All Chapters of THE SCATTERED VOW: Chapter 31 - Chapter 40

Chapter 32The Dominion ContractVivian POV​The lobby of Dominion Corporation didn't smell like jet fuel or wet wool. It smelled like wealth that had stopped shouting fifty years ago: old mahogany waxed with lemon oil, chilled alpine air trapped behind low iron acoustic glass, and the faint, dry copper note of high-end security servers humming three sub-basements down.​I adjusted the strap of my structured calfskin folio. Charcoal trousers, razor-creased; ivory silk shell tucked so tight it felt like a second skin; hair pulled back into a low, punishingly neat knot that left zero room for error. Yesterday’s white-noise ghost that ten-second analog hiss and the wet click of a slide-lock was parked behind my ribs like a cold pellet of lead. I hadn't slept. Not really. Just hours of staring at the ceiling fan cutting shadows across forty-two-B while my thumb replayed the tactile ghost of the burner phone.​Let them ping. If Dominion was a trap, it was a very expensive one. And I neede

​Chapter 34 The Stalker in the MirrorAdrian POV​The heater in the Cayenne died twenty minutes ago, or maybe I just stopped feeling the chill. My knuckles on the steering wheel look like bleached bone flat, grey under the amber sodium glare of the streetlamp.​On the dash, the burner phone glows a dull, accusing blue. Vivian. 11:42 PM. Not that I called. I don’t call anymore. Calling implies a dialogue, a two-way street where she gets to hang up or, worse, use that soft, diplomatic voice she reserves for broken things she’s discarded. Adrian, please. Let’s be adults.​We were never adults. We were a collision that forgot to end.​I turn the ignition key half notch just enough to wake the radio dial without sparking the engine. Static bleeds through, teeth-grinding white noise. I kill it.​My eyes burn. I haven't slept since Tuesday, not really. Sleep is where she walks through the house in that oversized charcoal sweater of mine the one she left folded on the ottoman like a polite

Chapter 36 The Proposal of RevengeVivian Pov​The ice in my tumbler has melted down to a clear, slippery lens. I watch a drop of condensation roll down the rim, hit the mahogany tabletop, and smear into a dark ring of spilled gin.​Across the table, Lorenzo doesn't touch his drink. He has a way of sitting that makes the rest of the room look makeshift shoulders relaxed against the tufted leather, dark hair clipped tight, fingers steepled over a leather-bound portfolio he hasn’t opened since I sat down twenty minutes ago.​He didn't ask why I called. He didn't ask why a woman who spent two years disappearing into gallery archives and quiet European flights was suddenly texting from a burner number at midnight.​"You look smaller," Lorenzo says. His voice is flat, Italian-accented around the hard edges, stripped of the polite gallery-party varnish. "Not thin. Small. Like someone pulled the plug on a room you were living in."​"I was living in an echo," I say.​I don't look away from h

Chapter 38A Subtle Shift Vivian POV​Midnight at Dominion Towers smelled like high end printer toner, cold espresso, and the quiet humiliation of realizing my life was currently stapled to a blueprint.​I rubbed the bridge of my nose, tracing the groove where my glasses used to sit before I gave them up for contact lenses that now felt like dry sandpaper glued to my corneas. On the drafting table spread across the mahogany conference desk, Section 4B of the waterfront redevelopment glowing under the harsh LED architect lamp mocked me. The zoning variance was a lie. City Council hadn’t approved the height clearance, which meant either Lorenzo had bribed someone or we were about to walk into a public execution at Tuesday’s hearing.​I reached for my mug. Empty. Cold dregs of dark roast.​Across the wide expanse of the dark mahogany table, Lorenzo didn't look up from his tablet. He hadn't spoken in forty minutes. His sleeves were rolled twice past his elbows, exposing forearms dusted w

Chapter 40The Shadow at the GalleryLorenzo POV​The bass from the lower atrium of the Aether & Form gallery didn’t hit your chest; it vibrated through the floorboards like a heartbeat under floor ice. Champagne flutes chimed against porcelain teeth, laughter floated in heavy plumes of bergamot and old oil paint, and somewhere near the cobalt installation, a critic was loudly mispronouncing a Flemish surname.​I didn’t care about the Flemish. I cared about the small, rhythmic pulse of warmth against my left forearm where Vivian’s fingers brushed my sleeve.​"You’re tense," she whispered. Her voice wasn’t loud, it didn't need to be. In a room full of people performing culture, Vivian just occupied it. An emerald silk slip dress that caught the gallery spotlights like bruised water; collarbones sharp enough to cut the heavy air between us; hair pinned back in that lazy, terrifyingly deliberate way that left the nape of her neck exposed.​"I'm calculating," I murmured down to her, my