---- Chapter 18 Darius looked up, his eyes bleary with alcohol. For a heart- stopping moment, he thought it was her. "Joana," he breathed, his voice filled with a desperate, heartbreaking relief. "You came back. I've been looking for you everywhere." He pulled the terrified girl into his arms, burying his face in her hair, his body shaking with sobs. The girl trembled, frozen in his embrace. Then, just as quickly, he recoiled. The scent. It was wrong. She smelled of cheap perfume and hairspray, not the clean, subtle scent of jasmine that was uniquely Joana's. This wasn't her. A terrible, violent rage exploded within him. He shoved the girl away from him so hard she crashed into a table. He lunged at her, his hands closing around her throat, squeezing until her face turned purple and her eyes rolled back in her head. "Darius, stop! You'll kill her!" his friends yelled, finally snapping out of their shock and pulling him off the gasping, choking girl. He let her go, his chest heaving. He glared at the men who had orchestrated this cruel prank. "l warned you," he said, his voice deadly calm. "We're not ---- friends anymore. We're enemies." He looked at each of them, his gaze promising ruin. "If it wasn't for all of you encouraging me at that villa party, | might never have betrayed her in the first place." He turned and stalked out of the bar, leaving a room full of terrified men in his wake. In this city, making an enemy of Darius Madden was a death sentence. He went home to the cold, empty house. He'd had his assistant find and print backup copies of the photos Joana had destroyed, but it wasn't the same. The house was still lifeless without her. Standing by the bedroom window, he realized for the first time that it offered a clear view of the garden. On the day she left, from this very window, she must have seen him kissing Kaylee. The thought was a physical blow. He clutched his chest, a sharp, ragged pain tearing through him. This new agony brought a new clarity. He called his assistant. "Any news of Joana?" "No, sir. I'm sorry." It was always the same answer. He had poured millions into the search, hiring the best private investigators in the world. But she had been meticulous. ---- She had used a temporary ID to buy dozens of tickets to different countries, creating a web of false trails that were impossible to untangle. Her official identity had been scrubbed from every database on earth. It was as if Joana Scott had been a ghost all along.