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64: Into the Fire
Last Updated:
2025-03-14 10:30:50
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Broken Vows, New Promises 65: Shadows and Scars
Aurora’s POVThe hospital room was too quiet.The kind of quiet that felt wrong.Like something was waiting in the dark.I sat beside Damien’s bed, watching the steady rise and fall of his chest.His face was pale, his body still.But he was alive.That was all that mattered.I reached for his hand, my fingers tracing the roughness of his knuckles.“Don’t you dare leave me,” I whispered.As if he heard me, his fingers twitched.Then his eyes opened—dark, sharp, and impossibly tired.For the first time in days, I breathed.Damien’s POVPain was the first thing I felt.Then warmth.Aurora’s hand in mine.I blinked against the bright hospital lights, my vision clearing.She was there.Of course, she was.Her eyes shone with relief, but there was something else—something deeper.Fear.Not for herself.For me.I hated seeing that look in her eyes.I tried to speak, but my throat was dry.She grabbed a cup of water, bringing it to my lips.“Slowly,” she murmured.I sipped, feeling the cooln
Last Updated : 2025-03-14Broken Vows, New Promises 66: Echoes in the Dark
Aurora’s POVSome scars healed.Some never did.Two months had passed since the night Adrian died.Since the blood. Since the fear.And yet, the past still clung to me like a shadow.I watched Damien from across the training room.His movements were precise, controlled.Each punch landed with lethal force.Each strike was a reminder—He was still fighting battles no one could see.He turned, catching me watching.His gaze softened. “You should be resting.”I crossed my arms. “I don’t need rest.”A knowing look flickered across his face. “Nightmares again?”I didn’t answer.Didn’t have to.Damien sighed, running a hand through his hair.“Come here.”I hesitated, but his voice left no room for argument.I walked toward him, stopping just inches away.His fingers brushed against my cheek, his touch gentle despite the callouses.“You’re safe, Aurora.”I swallowed, my throat tight.“I know.”But did I believe it?Damien’s POVAurora wasn’t the same.Neither was I.She smiled, but it never
Last Updated : 2025-03-15Broken Vows, New Promises 67: The War We Chose
Aurora’s POVFear no longer ruled me.But anger?Anger burned deep in my veins, simmering beneath my skin.For weeks, I had tried to rebuild myself, to heal.But healing didn’t mean forgetting.And it sure as hell didn’t mean forgiving.I stood in Damien’s office, my arms crossed, watching him as he stared at the map spread across the desk.“Are you going to keep pretending I don’t belong in this?” I asked.His jaw tightened. “You don’t.”I stepped closer, my voice sharp. “I was the one Adrian wanted dead, Damien. You think they’ll stop coming for me?”His hands curled into fists. “I know they won’t.”“Then let me fight.”He looked up, his dark eyes flashing with something dangerous.“Aurora, fighting means getting blood on your hands.”I swallowed, but I didn’t look away. “Then show me how.”A muscle in his jaw ticked. “You don’t understand what you’re asking.”I stepped closer. “Then make me understand.”Silence stretched between us.Then Damien exhaled sharply.And just like that—
Last Updated : 2025-03-15Broken Vows, New Promises 68: A Name in the Shadows
Aurora’s POVI should have felt relieved.Adrian was dead.But instead of peace, there was a name I didn’t know, a war I didn’t see coming.Damien’s estate was on lockdown. Guards doubled. Security cameras monitored every inch of the perimeter.But none of it mattered.Because the real threat wasn’t outside these walls.It was watching from the shadows.The Name That Changed EverythingMarcus stood at the head of the table, tension thick in his voice.“We traced the sniper’s position.” He slid a folder toward Damien. “They were already gone by the time we got there, but they left something behind.”Damien flipped the folder open.Inside was a symbol.A black insignia, burned into the back of a leather glove.I frowned. “What is that?”Marcus hesitated. “It belongs to an organization called The Syndicate.”The air in the room shifted.Damien went still.Marcus continued, voice measured. “They’re powerful. Global. They don’t just run crime—they own it. Drugs, weapons, politics… even ent
Last Updated : 2025-03-15Broken Vows, New Promises 68: A Name in the Shadows
Aurora’s POVI should have felt relieved.Adrian was dead.But instead of peace, there was a name I didn’t know, a war I didn’t see coming.Damien’s estate was on lockdown. Guards doubled. Security cameras monitored every inch of the perimeter.But none of it mattered.Because the real threat wasn’t outside these walls.It was watching from the shadows.The Name That Changed EverythingMarcus stood at the head of the table, tension thick in his voice.“We traced the sniper’s position.” He slid a folder toward Damien. “They were already gone by the time we got there, but they left something behind.”Damien flipped the folder open.Inside was a symbol.A black insignia, burned into the back of a leather glove.I frowned. “What is that?”Marcus hesitated. “It belongs to an organization called The Syndicate.”The air in the room shifted.Damien went still.Marcus continued, voice measured. “They’re powerful. Global. They don’t just run crime—they own it. Drugs, weapons, politics… even ent
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Aurora’s POVThe silence in Damien’s study was suffocating.Ever since we learned Adrian was only a piece of a larger enemy, Damien had been different.Colder.More distant.Like he was already preparing for war.And I had no doubt Elias Blackwell was a war unlike any we had faced before.I gripped my hands together, standing in the doorway. “You’re leaving, aren’t you?”Damien didn’t look up. He was loading a gun, his movements precise, controlled. “I have to.”I swallowed hard. “To find Elias?”His jaw clenched. “To stop him before he gets to you.”And that was what this was really about.I stepped closer. “You don’t have to do this alone.”He finally looked up then, his gray eyes shadowed. “Yes, I do.”But I wasn’t about to let him disappear into the night without knowing where he was going.Because I wasn’t losing him.Not now.Not ever.Damien’s POVRussia.I hated coming back here.Too many ghosts. Too many memories I didn’t want to relive.But if I wanted answers, I needed to t
Last Updated : 2025-03-15Broken Vows, New Promises 70: Shadows of the Past
Damien’s POVI had spent my whole life pretending my past didn’t own me.That the things I had done—the people I had killed—were just the cost of survival.But now, staring at the cold truth on the screen, I couldn’t lie to myself anymore.Elias Blackwell had made me.He had taken a fifteen-year-old boy, broken him, and rebuilt him into something lethal.And I had let him.Because back then, I had nothing.No family. No purpose. No home.Elias had given me all of those things.And now, standing in this dimly lit hotel room with Aurora watching me like I was something fragile, something breakable—I hated it.I hated the weakness clawing at my chest.I hated that this truth had shaken me.I hated that he still had power over me.I exhaled sharply and shut the laptop.“That’s enough.” My voice was flat, emotionless.Aurora hesitated. “Damien—”“I don’t want to talk about it.”Her expression tightened. “That’s not how this works. You can’t just shut down—”“Yes, I can.” My tone was sharp
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Damien’s POVThe past never stayed buried.No matter how deep you buried the bodies.No matter how many times you tried to outrun it.It always found its way back.And tonight, mine had finally caught up with me.The laptop screen in front of me was still open, the encrypted files taunting me with a truth I had ignored for too long. The flash drive Aurora found—it wasn’t just a piece of Adrian’s past.It was proof of mine.Every mission Elias had ordered.Every name I had taken.Every crime I had committed in his name.There were hundreds of files. Hundreds.Aurora stood beside me, her arms crossed tightly over her chest. She had been quiet since I started going through them, but I could feel the questions radiating off her.I couldn’t look at her.Not yet.Because the moment I did, I knew I’d see it.The doubt.The moment she realized exactly what kind of man I had been.And maybe still was.A knot formed in my stomach as I clicked on another file. The screen flickered, and a grainy
Last Updated : 2025-03-17
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Broken Vows, New Promises CHAPTER 145 : A Name Among the Ashes
The boy didn’t speak of the dream again.But something in him shifted after that night. His steps were a little steadier. His gaze no longer darted to the exits first. He stayed near Damien, yes, but not like a shadow clinging to light. Now, it felt like a tether, an anchor—not dependence, but choice.Damien noticed it when they trained in the clearing behind the safehouse. The boy followed directions without flinching, without looking over his shoulder every five seconds like he expected Monroe to appear from behind the trees. And when Kai handed him a blade—not sharp, just a practice knife—he held it with the curiosity of someone discovering a piece of themselves.“What do we call him?” Eli
Broken Vows, New Promises CHAPTER 144 : Echoes in the Light
The morning sunlight felt wrong.Too bright. Too open.After days in the Hollow’s synthetic twilight, Damien squinted at the skyline like it was some forgotten relic. The world outside was still broken, scarred by everything Monroe had built, but out here—beneath real sky—it felt like breathing for the first time in weeks.They moved through the forest trail in silence, Aurora walking beside Damien, the child—now clothed in a borrowed jacket and boots too large—staying close to Damien’s side like a shadow tethered to light.No name.No past.
Broken Vows, New Promises CHAPTER 143 : The First Breath
The air inside the chamber thickened as the hum of the cryopod deepened, soft lights tracing across its surface like veins awakening after a long slumber. Damien stood with his hand hovering just above the control panel, eyes locked on the boy within. A-00.The child who shouldn’t exist.The child who had been discarded—forgotten—yet had outlived the project meant to replace him.Aurora touched Damien’s arm gently. “Are you ready?”He didn’t answer right away. His gaze was still fixed on the boy’s face. So young, so still. Yet somehow, it felt like staring into a mirror that refused to reflect.
Broken Vows, New Promises CHAPTER 142 : Into the Hollow
The helicopter blades sliced through the Ural sky like a warning.Beneath them, the forest spread like a sea of frozen pine and fractured stone, untouched and unwelcoming. The coordinates Null had provided pointed to a narrow canyon—its jagged sides veined with ice and shadow—where no human path should've ever led.Damien sat beside Aurora, eyes locked on the narrowing terrain below. The cold had begun to seep in through the insulated layers, but it wasn’t the temperature that clenched his gut.It was the silence.Even at this altitude, the absence of wildlife was unnerving.As if nature itself refused to brea
Broken Vows, New Promises CHAPTER 141 : Fractures Beneath the Surface
The wind had changed by morning.Geneva’s neutral calm felt different now—like something sacred had been disturbed beneath its manicured stillness. The team gathered in the briefing room of the underground complex, still shaken from what they’d uncovered the night before: Damien’s prototype—Subject A-01-D—and the fractured remnants of Monroe’s last vault of secrets.No one spoke for a long while.Elias was the first to break the silence. “So what now? We’ve seen the start of it. That clone—your prototype—it changes everything. Doesn’t it?”Null nodded slowly, pacing. “It suggests Monroe’s e
Broken Vows, New Promises CHAPTER 140 :The Parallax Record
The flight into Geneva was cloaked in silence and tension. Null sat across from Damien and Aurora, his fingers flying across his datapad as he decoded the fragmented files Seraph had left behind. The others barely spoke—each of them gripped by what lay ahead.Damien watched the mountains vanish beneath the clouds through the aircraft window. He could feel Aurora’s quiet presence beside him. Their fingers weren’t intertwined this time, but their shoulders touched, and that alone grounded him more than anything else could.Geneva greeted them with muted skies and chill winds. The neutral zone was a far cry from the war-torn hideouts they’d grown used to—orderly, pristine, quiet. But underneath that perfection lurked something far older than secrecy: erasure.They descended into the depths of a government facility disguised as an old weather station. It took Null several bypasses, retina scans, and an override code embedded in one of Seraph’s final neural threads to breach the security l
Broken Vows, New Promises CHAPTER 139 : A Thousand Echoes
The explosion echoed through the Carpathians like a buried heartbeat being silenced for good. Smoke rose from the ridge, curling toward the cold sky as if even the heavens exhaled relief.Damien stood at the edge of the cliff, watching the plume dissipate into the wind. His jaw was locked, his expression unreadable, but his eyes—those always gave him away. They were distant, full of storm-tossed reflections. Of Seraph’s soft voice. Of her last smile. Of what it meant to end something that had never truly begun.Aurora approached quietly, the silence between them laced with something deeper than words. She stood beside him, their shoulders just brushing.“She called him father,” Damien murmured. “And still chose me.”Aurora’s voice was soft, almost reverent. “Because you were never like him. You gave her something Monroe never could.”He turned to look at her. “What if that’s not true? What if all I’ve done is bury the sins of my creation in silence? I didn’t save her. I ended her.”“S
Broken Vows, New Promises CHAPTER 138 : Sanctum Protocol
The stars hung low that night—sharp and endless—casting a cold silver sheen across the ridge where the safehouse stood. Inside, the quiet had turned restless. Plans had been made, supplies packed, and weapons checked twice over. But in the hush between movements, something else had stirred: anticipation… and dread.Damien stood before the digital board Null had reconfigured in the command room. The spiral symbol—the same one tied to Echelon One—hovered in the center of the map like an eye watching them all.“Everything leads here,” Null said, his fingers dancing across the interface. “Every clone experiment, every data trail Monroe left. I think Echelon One is more than just a final base. It’s a convergence point.”“For what?” Elias asked from the side, arms crossed.Null hesitated. “For everything Monroe couldn't control.”Aurora entered then, her presence grounding the tension in the room. “Then we need to understand what we’re walking into before we try to shut it down.”“I pulled
Broken Vows, New Promises CHAPTER 137: The Quiet Between Storms
The morning after the explosion was strangely still.The mountain air carried a brittle chill, brushing against the scorched earth where the Aetheris network once stood. Smoke still curled upward in delicate wisps, as though the ruins hadn't yet accepted their own end. Birds circled overhead, tentative and cautious. Nature, it seemed, was holding its breath.Inside the safehouse nestled at the base of the ridge, silence had taken on a different shape—calm, measured, almost sacred.Damien sat at the edge of the makeshift balcony, elbows on knees, watching the sunrise paint the valley in gold. His fingers were wrapped loosely around a steaming mug of black coffee, though he hadn’t taken a sip. He didn’t need the heat. He needed the stillness.Behind him, the door creaked softly open.Aurora stepped out barefoot, wrapped in a loose sweater that hung off one shoulder. Her hair was still damp from the quick shower she'd taken to scrub off the soot and blood. She paused when she saw him—his
