, but his eyes… his eyes were ice. Lethal. Locked on me.“Let her go,” he growled, his voice low and dangerous.Lucien’s laugh slithered through me like poison. “Always the knight, aren’t you? Tell me, Caelum—how many pawns will you sacrifice before you admit you’ve already lost?”“This isn’t chess,” Caelum spat. “It’s war.”Lucien’s grip tightened. “And wars are won by men like me.”His men

The penthouse was silent when I returned, but not the peaceful kind. It was the heavy silence that pressed against the walls, thick with things unsaid, the kind that made your skin crawl with anticipation.Caelum stood at the window, back to me, a glass of whiskey dangling from his hand like it was the only thing tethering him to the present. The city stretched out beneath him, glittering and alive, but he looked as though he belonged to none of it. The sharp glow of neon traced the unforgiving angles of his jaw, but the reflection staring back at me in the glass wasn’t the man I had married. It was a stranger cold, unreadable, unreachable.I dropped my clutch onto the marble counter with a deliberate thud, the sound ricocheting through the cavernous room. “Are we going to talk about tonight, or are you planning to keep brooding like a phantom until sunrise?”His head turned just slightly, enough for me to catch the flash of his ice-blue eyes through the dim light. “You enjoyed yourse

The floor groaned beneath my feet. For one sickening heartbeat, I thought the entire tower would collapse, that Lucien had actually wired Caelum’s home with enough explosives to erase us from existence.But the building didn’t fall.Instead, a shrill, mechanical beeping filled the air.Lucien smiled, wolfish and cruel. “You have sixty seconds before this place becomes your tomb.”My pulse jackhammer. “He’s bluffing,” I whispered to Caelum, though my voice trembled.Caelum’s jaw was set like stone. “No. He’s mad enough to do it.”“Tick, tock,” Lucien sang, waving the remote as if conducting an orchestra.I scanned the room desperately the shattered lamp, the broken glass wall, the marble floor now smeared with streaks of blood. No cameras. No help. Just us, the weapon in my hand, and a lunatic holding a detonator.Caelum stepped forward, every line of his body radiating lethal calm. “You set charges in my building? Do you realize what you’ve done?”Lucien tilted his head, eyes glitteri

The hiss of the lock was the sound of war.I gripped Caelum’s hand once before he pushed me firmly behind him, blade gleaming in the faint city light. My heart slammed against my ribs as the penthouse door slid open and shadows poured inside—three of them.Not Lucien. His men.Dressed in black, faces masked, each one armed. Guns. Knives. Brutal certainty in the way they moved.Caelum didn’t hesitate. He was a storm unleashed, striking before they even registered the door had fully opened. The first man raised his pistol too slow. Caelum lunged, knife flashing, sinking into the soft part of his shoulder. The man screamed, the weapon clattering to the floor.“Stay down!” Caelum barked.I should’ve listened. I should’ve hidden. But every instinct screamed louder than fear.The second man came to Caelum from the left, swinging a baton. Caelum pivoted, blocking with his forearm, but the blow landed hard enough to stagger him.The third man behind Caelum lifted his gun.I didn’t think. I mo

The world stopped moving.The smell of gunpowder stung my lungs, acrid and sharp, but I couldn’t draw in a proper breath. My body locked, my mind a whirl of disbelief.Calla.Her name shattered inside me, a word I hadn’t spoken in years, not since the night I buried the pieces of her in my heart and forced myself to live as though I was whole.She stood there at the bottom of the stairwell, half-wrapped in shaydows, half-drenched in the pale glow of the emergency lights. A knife dangled from her gloved hand, blood dripping rhythmically onto the concrete. She wore black combat gear that clung to her frame, her long dark braid over one shoulder, her green eyes our eyes glinting like blades.Alive.Impossible.“Calla,” I whispered again, my voice breaking.Her lips curved in a smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “You always did say my timing was dramatic.”One of Lucien’s men, still alive, snarled and raised his rifle.Caelum moved to shield me instinctively, but Calla was faster. She flic