Page 119 of The Billionaire's Timed Wife

I had to hire a CEO to run my shipbuilding company, since my role as sheikh is for life. But being the control freak that I am, I still keep both eyes wide open. I want to know everything that happens there.

Every morning, I open the board’s emails and check how our stocks are doing.

And that’s exactly what I’m doing today—reading the weekend messages—when my phone lights up with a text from a private number that, theoretically, shouldn’t exist anywhere.

I blink a few times, making sure I’m seeing correctly.

It’s a geographic coordinate.

I tap the link, and it takes me to Bucharest, Romania.

Then a second message arrives:

Unknown number:I’m a father too. Watch over your son. He isn’t safe yet.

But it’s the third message that confirms who’s behind them. It says:

Unknown number:One life for another. I eliminated the monster that haunted my wife. I’m giving you the chance to do the same with the one who threatens yours.

Odin Lykaios.

He just handed me the location of Arif Ghazal.

At last, I’ll have my vengeance.

Rheadur

Six Months Later

“Are you sure you want to be there for the sentencing?”

“Yes. I need that closure, Kaled.”

She didn’t attend the first week. Just like during the trial of my father’s former first wife, Adeela only wanted to be present for the reading of the sentence.

Unlike Eiza’s case, there was no plea bargain for Arif, so his trial went through every stage: witnesses questioned by both sides, presentation of evidence, recesses. It was exhausting, but I made a point of attending every session. I owed it to my wife and my son. I also needed to stand there for my mother-in-law, for the innocent ones who had done nothing but have the misfortune of being tied, by blood or fate, to that bastard.

“Theory and practice are two different things, my love,” I say, still unsure how it will affect her to hear the judge read the verdict aloud. I have no doubt Arif will be sentenced to death.

“I know what you mean,” she says, “but believe me, I don’t see him as my father anymore, only as a psychopath who planned to kill his own grandson and, probably, you as well. He chose which grandson he wanted to see on the throne, and it wasn’t mine. When I look at our Tajj and think that he might not be here with us, I feel like I could lose my mind.”

Who could blame her? I can’t say with certainty that, if I weren’t ruling Rheadur and didn’t know Arif would be punished, I wouldn’t have killed him myself.

After the anonymous message, my lawyers contacted the local police in Bucharest and began the extradition process.

There’s a treaty between Rheadur and Romania, so it didn’t take long before the wretch was handed over to us.

Ironically, the only person with the power to grant him a pardon, to commute his death sentence to life imprisonment, is me, as the ruler of this country.

That’s not going to happen.

It’s time for our reckoning.

Arif will pay for his crimes.

Hours later

As we expected, the verdict was guilty, and Arif Ghazal was sentenced to death.