VOWS OF BLOOD AND VELVET

The air in Bangkok didn’t just carry the humidity of the tropics; it carried the stench of rot. It was a systemic, putrid decay that started in the gilded halls of the Ministry of Interior and seeped down into the gutters of the slums. To the world, the government was a beacon of order, but beneath the surface, it was a meat grinder. General Prajak and his inner circle didn't just govern; they trafficked. They moved kilos of pure crystal and human souls across borders in the bellies of unmarked ships, their pockets lined with the blood-money of a thousand broken lives. They were the gods of this city, and their word was law—mostly because they owned the judges, the police, and the silence of the dead.

Steve Caskey had been the only glitch in their perfect machine.

An honest cop with a spine made of tempered steel, Steve had dared to look into the General’s ledger. He hadn’t just found the money; he had found the names. He had tried to go through the proper channels, believing in the badge he wore, only to find that the channels were clogged with the corpses of those who spoke too loud. Within a week, Steve was no longer the hunter; he was the prey. False accusations of bribery, drug possession, and treason were slapped onto his record with surgical precision. He was stripped of his rank, his dignity, and his freedom, tossed into a black-site prison where the sunlight never reached and the beatings never stopped.

But Steve had left one thing behind: his son.

Gawin Caskey, at twenty-nine, was a man forged in the fire of that betrayal. He didn’t have his father’s badge, but he had his father’s ghost and a thirst for vengeance that burned hotter than any fever. He had spent three years diving into the dark web, navigating the underworld of leaked documents and encrypted servers, until he finally got it—the Video. A grainy, high-definition recording of General Prajak overseeing a shipment of human cargo at the docks, his face clear, his voice cold as he ordered a "cleanup" of the witnesses.

Gawin didn't just want his father out of prison; he wanted the General in a casket. He had launched a legal war, suing the government for wrongful imprisonment and corruption, leaking fragments of the evidence to international press to keep himself alive. He was a dead man walking, and he knew it. He lived in hotels, shifted safe houses, and slept with a knife under his pillow, his eyes haunted by a mixture of grief and an obsession with justice that was slowly eating him alive.

While Gawin fought a war of documents and law, Joss Wayar Sangngern fought a war of silence.

The Sangngern name was legendary in Thailand—high-class, old money, the kind of prestige that bought silence and luxury. His father, Sayaan Sangngern, was a pillar of the community, a man of imposing stature and cold discipline. His mother, Dao, was the epitome of aristocratic elegance, her every movement a calculated dance of social grace. To the public, the Sangngern family was untouchable.

But Joss was the family’s hidden blade.

At thirty-two, Joss was a mountain of a man, six-foot-seven of lethal efficiency and quiet intensity. He didn't fit into the tea parties and charity galas of his parents. He belonged in the shadows, in the cold rain of a rooftop, with a long-range rifle nestled into his shoulder. He was the government’s most prized asset, the ghost who erased "problems" before they could become scandals.

He didn't do it for the thrill. He did it for the people who actually mattered.

Joss’s heart didn't beat for the Sangngern legacy; it beat for Belle, his little niece, whose laughter was the only thing that kept him human. He wanted her to have the best schooling, the kind of education that would take her far away from the blood and the grime of his world. Then there was Kevin, his brother in everything but blood, a man who had seen too much and struggled to find his footing, and Fai, his sister-in-law’s daughter, a fragile soul who needed the protection only Joss’s money could provide.

The mission had come through a secure channel: *Eliminate the target. Gawin Caskey. 29. High-risk. High-priority. Payout: 10 million baht.*

Joss had looked at the file. He had seen the photo of the young man—the lean frame, the hauntingly beautiful eyes, the look of a man who had already lost everything. For the first time in a decade, Joss felt a flicker of hesitation. Why this boy? Why now? But then he thought of Belle’s tuition and Fai’s medical bills. He thought of the stability he could buy for the only family he truly loved. He took the contract.

The night of the hit was suffocating. A monsoon rain was hammering against the city, turning the neon lights of Bangkok into smeared paintings of red and blue. Joss was perched on a rooftop three hundred yards away from a boutique hotel on the rooftop of an old building .

The rain was a relentless curtain, drumming a frantic rhythm against the tactical gear clinging to Joss’s massive frame. He lay prone on the cold concrete of the rooftop, the world reduced to the circular aperture of his high-powered scope. His breathing was a slow, measured cadence—in, out, in, out—lowering his heart rate until he was nothing more than a ghost in the storm. The rifle, a customized precision instrument of death, felt like an extension of his own arm, the cold steel biting into his shoulder.

He scanned the floors of the boutique hotel, his eyes tracking the light in the windows. He had been told the Caskey family was in a safe house, but the intel had shifted. The family was gone; only one soul remained. The target.

Then, he saw him.

Gawin was standing by the floor-to-ceiling glass of the twelfth floor, silhouetted against the warm, amber glow of the room. Through the crosshairs, Joss saw him in a clarity that felt intrusive, almost obscene. Gawin wasn't the "convicted criminal's son" the dossier had described. He was a vision of fragile, exhausted beauty. He was wearing a thin white t-shirt that clung to his lean torso, damp with sweat or perhaps tears. His head was bowed, his long lashes casting deep, melancholic shadows over his cheeks.

Joss watched as Gawin reached for a glass of water, his long, slender fingers trembling. He looked broken. He looked like a man who had fought a war against a mountain and had finally been crushed by the landslide. There was a raw, desperate vulnerability in the way he leaned his forehead against the cool glass, closing his eyes and letting out a breath that fogged the window.

Joss’s finger tightened on the trigger. The target was centered. The windage was accounted for. One squeeze, and the problem would be erased. One squeeze, and Belle would have her schooling, Kevin would have a future, and the blood-money would secure the Sangngern's hidden burdens.

But as Joss looked at the way Gawin’s throat bobbed when he swallowed, the way the soft curve of his lips parted in a silent, shuddering sob, something in Joss’s chest violently contracted. He had killed dozens of men—politicians, traffickers, traitors—but he had never looked at a target and felt a sudden, primal need to protect them.

The beauty was too much. The sadness was too loud.

Gawin shifted, turning slightly, and for a split second, he looked directly toward the window, as if he could feel the predatory gaze of the man three hundred yards away. His eyes were honey-gold and brimming with a grief so profound it mirrored the storm outside.

Joss’s heart hammered against his ribs, a wild, erratic beat that shattered his professional composure. He couldn't do it. He couldn't put a bullet through that skull. He couldn't extinguish that flickering, beautiful light.

His finger squeezed.

*CRACK.*

The sound of the rifle was a thunderclap that tore through the rain.

But Joss didn't aim for the head. He didn't aim for the heart. At the last microsecond, he jerked the barrel a fraction of an inch to the right.

The high-velocity round screamed through the air, shattering the reinforced glass of the hotel window with a deafening *shatter-crash*. The bullet missed Gawin’s shoulder by less than an inch, slamming into the mahogany wall behind him with a bone-jarring thud, embedding itself deep into the wood.

Inside the room, Gawin shrieked, diving to the floor, the glass raining down around him like diamonds of ice. He scrambled backward, chest heaving, eyes wide with terror, staring at the hole in the wall where death had just grazed him.

On the rooftop, Joss remained frozen, his eye still pressed to the scope. He watched Gawin curl into a ball on the floor, shaking, breathing in jagged, panicked gasps. Joss’s breath hitched. He had just failed the most important mission of his life. He had just signed his own death warrant with the government.

But as he watched Gawin—trembling, beautiful, and alive—Joss felt a surge of adrenaline that had nothing to do with the kill. He felt a dark, possessive hunger bloom in his gut. He had missed on purpose, and in doing so, he had tied his fate to the boy in the window.

He didn't retreat. He didn't call in the mission success. Instead, he watched Gawin through the lens, his gaze drifting from the boy's terrified face down to the way his shirt had ridden up, exposing a strip of pale, smooth skin at his waist.

Joss licked his lips, his cock stirring beneath his tactical gear. He had meant to erase the target, but now, he wanted to hunt him. He wanted to find him, to wrap his massive hands around that slender waist, and to find out if the rest of him tasted as sweet as he looked.

"You're not dying today, Gawin," Joss whispered into the rain, his voice a rough, dangerous promise. "Because I'm the only one who gets to break you."

Joss didn’t linger. The moment the bullet embedded itself in the wall, the clock started ticking. In his world, a shot fired was a beacon; the government’s surveillance teams would be scanning the rooftops, and the hotel’s security would be scrambling. He broke down the rifle with a practiced, mechanical speed, the metal clicking and snapping into its reinforced case in under thirty seconds.

He slid off the ledge, his massive frame moving with a silence that defied his size, descending the fire escape as the rain tried to wash away the scent of cordite and gunpowder. His heart was still thundering, not from the exertion, but from the image of Gawin—shattered glass, wide honey-gold eyes, and that strip of pale, trembling skin.

As he reached the street and disappeared into the neon-drenched shadows of an alleyway, Joss felt a visceral shift in his own soul. He had spent years being a tool—a weapon used by men who sat in air-conditioned offices while he bled in the mud. For the first time, he had defied them. He had lied with a trigger pull.

He climbed into his blackened SUV, the interior smelling of leather and cold air. He leaned his head back against the seat, closing his eyes, but all he saw was Gawin. The way the boy had looked so small against the backdrop of that oppressive city. The way he had seemed to breathe in the very grief that was killing him.

A dark, predatory heat coiled in Joss’s gut. He knew the General wouldn't just accept a "near miss." They would send a cleanup crew, or worse, another sniper who didn't possess Joss’s sudden, inexplicable mercy. By missing, he hadn't just saved Gawin; he had made himself the only person capable of protecting him.

He thought of Belle’s laughter, of Kevin’s fragile stability, and Fai’s needs. The money was still on the line, but the stakes had shifted. He didn't just want the payout anymore. He wanted the target. He wanted to find where Gawin was hiding, to corner him in the dark, and to see if those honey-gold eyes would still look at him with terror once Joss had him pinned beneath his weight. He wanted to taste the salt of those tears and replace them with the sound of Gawin’s voice screaming his name in the throes of a pleasure so intense it would erase every trauma the government had inflicted on him.

The possessiveness was an addiction, hitting him faster than any drug he’d ever encountered. He wanted to be the only thing Gawin could rely on. He wanted to be the monster that hunted the other monsters.

His encrypted phone buzzed on the passenger seat. It was the handler. The voice on the other end was cold, devoid of any human warmth, echoing the clinical brutality of the men who paid his salary.

"Report, Sangngern. We saw the flash. Did you confirm the kill?"

Joss looked at the reflection of himself in the rearview mirror—the hard line of his jaw, the storm-gray eyes that had just seen a glimpse of heaven in a hellhole. He thought of the bullet in the wall and the living, breathing man in the room.

He felt a thrill of rebellion, a jagged edge of excitement that made his blood sing. He was playing a game now, a high-stakes gamble where the prize was a beautiful, broken man and the penalty was death.

Joss pressed the button, his voice dropping into a low, deceptive rumble that betrayed nothing.

"Target neutralized. Mission accomplished."

End of Chapter 1

Welcome to my next book

I have never been happy about anything until I enjoy writing stories it’s fantasy but still it gives me comfort

So this story focus is based one my lovely CP Jossgawin and I was meaning to write this kind of genre mix of thriller corrpution hate drama sex and love

Its a bit too much of everything but i know you guys are gonna love it.

Keep reading to find what happens on next chapter

Bye ❤️