[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"doc-detail-115379-en":3,"doc-seo-115379-105":30,"detail-sidebar-cat-0-en-105":92},{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":6},0,"success",{"doc_id":7,"user_id":8,"nickname":9,"user_avatar":10,"doc_module":4,"category_id":11,"category_name":12,"doc_title":13,"doc_description":14,"doc_content":15,"file_id":16,"file_url":17,"file_type":18,"file_size":19,"view_count":20,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":11,"is_downloadable":11,"audit_status":11,"page_count":21,"language":22,"language_code":23,"site_id":24,"html_lang":23,"table_of_contents":25,"faqs":26,"seo_title":27,"seo_description":14,"update_tm":28,"read_time":29},115379,962084928432,"Emma Wilson","https://ap-avatar.wpscdn.com/davatar_155a257f0dc6eb9ab79c44ca47cae57d",1,"Story & Novel","Cruel Vow - Book 1 of Empire of Sinners","Cruel Vow, Book 1 of Empire of Sinners, opens with sixteen-year-old Sera in Brooklyn the night her father is killed. The scene blends culinary memories with violence and betrayal, as a powerful man demands repayment and refuses mercy. Sera is drawn into the shifting boundary between captive and captor, setting a tone of vengeance and transformation. The narrative frames the romance-like premise as a trap—more dangerous than love.","CRUEL VOW  \nBook 1 of Empire of Sinners  \n[OceanofPDF.com](OceanofPDF.com)  \nCopyright © 2026 Tessa Knox  \nAll rights reserved  \nThe characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.  \nNo part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written  \npermission of the publisher.  \n[OceanofPDF.com](OceanofPDF.com)  \nCONTENTS  \nCruel Vow  \nCopyright  \nPrologue  \nChapter 1  \nChapter 2  \nChapter 3  \nChapter 4  \nChapter 5  \nChapter 6  \nChapter 7  \nChapter 8  \nEpilogue  \nThank you  \n[OceanofPDF.com](OceanofPDF.com)  \nHe gave me rules. I gave him war.  \nBut somewhere between his silence and my fury, the lines between captive and captor disappeared —and the only thing more dangerous than his world was what we became inside it.  \nThis is not a love story. This is a detonation.  \n[OceanofPDF.com](OceanofPDF.com)  \nPROLOGUE  \nSera  \nThe night my father died, the air smelled of rosemary and gunpowder.  \nI remember that detail more clearly than the screaming. More clearly than the way his body folded like a marionette whose strings had been cut. More clearly than the wet, sucking sound his last breath made as it rattled through the hole in his chest. The rosemary had been mine —I'd been stripping the woody stems in the kitchen, pulling the tiny green needles free for the lamb he was braising. A recipe he'd carried from Lyon in his memory like a prayer. He never wrote anything down. He said the best things in life were kept in the body, not on paper.  \nNow I know he was wrong about that. The best things in life leave the body far too easily.  \nI was sixteen. Old enough to know that La Fontaine —our family's restaurant in the heart of Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn —was more than a place that served coq au vin and crème brûlée to date-night couples and old Italian men who liked my father's burgundy. Old enough to know that the back room with the frosted glass door was not for \"private dining,\" as the brass plaque read. Old enough to have seen the envelopes that changed hands, fat and unmarked, slid beneath plates of charcuterie like love notes passed in class.  \nBut I was still young enough to believe my father was a good man .  \nHe was. He was a good man who had walked into a bad world because the good world couldn't feed us. That's what I told myself then, and it's what I tell myself now, eight years later, when the rage threatens to eat me alive from the inside.  \nThat night, I was alone in the kitchen. The restaurant had closed two hours earlier and the staff had gone home. Papa had told me to finish prep for the morning —brunoise the carrots, portion the duck, label the containers with blue tape and my careful handwriting. He did this sometimes, gave me tasks that kept me in the kitchen while the back room filled with voices. I never questioned it. The kitchen was my cathedral. The steel counters, the copper pans hanging from the overhead rack like church bells, the blue flame of the burner whispering beneath a stockpot —that was where I felt sovereign. Safe.  \nI heard the back door open. The alley entrance —the one that didn't have a camera because Papa said some guests preferred discretion. Two sets of footsteps. Papa's I recognized by the soft shuffle of his leather-soled shoes, the ones Maman had bought him in Marseille the year before she left us . The second set was heavier. Deliberate. The footsteps of a man who had never once had to rush.  \nThey spoke in low voices. I couldn't make out words, only tone —my father's strained and pleading, the stranger's flat as a frozen lake. I set the knife down. I wiped my hands on my apron. I moved toward the door that connected the kitchen to the back hallway, and I pressed my ear against the wood like a child listening for Santa Claus.  \nExcept what I heard wa","cbCaiv6pCbrcllaz","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaiv6pCbrcllaz","pdf",1064176,7,101,"English","en",105,"# Prologue\n## Chapter 1\n## Chapter 2\n## Chapter 3\n## Chapter 4\n## Chapter 5\n## Chapter 6\n## Chapter 7\n## Chapter 8\n## Epilogue","[{\"question\":\"Cruel Vow 的故事开端发生在什么时间与地点？\",\"answer\":\"故事从“序章”开始，夜里父亲去世时的场景发生在布鲁克林，地点与家族餐厅及其后厨相关。\"},{\"question\":\"Sera 在父亲被逼迫时的核心情境是什么？\",\"answer\":\"Sera 在厨房准备第二天的食材，听到后方谈判与威胁后走进后屋，看到父亲以求饶姿态面对持枪的陌生人。\"},{\"question\":\"本书序章如何描述这段关系的基调？\",\"answer\":\"文本强调“这不是爱情故事”，而是爆炸式的冲突；并提示在沉默与愤怒之间，俘虏与囚禁者的界线会被打破。\"}]","Cruel Vow - Book 1 of Empire of Sinners | PDF",1785472803,156,{"code":4,"msg":31,"data":32},"ok",{"site_id":24,"language":23,"slug":33,"title":13,"keywords":34,"description":14,"schema_data":35,"social_meta":87,"head_meta":89,"extra_data":91,"updated_unix":28},"cruel-vow-book-1-of-empire-of-sinners","",{"@graph":36,"@context":86},[37,54,69],{"@type":38,"itemListElement":39},"BreadcrumbList",[40,44,48,51],{"item":41,"name":42,"@type":43,"position":11},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",{"item":45,"name":46,"@type":43,"position":47},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/","Document",2,{"item":49,"name":12,"@type":43,"position":50},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/story-novel/",3,{"item":52,"name":13,"@type":43,"position":53},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/cruel-vow-book-1-of-empire-of-sinners/115379/",4,{"url":52,"name":13,"@type":55,"author":56,"headline":13,"publisher":58,"fileFormat":61,"inLanguage":23,"description":14,"dateModified":62,"datePublished":63,"encodingFormat":61,"isAccessibleForFree":64,"interactionStatistic":65},"DigitalDocument",{"name":9,"@type":57},"Person",{"url":41,"name":59,"@type":60},"DocShare","Organization","application/pdf","2026-08-18","2026-07-31",true,{"@type":66,"interactionType":67,"userInteractionCount":20},"InteractionCounter",{"@type":68},"ViewAction",{"@type":70,"mainEntity":71},"FAQPage",[72,78,82],{"name":73,"@type":74,"acceptedAnswer":75},"Cruel Vow 的故事开端发生在什么时间与地点？","Question",{"text":76,"@type":77},"故事从“序章”开始，夜里父亲去世时的场景发生在布鲁克林，地点与家族餐厅及其后厨相关。","Answer",{"name":79,"@type":74,"acceptedAnswer":80},"Sera 在父亲被逼迫时的核心情境是什么？",{"text":81,"@type":77},"Sera 在厨房准备第二天的食材，听到后方谈判与威胁后走进后屋，看到父亲以求饶姿态面对持枪的陌生人。",{"name":83,"@type":74,"acceptedAnswer":84},"本书序章如何描述这段关系的基调？",{"text":85,"@type":77},"文本强调“这不是爱情故事”，而是爆炸式的冲突；并提示在沉默与愤怒之间，俘虏与囚禁者的界线会被打破。","https://schema.org",{"og:url":52,"og:type":88,"og:title":13,"og:site_name":59,"og:description":14},"article",{"robots":90,"canonical":52},"index,follow",{"doc_id":7,"site_id":24},{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":93},[94,97,101,105,110,115,119,124,129,132,136],{"id":11,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":46,"category_name":12,"show_sort_weight":95,"slug":96},90,"story-novel",{"id":47,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":46,"category_name":98,"show_sort_weight":99,"slug":100},"Literature",80,"literature",{"id":53,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":46,"category_name":102,"show_sort_weight":103,"slug":104},"Exam",70,"exam",{"id":106,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":46,"category_name":107,"show_sort_weight":108,"slug":109},5,"Comic",60,"comic",{"id":111,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":46,"category_name":112,"show_sort_weight":113,"slug":114},6,"Technology",50,"technology",{"id":20,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":46,"category_name":116,"show_sort_weight":117,"slug":118},"Healthcare",40,"healthcare",{"id":120,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":46,"category_name":121,"show_sort_weight":122,"slug":123},8,"Research & Report",30,"research-report",{"id":125,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":46,"category_name":126,"show_sort_weight":127,"slug":128},9,"Religion & Spirituality",20,"religion-spirituality",{"id":127,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":46,"category_name":130,"show_sort_weight":127,"slug":131},"World Cup","world-cup",{"id":133,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":46,"category_name":134,"show_sort_weight":133,"slug":135},10,"Lifestyle","lifestyle",{"id":137,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":46,"category_name":138,"show_sort_weight":106,"slug":139},19,"General","general"]