Alle Kapitel von Blackout Vows: Kapitel 11 – Kapitel 20

The study air had grown thick, warm despite the air conditioning's hum. Elena sat motionless in her father's chair, fingers pressed flat against the cream-colored paper that held her future.The marriage certificate.Her thumb traced the embossed seal of Clark County, Nevada. Gold foil caught the lamplight. Official. Permanent. Real.The Plan B box sat beside it, white and blue and clinical. A counterweight. A question she hadn't answered yet."Open it," she whispered to herself. "Just open the damn thing."Her hands moved before her courage failed. The paper unfolded with a crisp sound that seemed too loud in the silent study. Her eyes scanned past the official headers, past the county clerk's stamp, past the officiant's name—Elvis Aaron Presley impersonator, license number something-or-other—and landed on two lines of typed text.Groom: Alexander James Bennett.Bride: Elena Natalia Voss.The name hit her like a physical blow. Her breath stopped. Her vision narrowed to those three wo

The dream had no beginning. No narrative. Just sensation, suspended in black water.Her mouth. The wet heat of it, the way her lips had parted against his throat—not kissing, just breathing him in, like she was memorizing the scent of his skin. The dream-Alexander lay motionless, powerless, while dream-Elena moved above him with the slow inevitability of a tide. Her dark hair curtained their faces. Her thighs gripped his hips. The weight of her—God, the weight—pressing him into a mattress that didn't exist."Alexander."Her voice. Not a gasp. Not a moan. A statement. His name spoken like she'd always known it, like she'd been waiting years to say it aloud. In the dream, he reached for her face. His thumbs traced cheekbones, jawline, the bow of her upper lip. But she had no features. Just the suggestion of beauty, the architecture of a woman he couldn't picture but somehow knew.She rolled her hips.The sensation detonated through him—impossibly specific, impossibly real. The clutch of

The morning light was a cruel, bright needle piercing through the cracks in the blinds. Elena groaned, pulling the duvet over her head, but the churning in her stomach was a more insistent alarm. A wave of nausea crested, and she barely made it to the bathroom in time. After the third time, she slumped against the cool tile, her phone a heavy weight in her hand. Her fingers, trembling, typed a quick text to her dad: Hey Dad, woke up with a really bad stomach bug. Gonna stay home. Don’t worry. She dropped the phone on the nightstand and curled into a ball, waiting for the world to stop spinning. She wasn’t sure how long she drifted in that gray haze between sleep and sickness, but the front door alarm buzzed from her phone sound that was unmistakable. Her heart sank. Shit. She should have known he wouldn’t just leave a get-well emoji and move on with his day. Viktor’s footsteps were heavy and determined on the stairs. He appeared in her doorway, still in his Armani suit. A ceo billio

The nausea arrived at 6:47 a.m., sharp as a blade.Elena barely made it to the bathroom, her palm slapping cold tile as she retched into the porcelain bowl. Nothing came up but bile. Nothing has come up for days now. She'd stopped eating breakfast. Stopped drinking coffee. Stopped everything except the dry crackers and water. She kept on her nightstand like a penitent's offering.Seven mornings. Seven. The same pattern: wake, lurch, vomit, tremble. Her body had become a stranger's house, unfamiliar rooms, locked doors, and one persistent ache low in her belly that refused to name itself.She sat back on her heels, pressing the heel of her hand against her sternum. The rings caught the bathroom light. The emerald glowed. Always and Forever - I promise."Not now," she whispered to the ghost on her finger. "I can't think about you right now."Her phone was already in her hand. Dr. Marchetti's contact stared up at her. She'd avoided this call for days, telling herself the stomach flu was

The word returned, insistent. He rejected it again. Fate was for people who believed in cosmic design. Alexander believed in intelligence. Reconnaissance. Actionable data. He believed in finding the enemy and dismantling them piece by piece.But he couldn't find the enemy. He couldn't find his wife. He couldn't find anything except a ring that wouldn't leave his finger and his first name she’d called out in fragments. He couldn't fully recover. Alexander closed his eyes. The Pacific wind hummed against the glass, and for a moment, he let himself sink into the memory the drug had fractured but not destroyed.Her voice. Low and breathless, barely a whisper against his collarbone. This is insane. We don't even know each other's names. And his answer, so certain it had startled even him: It's fate.He'd said it. Repeatedly. He remembered the shape of the word on his tongue now. The way it had felt right, inevitable, like gravity pulling two bodies together. Fate brought us here. Fate put