Blood and Vows.

Chapter 28 – Two Beds, One Truth

The apartment in Mexico City smelled of antiseptic and stale whiskey. It was a fortress disguised as a penthouse: tinted windows, locked doors, a skyline glittering outside like something unreachable.

Two beds broke the illusion of control.

On the first lay Leila, the bodyguard once so unshakable, now a fragile thing tethered to a line dripping fluids into her vein. Her arms were swathed in gauze, her fingers strapped and splinted, purple with bruises. Her face was pale, lips slightly parted, a faint fog of breath the only proof she still lived.

On the second bed lay Alex. Awake. Alive. But barely. Her wrists were wrapped in cloth, her ribs bandaged in strips of white that already stained pink. Her throat carried the marks of chains; her arms bore the ghosts of wires and blades. She stared at the ceiling, forcing her chest to rise steady even as pain licked through her like fire.

The door clicked.

Stevens entered first, flanked by Emil. Their boots tracked the scent of the outside world—dust, exhaust, freedom Alex hadn’t tasted since before the villa. Stevens’s expression was granite, but his eyes softened when they landed on her.

“You look like hell,” he said.

“I feel worse,” Alex rasped. Her voice was sandpaper, but her gaze was sharp. “Where am I?”

“Safe,” Emil said quickly. “For now.”

Safe. The word was becoming a cruel joke.

Stevens pulled a chair closer, lowering himself so his lined face was level with hers. His voice was quiet but weighty. “There are things you need to hear. Things I should have told you earlier.”

Alex forced herself upright, ignoring the scream of her muscles. Her eyes flicked to Leila’s unconscious form, then back to him. “Start talking.”

Stevens hesitated. He looked older in that pause, a man who had carried secrets too long. Then he exhaled and leaned forward.

“Sebastian Cortez isn’t what you think,” he said.

Alex’s jaw tightened. “I know exactly what he is. A cartel prince hiding behind charm. A man who’s left bodies in his wake. My fiancé’s blood is on his hands.”

Stevens didn’t flinch. “No. Jacob’s blood was never on his hands. That was a lie you were meant to believe.”

Her stomach lurched. “What are you saying?”

“I’m saying Sebastian has been a double agent for years. Not clean—don’t make that mistake—but not the monster you painted him to be. He doesn’t push drugs. Hasn’t in a long time. What he trades is information.”

Alex let out a bitter laugh, then winced as it tore at her ribs. “Information? That’s supposed to make him noble?”

“It makes him useful,” Stevens corrected. “Every raid we’ve launched in the last five years—every shipment intercepted, every cell dismantled—we had breadcrumbs because of him. He’s been bleeding his own empire to the feds one vein at a time.”

Silence crashed between them. Alex shook her head slowly. “No. You’re trying to rewrite the story. You think I’ll believe the man who stalked me, who manipulated me, who—” Her voice broke. “He’s the reason Jacob is dead.”

Stevens’s eyes hardened. “Jacob was never who you thought he was.”

Her breath stilled. The room tilted. “Don’t.”

“It’s the truth. Jacob’s record vanished before the academy for a reason. He wasn’t one of us, Alex. He was theirs. He belonged to Selma long before you ever loved him.”

The words struck like bullets. Alex’s fists clenched in the sheets, nails biting her palms. “You’re lying.”

Emil spoke for the first time, voice quiet. “We checked. Cross-referenced files, birth certificates, even school rosters. Jacob didn’t exist until he appeared beside you on assignment. He was a ghost they built, a mask. You were never his future. You were his assignment.”

“No.” Alex pressed her palms to her ears, as if she could force the sound away. Memories assaulted her—the warmth of Jacob’s hand, his whispered promises, the future they’d drawn in stolen hours. Had it all been performance? Every smile, every kiss?

Her chest heaved. Pain rippled through her ribs but couldn’t drown the deeper ache spreading from her heart.

Stevens leaned closer. “I should have told you sooner. I thought protecting you from the truth would keep you sharp. But lies rot everything. Jacob betrayed you. Not Sebastian.”

She dropped her hands, her face pale and wet. “And you expect me to… what? Forgive Sebastian? Trust him? After he kept this secret too?”

“No,” Stevens said firmly. “I expect you to see the board as it is. Not as you wish it to be.”

Alex looked away, to Leila’s broken body. Her throat tightened. “And her? Did he trade her pain for one of your operations too?”

Stevens’s jaw flexed. “Leila was collateral in Fernando’s games. Sebastian didn’t order this.”

Her laugh was raw, empty. “So I’m supposed to believe he’s some tragic hero now? Caught between loyalties?”

Emil’s voice was steady. “You’re supposed to believe that the only reason you’re alive is because Sebastian kept you useful to both sides. Without him, Selma would have buried you already.”

The room buzzed with silence again. Alex stared at the skyline beyond the window, the city lights blurred through glass.

Finally she whispered, “If he’s been helping us all this time… why keep me in the dark?”

Stevens’s answer was cold. “Because you were never meant to know. You were supposed to hate him. Hate keeps you sharp. It kept suspicion off him.”

Her stomach churned. A tool. That’s all she’d been.

Stevens rose slowly. “You can rest here tonight. Tomorrow, choices will need to be made. For now, survive. That’s the only order I have left to give.”

He turned toward the door. Emil followed, though his eyes lingered on Alex with quiet apology.

The door clicked shut.

Alex sat in the silence, every nerve raw, every truth a blade. She looked again at Leila—the soldier broken for secrets. Then she pressed her palms against her face and tried not to scream.

---

The city outside kept breathing. Inside, two women lay side by side: one unconscious, one shattered awake.

And in another room of the same apartment, Sebastian poured himself a drink, knowing the lies were unraveling faster than he could hold them.