All Chapters of The Torn Vows : Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

The morning started like any other.The sky outside was dull and grey, matching my mood as I emptied the dryer, folding clothes in neat, practised movements. I lined the sleeves of Gabriel’s dress shirts just right and creased the slacks the way he liked them. Routine made things feel safe. Predictable. Manageable.I stacked his folded laundry on the counter, humming softly, trying not to think about how little he’d been home lately."Business trip," he always said. "Late meetings."The excuses were old, but I accepted them. Not because I believed them. But because it was easier than confrontation.I reached for his navy wool coat—one I hadn’t seen before. Italian, expensive, heavier than it looked. I searched the pockets before putting it in the dry-cleaning pile.Lint.A pen.And—My hands wrapped around something unexpected. Cold. Rectangular.A phone.Not his.Not his phone.My stomach dropped.I turned it over in my palm. Small. Burnt edges. No case. Cheap. Discreet. The kind you

I gripped the ultrasound like it was burning through my skin.I stared at the glossy paper. A blurred mass. A name. A date.It looked real. But it wasn’t. I suspected it wasn’t.Emily had crossed a line.A lie this deep—it didn’t just bruise. It could destroy.I stood in the middle of the kitchen, the envelope still open on the table, the threatening letter beside it like a slap across my face.> “You’ll only lose.”That line played over and over in my mind. Mocking. Ruthless.I paced in slow, tight circles. My breaths came sharp and uneven. This wasn’t about heartbreak anymore. It was a war.I picked up my phone.“Hello?” came Isabella’s voice—my godmother and lawyer.“Emily sent me something,” I said. “A fake ultrasound. And threats.”There was a pause.“I’m coming over,” Isabella said. “Right now.”---Twenty minutes later, Isabella held the photo under a lamp.“She didn’t expect you to call her bluff,” she muttered.“She’s trying to take everything,” I said. “Even my identity. Gab

Gabriel stood by the window of his home office, sipping from a crystal tumbler filled with iced tea.The world outside looked the same.But inside, something felt off.He couldn’t explain it. Not to Eve. Not to himself.The house was quiet—too quiet. I moved around him like a shadow. Warm one moment, distant the next. Their rhythm, though familiar, felt strained. Like the steps of a dance he used to know but couldn’t remember.I brought him dinner on a tray that night. Cooked his favorite—grilled salmon, asparagus, and jasmine rice.He thanked me.I nodded, barely looking at him.“Eve?” he asked.I turned.“Are you… happy?” he asked carefully.My face didn’t move for a beat. “Are you?”He smiled faintly. “I think I should be. But sometimes it feels like I missed something. Like something important slipped through my fingers.”My jaw tightened.You did.You slipped me through your fingers.But all I said was, “Eat while it’s warm.”---In the bedroom that night, I stared at the ceiling

Emily watched the numbers climb on her phone screen. Likes. Shares. Comments. Each one was another nail in Eve’s coffin.The jerky handheld clips? Those had been hers—taken with a burner phone across the street, the night she followed me from my apartment. Watching had become a second skin, obsession feeding her patience until the perfect angle presented itself.But the wide, damning footage from above? That was courtesy of another source. One of the security managers at Grayson Enterprises still remembered her, still looked at her with a mix of pity and nostalgia. All it had taken was a sigh, a lie whispered soft as silk—Gabriel asked me to help with something delicate—and the files had arrived in her inbox within the hour.The brilliance of it made her hum under her breath as she closed her phone. No trail, no fingerprints. To the world, it was evidence. To Gabriel, it was plausible.She slipped her phone into her bag, adjusted her blouse, and rose from the café chair. If Eve though

The door clicked shut behind Gabriel, and silence swallowed the room.Only the faint hum of the chandelier above remained, buzzing like a taunt.I stood frozen, my chest heaving, my fists trembling at my sides. Across from me, Emily leaned against the sofa, one ankle lazily crossed over the other, a queen savouring her coronation.“Round one goes to me,” Emily whispered again, softer now, as though the words were a lullaby meant to haunt.I didn’t answer. She couldn’t—not without lunging across the room and clawing the smirk off Emily’s face.Instead, I turned, heels clicking hard against the marble, and left without a word. If I stayed another second, I would break. And if I broke in front of Emily, I might never recover.---The elevator doors closed, sealing me in with my reflection. My face looked ghostly in the mirror—mascara streaks, bloodless lips, wild eyes that didn’t belong to me. I barely recognised the woman staring back.My throat ached as though I had swallowed glass.I