Page 7 of The Vows He Buried

The ride from Manhattan to the Blake family home in Greenwich was conducted in a profound, unbroken silence.

The city lights bled into the darkness of the highway, each mile putting more distance between me and the gilded cage I had just fled.

The pain in my ankle was a dull, persistent throb, a physical anchor to the reality of the night.

It kept me grounded, kept the swirling vortex of emotions from pulling me under.

I wasn't just escaping a party; I was escaping a life.

My father sat in the front passenger seat, a silent, unmovable mountain.

He didn’t ask questions, didn’t offer platitudes.

His presence was enough. It was a quiet, solid wall of support I could lean against without having to say a word.

Jasper sat beside me in the back, his hand still holding mine, his grip a steady, reassuring pressure in the dark.

They knew this wasn't a tantrum. This was a jailbreak.

When the car finally turned onto the familiar, tree-lined lane of our private road, a breath I didn’t know I was holding escaped my lips.

The Vale mansion was a monument to cold, new money, all sharp angles and intimidating glass.

The Blake house was different. It was a sprawling, century-old stone manor, covered in ivy, nestled amongst ancient oaks.

It wasn't designed to impress; it was designed to be lived in. It was home.

As the car crunched to a halt on the gravel driveway, Jasper was out before the driver could open the door.

He helped me out, his arm a steady support as I put weight on my injured foot.

The night air was cool and clean, smelling of damp earth and night- blooming jasmine, a stark contrast to the city’s exhaust and the suffocating gardenia perfume of the Vale prison.

“Let’s get you inside,” Jasper said softly.

The heavy oak door swung open into a grand but welcoming foyer.

Unlike the Vale mansion’s sterile, museum-like entrance hall, this space was warm and alive.

A fire crackled in the hearth, casting a flickering golden glow on the worn Persian rugs and the collection of family photos that lined the walls.

Photos of me and Jasper as children, covered in mud; photos from my college graduation; photos of my mother, her warm, smiling face a painful, beautiful memory.

This house held our history. The Vale mansion had tried to erase it.

“I’ll get some ice for your ankle,” my father said, his voice gruff with emotion as he disappeared towards the kitchen.

“I can walk,” I insisted, though my ankle protested with a sharp spike of pain.

“You don’t have to,” Jasper said simply.

He scooped me up into his arms as if I weighed nothing, ignoring my token protest. He carried me up the sweeping main staircase, his steps sure and steady.

He didn’t take me to a guest room. He took me to my room.

The room I had grown up in, the room I hadn’t slept in for three years.

He pushed the door open and set me down gently on the edge of my four-poster bed. “I’ll be right back with the first-aid kit,” he said, giving my shoulder a squeeze before leaving me alone.

I looked around, my heart aching with a bittersweet mix of nostalgia and grief.

It was exactly as I had left it. A perfect time capsule of the woman I was before I became Mrs. Maddox Vale.

The walls were a soft, calming blue. My drafting table still stood by the window, a half-finished sketch pinned to its surface.

Bookshelves overflowed with art history tomes and fashion design manuals.

Bolts of fabric were stacked in a corner, their colors and textures a silent testament to my forgotten passion.

This room was the last bastion of the real Savannah Blake. It was my sanctuary. It was my vault.

My eyes landed on a large, abstract painting on the wall opposite the bed—one of my own, a swirl of angry reds and deep blues. It was the first thing I ever sold, to my father, who had insisted on hanging it in my room. Behind it, I knew, was my real vault.

Ignoring my ankle, I pushed myself off the bed and hobbled to the painting. My fingers found the familiar hidden latch. The painting swung away from the wall on silent hinges, revealing the cool, gray steel of a wall safe. My pulse quickened. This was it. The reclamation.

The combination was my mother’s birthday. My fingers, clumsy at first, found their rhythm. The heavy door clicked open.

The contents weren't jewels or cash, but something far more valuable. My life’s work. On the top shelf were three, thick, leather-bound sketchbooks, their spines embossed with a single word: Lynelle . My brand. My dream. Beside them was a small, encrypted hard drive.

I pulled out the first sketchbook, the worn leather cool and familiar in my hands. I sank onto the floor, heedless of the emerald velvet gown, and opened it.

The pages were filled with me. Sketches, designs, fabric swatches stapled to the margins, my own handwriting scribbling notes on draping and structure.

There were designs for evening gowns, sharp business suits, whimsical summer dresses.

They were bold, innovative, alive. Seeing them again was like finding a lost piece of my own soul.

The passion I thought had been extinguished, buried under three years of beige conformity, was still there, a dormant ember waiting for a breath of air.

This was who I was. A creator. A designer. Not an accessory.

After a moment, I reached back into the safe and retrieved the hard drive and a small, nondescript burner phone I had bought years ago and never used. This was the arsenal.

Jasper returned with a medical kit and a compression wrap. He worked in silence, expertly wrapping my ankle, his touch gentle.

“Thank you, Jas,” I whispered, my voice thick.

“Always, Vannah,” he said, finishing his work. He looked at the sketchbook in my lap. “I missed seeing you with those.”

“Me too,” I said, a real, unforced smile touching my lips for the first time in what felt like an eternity.

When he left, I plugged the hard drive into my old laptop and powered it on.

It was all there. The complete business plan for Lynelle.

Market research, financial projections, branding strategies, supplier lists.

A fully-formed business, ready to launch.

A business Maddox and Evelyn had dismissed as a “little hobby.”

Then, I turned on the burner phone. It took a moment to connect, and then it vibrated, a series of notifications popping up on the screen.

They were all from one contact: Harper Lin.

My best friend, my lawyer, the reluctant CEO of my stolen company.

The messages were dated, spanning the last three years, simple check-ins. Thinking of you. Hope you’re okay.

The last message was from two days ago. Vannah, the fund is healthy. Very healthy. Call me on this line when you can. It’s time.

My fingers trembled as I navigated to the banking app she had installed. The account was under a holding company she had created, completely firewalled from my life as Savannah Vale. I had expected to see a few hundred thousand dollars, perhaps, from some pre-marriage investments I’d made.

The number that flashed on the screen made me gasp.

It wasn’t thousands. It was millions. Eight figures.

Harper, brilliant, loyal Harper, had not just been a placeholder CEO.

She had been secretly funneling dividends and profits from Lynelle—which had apparently become far more successful than the Vales had ever let on—into this ghost account.

I wasn't just free. I was armed. I had the resources to burn their world to the ground.

I was staring at the screen, my mind reeling with the possibilities, when a soft knock came at my bedroom door.

“Savannah?” It was my father. “You have a visitor. She says it’s urgent.”

“A visitor? At this hour?”

“Her name is Deedee.”

My blood ran cold. Deedee. Here. I hobbled to the door and opened it.

My father stood there, his expression concerned.

Behind him, standing nervously in the hallway, was Deedee.

She was no longer in her simple black-and-white maid’s uniform.

She was in a plain coat, a small suitcase at her feet. She had left. She had actually left.

“Deedee,” I breathed.

“Mrs. Vale… I mean, Miss Blake,” she said, her hands twisting the strap of her handbag. “I’m so sorry to intrude. But I saw you leave. I knew… I knew it was time. I couldn’t stay there another night.” Her eyes were full of fear, but also a fierce, quiet resolve. “I brought something for you.”

She reached into her handbag and pulled out a plain white envelope. It was different from the one she had given me before. This one was thicker, heavier.

“I found this in Mrs. Vale’s private study, before I left tonight,” she whispered, pressing it into my hand. “It was in her personal safe. I think… I think it’s the last piece.”

My fingers, numb with shock, tore open the envelope. It didn't contain letters or photos. It contained financial documents. Bank statements for a shell corporation I didn't recognize. And a copy of a wire transfer receipt.

The transfer was for two hundred and fifty thousand dollars.

It was from the shell corporation—a company I now knew belonged to Evelyn—to a private account belonging to Dr. Alistair Finch.

The date on the transfer was two days after my “miscarriage.”

The world tilted on its axis. The air rushed from my lungs. The evidence I held before—the prescription, the report—was damning. But this… this was the smoking gun. This was the motive. This was the proof of a cold, calculated, paid-for conspiracy. This was a receipt for the murder of my child.

I sank down onto the top step of the staircase, the papers fluttering in my trembling hand. The grief, the rage, it all coalesced into a single point of diamond-hard clarity.

They didn't just know. They didn't just let me grieve in silence while they harbored a secret.

They paid for it. They celebrated their anniversary, toasted their perfect union, on a foundation of lies built with blood money. My baby’s blood.

I looked up, my eyes finding Jasper’s, then my father’s.

They saw the look on my face, the shift from wounded daughter to avenging angel.

They didn’t need to see the papers to know what they contained.

They saw it in the chilling stillness that had settled over me.

The war had just been declared. Now, I had the weapon that would guarantee victory.