---- Chapter 13 The image of the messy bedsheets on his screen was a lit fuse. Darius's grief instantly curdled into a white-hot rage. "So... it was you," he hissed to the empty room, his voice dangerously low. He didn't hesitate. He typed a furious message to Kaylee using Joana's SIM. "I told you not to let her find out." Kaylee, seeing a message from Joana's number, scoffed. She thought Joana was finally confronting her. With a smug, triumphant smile, she hit the call button. "Well, well, well," Kaylee began, her voice dripping with condescension. "Finally decided to face the music? Let me save you the trouble. 'm pregnant with his child. He's probably going to propose to me soon. You're yesterday's news. You should just walk away with some dignity." She paused, expecting sobs or screams. The silence on the other end was unnerving. She pushed down a flicker of anxiety. "What's wrong? Cat got your tongue?" she taunted. "Too shocked to speak? It's over. His heart belongs to me now." The next sound she heard shattered her confidence into a ---- million pieces. It was Darius's voice, cold as ice. "Why," he said, each word a frozen shard, "did you provoke my wife?" He continued, his voice dropping to a menacing growl. "| gave you too much freedom, and you overstepped. What did you say to her?" Kaylee trembled, the phone nearly slipping from her grasp. Her mind raced. He won't do anything to me, she thought frantically. 'm carrying his child. Clinging to that thought, her confidence returned. She started to cry, her voice thick with fake tears. "Darius, darling, I'm so sorry! She started it! She sent me terrible messages, and | just defended myself! | was scared!" She tried to make her voice sound small and helpless. But this time, Darius was immune to her performance. "Enough," he snapped. "If you don't tell me the truth, | have other ways of finding out." He hung up before she could utter another word. A few minutes later, two of his men showed up at her villa and confiscated her phone. Darius unlocked it and opened her messages. The evidence was damning. For weeks, Kaylee had bombarded Joana with a relentless stream of taunting photos and cruel ---- messages sent via text and social media tags. Darius scrolled through the chat history, his vision going dark at the edges. A roaring sound filled his ears. What had he been doing with this woman? How could he have been so blind, so stupid? He tried to imagine being in Joana's position, receiving those messages day after day. The pain was suffocating, unbearable. He didn't want to think about how she must have felt, enduring it all in silence. If she had done something like this to him, he would have lost his mind. His face was ashen. A profound, gut-wrenching agony seized him. He sat there for a long time, the phone clutched in his hand. When he finally moved, his expression was glacial, his eyes radiating a dangerous, chilling light.