Page 113 of The Billionaire's Timed Wife

“What happened?” Kaled asks.

“Arif Ghazal. He’s fled the country.”

Chapter 50

Two Months Later

Even after a couple of months have passed, I still can’t believe Arif slipped through our fingers.

He was always one step ahead of us. Looking back, I should’ve been more vigilant.

The moment Adeela told me about her mother’s suspicions, that Eiza and the former counselor might have been having an affair, I ordered his arrest. But apparently, the guards had relaxed their watch on him since the scorpion incident, and the bastard managed to escape.

There’s now an international manhunt for him, but so far, no results.

It was a shock to discover that, on top of everything else, my half-sister Nalini is actually my sister-in-law.

My father showed more strength than I ever imagined he possessed. Beyond the public humiliation of being betrayed, he also discovered that the daughter he raised all those years wasn’t even his by blood.

That, however, wasn’t the true issue. Nalini not being his biological daughter doesn’t matter. Adeela and I have already talked about adopting a child or two in the future. A child is a child, regardless of biology.

What’s deplorable is the deceit. The years of being lied to.

Father decided not to punish his ex-wife for adultery. It would serve no purpose anyway, since Eiza will spend the rest of her life behind bars.

Arif and Naim’s mother toyed with people’s lives and emotions, caring for no one they hurt as long as they got what they wanted.

Later that night, I read the final interrogation report and my stepmother’s written confession.

She detailed their plan to induce a miscarriage in my wife, explaining that the idea came from Arif—which I had already suspected. But that doesn’t make her any less guilty.

As a kind of bonus, Eiza confessed to the scorpion incident. She said she’d placed it in Daisy’s room herself and, when asked why, gave no real answer, only that she’d done it at her lover’s request.

Evil in its purest form.

That’s what comes from the unholy union of Eiza and Arif, two monsters disguised as human beings, taking it upon themselves to decide who should live and who should die. Only sheer luck kept them from succeeding.

Father told me he wanted to speak to her privately before she was taken to prison, perhaps to try to understand how she could be capable of something so vile. The betrayal was painful enough to discover, of course. But there’s a chasm between infidelity and attempted murder—or two attempts, since I can’t forget that Daisy barely escaped as well.

He said he ended the conversation certain that Eiza was hollow inside. Incapable of feeling. Even when he gave her anout, asking if Naim’s disappearance had been what drove her to risk losing everything, she showed no emotion.

Again, she claimed she’d done it all at Arif’s request. Apparently, he was the only person she ever truly cared for, and even then, she didn’t hesitate to sell him out when her own neck was on the line.

Disgust doesn’t even begin to describe what I feel for her and her partner in crime.

Erasing those two stains from the face of the earth has become my life’s mission.

There’s nowhere Arif can hide.

I won’t stop until I find him and make him face justice.

Months later

At the hospital — The day of the birth

“Love cannot be bought or sold.”

(Arab Proverb)