Lahat ng Kabanata ng Blackout Vows: Kabanata 1 - Kabanata 10

The morning sunlight filtered through the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the city skyline nearly forty stories below.The presidential suite was larger than most apartments. Dark hardwood floors stretched throughout the room, accented by modern artwork worth more than most people's annual salaries. A marble fireplace stood against one wall, while an elegant sitting area overlooked the sprawling skyline below. Everything about the suite screamed wealth, power, and success.Alexander swung his legs over the side of the king-sized bed and rubbed both hands over his face. Another nightmare. It had been six years.Six years since he'd left Black Ops. Six years since Operation Sandstorm had gone horribly wrong. Yet every few nights, he found himself back in that desert. He reached for the glass of water on the bedside table and drained it in one long swallow. The cool water did little to steady his racing heart.The digital clock read 6:12 a.m. He wasn't getting back to sleep. With a

Elena's breath caught as she turned the band over in her fingers. The engraving caught the neon pulse of the Vegas strip—Always and Forever - I promise—and something in her chest cracked wide open.Maybe he is fate.This night is fate.She looked up at Alexander, his Blue eyes still holding that strange, unguarded light, and she felt the truth of it settle into her bones. The champagne, the terrace, the impossible proposal—none of it made sense. And yet it made perfect sense.She smiled at him.Not the practiced smile she'd worn all night for her father's colleagues. Not the polite curve she'd been trained since childhood to deploy. A real smile. The kind that reached her eyes and softened her entire face."Always and forever," she repeated "I promise."The bands went into his pocket. Her hand stayed in his. The door chimed behind them as they stepped back into the night, bound by platinum and the strangest certainty either had ever known.The street pulsed with Vegas neon, but the sp

Cliff's eyes burned.He'd been staring at the monitor for seven hours, watching the empty penthouse suite through a camera he'd planted behind the air vent. The bed—pristine. The lights—off. The door—unopened since he'd slipped the keycard into his pocket and set up the equipment at ten-fifteen.Alexander Hawke never came back.At three in the morning, Cliff's stomach had begun eating itself. By five, the acid had climbed into his throat. Now, at six-fifteen, with Vegas paling to a dirty gold outside the service corridor window, he was dismantling the camera with trembling hands while his mind ran the same two words on a loop.Where is he.The hallway carpet swallowed his footsteps. Housekeeping wouldn't start for another hour. Cliff packed the laptop, the transmitter, the tiny lens—all of it into a black duffel bag that smelled like coffee grounds and failure. The elevator ride to the lobby took three years.His phone buzzed.Did you get it?The number was blocked. It was always bloc

The first thing Elena registered was the ache.Not the dull throb of a hangover—though that was there too, a bass drum behind her eyes—but something deeper. A tenderness between her thighs that flared when she shifted. Her hips. Her lower back. Muscles she didn't know she had, all screaming in quiet chorus.She was alone.The space beside her was empty, the sheets cool where a body had been. Sunlight knifed through the burgundy curtains, catching dust motes suspended in the air. The room smelled of sex and vanilla and something faintly masculine—cedar, she thought, though she couldn't place why.Her hand moved to her forehead. Bad idea. Even that small motion sent a spike through her temple.What happened last night?The gala. She remembered the gala. The champagne. A man with silver-shot temples and dark blue eyes that had looked at her like she was the only woman in the world. Then... nothing. A void. A black hole where hours should be.She pushed herself upright, and the sheet fell

The Connecticut air was wrong.Elena felt it the moment the Gulfstream's door opened—thick with July humidity, green with the scent of cut grass and hydrangeas, nothing like the desert dryness of Vegas. The familiar should have been comforting. Instead, her skin prickled. Her body still belonged to another city, another night, another man's hands.Gregory had the car waiting on the tarmac. She slid into the back seat without a word, her carry-on clutched against her chest like a shield."The estate, Miss Voss?""Please."The drive took forty minutes through winding Connecticut roads lined with stone walls and old money. Her father's mansion rose from the hillside like a monument to control—white columns, manicured hedges, windows that had watched her grow up caged. She'd left for Vegas feeling like a hostage negotiating her own release. She returned wearing rings she couldn't explain and no memory of itHer father's car was gone. The staff had been given the day off—standard protocol