All Chapters of Vows Written In Silence : Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

73 Chapters

Chapter 1

The files had been open for forty minutes. He had not read a single page. Liyana had fallen asleep against his chest sometime during the third document. He couldn’t remember when. One moment he had been reading and the next there was a small warm weight against his ribs and a hand curled into his shirt and the specific sound of a child who had decided this was where she was going to sleep and had made her position final. He had not moved. He could have. She was deeply asleep. He could have transferred her to the sofa without waking her — he had done it before, the careful lift, the particular way he adjusted her so her head stayed supported. He knew exactly how to do it. He did not do it. He sat in the quiet of the London study with his files spread across the table and his daughter’s hair against his jaw and outside the city was doing its indifferent early morning thing and he just — stayed. The document blurred. He looked at the top of her head instead. Dark curls.

Chapter 2: Weaponized Caffeine

And before he could do anything about it—before any of the mechanisms he'd spent years building could kick in—the terminal blurred. And he was back. Five years ago. Heathrow. He'd been on his phone. He was always on his phone. Three decisions ahead, half present, the rest of his attention already somewhere else entirely. Evan was behind him saying something about a delayed meeting. Raiyan wasn't listening. Then—splat. Cold liquid. Everywhere. His chest. His trousers. His shoes. He stopped dead. The lid was on the floor. Ice was scattered across the marble. The coffee—all of it—was on him. The person who had walked into him was still on the phone. "I'm just strategically behind schedule," she was telling someone. Completely calm. Like she was not standing in the middle of something she had caused. "I'll call you back." The call ended. His irritation flared, sharp and automatic—then stalled. Because she looked up. Her gaze met his. Calm. Steady. Unflinching. Not startled. N

Chapter 3: Mommy

She stepped away then. Raiyan didn't follow. He stood there instead, still holding the coffee she'd pressed into his hand before leaving. He took a sip without thinking. Then another. Only then did he realize he was smiling. Not the polite kind. Not the controlled one. An actual smile. It lingered longer than it should have—long enough to bother him. By the time he noticed, she was already gone. He'd been surrounded by women his entire life. Family gatherings. Offices. Parties. People who mistook closeness for access. He'd learned early how to keep distance without explanation, how to make himself unavailable without effort. It had never been difficult. And yet — he was standing in the middle of Heathrow, holding a paper cup of coffee he hadn't paid for. Smiling. But just before he was through the door — involuntarily, briefly, before he could stop it — his eyes went to the one she'd walked through. Already gone. ⸻ Present day. Geneva came back hard and cold, to

Chapter 4:

Los Angeles. Her ceiling. The pale morning light was filtering through the blinds, casting slanting bars across the room. Her heart was a frantic bird against her ribs, and her face was damp. Riyana was draped half across her back, her small hands locked around Zoya's neck, her cheek pressed into Zoya's hair. She had climbed into the big bed in the middle of the night, performed her quiet rescue, and drifted right back into sleep. Zoya reached up, covering one of those small hands with her own. Two and a half years. She'd rebuilt an entire life from the ruins of that one night in London but her subconscious still wanted to argue with a ghost. Outside, Jack barked on the porch. The world was waking up. Zoya didn't move for a long time. Riyana woke up like a light switch—instant, complete. She sat up, her hazel eyes — Zoya's eyes, Raiyan's lips — wide and searching. "Mommy." "Good morning, baby." Riyana reached out, framing Zoya's face with both hands. "Are you sad, Mommy

Chapter 5

The elevator doors opened on the forty-first floor and Zoya walked out and stopped. Faiyaz was in the reception area. Sitting in one of the chairs with his jacket folded over his knee, looking at his phone, looking like someone who had been there a while and wasn't planning to announce it. He looked up when she appeared. "Hey," he said. "When did you come? What are you doing here?" “Good to see you too.” “I’m doing great, by the way. Thanks for asking.” He raised his brow. She looked at him. At the jacket. At the particular quality of his stillness that she had known long enough to read. "I have a doctor's appointment." "Mrs. Zeigler?" He stood. "I'll take you." She opened her mouth. "Zoya." Quietly. "Let me take you." She looked at him for a moment. Then she picked up her bag. "Fine," she said. Dr. Sheryl Ziegler’s office smelled like white tea and expensive silence. Zoya sat in the chair that didn't require her to be "Lead Counsel." She didn't ha

Chapter 6: A Woman Like That

“Grandpa” (On her phone screen) She stepped into the corridor. "Congratulations," Joseph said. "I'm sorry I couldn't stay." "It's fine, is everything okay?" The pause. The specific one. "I received an invitation," he said. "From Zayed Al Mansoor.” "He wants to arrange a meeting. Between you and his grandson. A young man named Raiyan Al Mansoor." He said it like it was harmless information. Not a decision that had already been made for her. She said, "Grandpa, if it's about marriage, I am not interested." "He is my friend’s grandson. We've met a few times at business events. He wants to see you, the family connections—nothing more." A pause. "I've looked into the grandson independently. I like him —he is a young handsome man, no scandal, built his own tech company, and multiplied the family wealth on his own terms. Late twenties. Based in London. By everything I've felt, he could be a good fit for you." She pressed her back against the wall. "The choice is entir

Chapter 7: That Damned Woman

"How long." Not a question. A sentence with no room in it. Faiyaz looked at her. She was still standing at the window. Back to him. Hands at her sides. The full armour of the working day still on — blazer, heels, hair — and underneath all of it something vibrating at a frequency she was barely containing. He opened his mouth. And then stopped, because whatever came next was not something you said once and survived. “The night of the accident,” he said. “Zoya. I need to tell you about the night of the accident.” Something shifted in her face. “Tell me,” she said. “There were two—” The door swung open. Adrian. He looked between them. Read the room in one second. Filed it. "Zoya." His voice was controlled but his eyes weren't. "We have a problem." She turned. One look at his face and something in hers shifted. The window closed. The prosecutor walked back in. "Give me a minute," she said. "We don't have a minute." She looked at Faiyaz. "Wait for me,"

Chapter 8: Don’t Go Away Again

Time kept moving, but nothing inside her agreed with it. The cafe Faiyaz chose had good coffee and worse lighting, which meant it was the kind of place people went when they wanted to talk without being seen too clearly. Zoya arrived first. She was already on her second coffee when he walked in. He was carrying flowers. Pink lilies. She looked at them. Looked at him. "Really," she said. She lifted her brows. "You love pink lilies." "I am also fond of loyalty and honesty. But I don’t see that with you.” That stung. He sat across from her. Set the flowers on the table between them like a peace offering, which was exactly what they were. She picked up her coffee. He finally gathered up his courage to open his mouth. She listened. He told her the version where he had been alone in a hospital corridor making an impossible decision. Where Zayed had arrived like a force of nature with lawyers and authority and no space for negotiation. Where he had done the only

Chapter 9 : Who said I’n Smiling

It arrived on a Tuesday. Posted to Joseph's house. Her name on the envelope in handwriting she recognised immediately — loopy, confident, the handwriting of someone who had never been unsure about anything in her life. She opened it at his kitchen table while he was in the garden. Cream card. Gold lettering. Mei Leen and Evan Carter request the pleasure of your company— She stopped reading. She read it again from the beginning. Mei. And Evan. She sat with that for a moment. Then she laughed. It came out of nowhere — sharp, short, the specific laugh of someone who has just been told a joke by the universe and is deciding whether to find it funny or fall apart. She chose funny. For approximately four seconds. Then she drove home. ⸻ The silence gave her too much room to think. She thought, uninvited, of her life before everything collapsed. That night, A restaurant in Covent Garden that Mei had chosen because it had good cocktails and a private room

Chapter 10: I do feel a little Grateful

The weekend was too quiet unlike other days. She was at her desk at seven in the morning. Files open. Laptop open. Coffee is going cold beside her. Her hair in a knot on top of her head, still in her loungewear, the working version of herself that existed before the armour went on. She was staring at a document she had read four times without absorbing. Because she kept thinking about Liyana. Not about the case. Not about the courtroom. Just — Liyana. Born too early, Too small. The specific vulnerability of a premature baby who needed everything and had arrived before the world was ready for her. She had not been there. She had been in a coma in a country that wasn't hers while her daughter was born into a room she would never see. No one had put Liyana on her chest. No one had let her count the fingers, the toes, the specific perfect weight of a new person who had just arrived. She hadn't fed her. The thought sat in her chest like something physical. Riyana ha

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