Marriage with my daughter's father: Darling please be gentle - Chapter 222

Chapter 222: Chapter 222: They are coming after you

“Still,” Logan said, his voice low with barely restrained irritation, “you wait for my call. You don’t show up on your own.”

Mia let out a soft chuckle, unbothered by his attempt to sound commanding. It danced in the silence like a dare.

Logan’s jaw tensed, his lips twitching into something between annoyance and reluctant amusement. But then, his eyes drifted—catching the faint white bandage wrapped tightly around her palm.

“You’ve been reckless,” he remarked, his tone shifting, brow arching in quiet inquiry.

Mia glanced down at her hand, then back at him with a calm shrug. “The target wasn’t very obedient.”

She walked past him as if the conversation bored her, her steps unhurried but purposeful.

Logan turned, watching her with narrowed eyes. There was something in the way she moved—unapologetic, untouchable.

His gaze lingered longer than necessary.

The flicker of emotion in his eyes wasn’t just curiosity. It was concern. Subtle but unmistakable.

He didn’t call out to her.

Didn’t ask for more.

But a moment later, without a word, he silently followed her—because despite everything, he always did.

***

[Detention Cell—Visitor Room]

Rita hadn’t expected him to come.

Not after all the unanswered messages, the weeks of silence, and the crushing weight of guilt she’d carried. Just when she’d finally accepted he wouldn’t show, the door creaked open—and there he was.

Roger.

But now that he stood in front of her, tall and unreadable, Rita couldn’t bring herself to look him in the eye.

“You begged to see me,” Roger said, his voice calm but sharp, like a knife drawn across old wounds. “But now you can’t even meet my eyes, Rita. Don’t tell me you actually regret it.”

Rita’s gaze lifted sharply, the guilt unmistakable in her eyes. But what stunned her more than his words was the man himself.

He looked different.

Stronger. Lighter.

More alive than he ever was with her.

“I… I never meant to hurt you, Roger,” she said quietly, her eyes dropping to her cuffed hands.

“But you did mean to hurt the woman I love with my whole life,” Roger replied, voice low and laced with disdain.

Rita clenched her fists, the metal cuffs biting into her wrists. The bitterness she thought she buried came bubbling to the surface.

“Why?” she asked, her voice cracking. “Why is it that after all these years, you still couldn’t love me? I was your wife.”

Roger stared at her, and for a long moment, he said nothing. The silence was louder than any accusation.

“You knew my heart belonged to Lily,” he said finally, the words soft but cutting. “Even when I didn’t have the courage to say it out loud. You knew.”

His eyes darkened.

“And yet you stayed. You stayed and you manipulated everything—just to keep your secret safe. You used me, and you used her. You burned down everything we could’ve been. And now you ask why I couldn’t love you?”

Rita flinched at the truth in his voice. It wasn’t just anger—it was disappointment. Loss.

“Tell me, Rita,” he continued, leaning forward slightly. “Can a relationship built on lies make someone forget their true love?”

She swallowed hard, lips trembling.

“I thought maybe… with time, you’d learn to love me. That maybe what we had could become real.”

Roger shook his head, his expression softening only for a moment.

“You wanted a version of me that never existed.”

Rita blinked rapidly, tears threatening to fall.

“You still love her,” she whispered.

“I never stopped,” Roger answered.

And just like that, whatever fragments of hope Rita had clung to, shattered.

She knew the moment she raised a hand against Lily, she had lost Roger forever.

So when her mother and sister fought to pull strings and negotiate her release, she didn’t feel a thing.

No relief.

No hope.

Just silence.

Maybe she had already accepted her fate—after playing such a twisted, relentless game. The man she once used purely for her own advantage had somehow carved out a place in her heart. Slowly, quietly, and without permission.

She remembered how Roger had softened the moment she told him she was pregnant. How his eyes had lit up, how his hands would rest protectively on her stomach, as if already bonding with the life growing inside her.

For a brief time, she’d had it all. His care, his presence, even fragments of the affection she’d so desperately craved.

But then she made the choice—the unforgivable one.

She’d ended the pregnancy. Not for herself, not out of fear, but as a calculated move to bind Roger tighter to her, to become the tragic figure in his life he couldn’t walk away from.

Instead, she shattered everything.

From that day on, the warmth in Roger’s eyes began to fade. The silences grew longer, the distance colder. He never said it outright, but she could see it—feel it—in every glance that passed through her as if she were no longer there.

She had gambled with something sacred…

And lost everything.

“Then I guess there’s nothing much left to talk about,” Rita finally said, her voice steady—too steady.

Roger blinked, momentarily caught off guard. He hadn’t expected her to let go so easily, to finally stop fighting the inevitable.

She didn’t look at him as she rose to her feet. The clink of her handcuffs echoed faintly in the room as she turned away. But just before reaching the door, she paused.

“I’ve already decided to serve the punishment,” she said, her voice quieter now, but clear. “So if Dianna or my mother comes to you, please decline them. I don’t want any more interference. Let this end here.”

She glanced over her shoulder but didn’t meet his eyes. Not really.

Roger’s jaw tightened. Something about her composed demeanor unsettled him—like it wasn’t surrender but a storm that had simply gone still.

“I don’t think that’s possible,” he murmured, voice low.

Rita stopped. Her brows furrowed as she slowly turned back to him.

“What do you mean?” she asked, a sinking feeling pooling in her chest. There was something in Roger’s tone… something frayed and final.

Roger lifted his gaze, and for the first time since he walked in, real sorrow flickered in his eyes.

“Dianna is dead.”

The words hit like a blow. Rita’s breath caught, her world tilting for a moment.

“What?” she whispered, eyes wide, searching his face for any sign that this was a cruel attempt to get back at her.

“She was found murdered at J&K International parking lot. We are still looking for the person who assassinated her.”

Rita stumbled a step back, her mind reeling. “But… no, that—she called me just last week. She said she was working on getting me out. That she had a plan—”

Roger’s silence said it all.

Rita’s shoulders slowly sagged. All the power she had clung to—the manipulation, the cold control—drained from her like sand through her fingers.

“I didn’t think it would come to this,” she whispered, more to herself than to him.

Roger stood, watching her for a long beat. “None of us did.”

There was this silent comfort in his tone that made Rita silently weep for her sister. And maybe this was the only time she would see him.

***

The following day, Dianna’s funeral was held at Hillside Memorial Grounds.

Under a sky painted in shades of ash and mourning, the family gathered—some in silent grief, others weighed down by guilt, confusion, and memories too sharp to speak of.

Kalix and Winter stood among them, side by side, his hand wrapped around hers with quiet firmness. Their fingers interlaced not just in comfort but in solidarity—for the storm that had passed and the one they both sensed was still coming.

Beatrix stood near the front, her shoulders trembling beneath a black shawl, tears cascading freely.

Even Rita, escorted under tight surveillance, had been granted a brief moment to say her goodbye. Shackled but subdued, she stood beside her mother, no longer defiant—just hollow, as if Dianna’s death had taken the last of her fire with it.

Sylvester and the other family members remained a step behind, observing the cremation ritual in stoic silence.

There were no eulogies that rang with love, no speeches overflowing with fond memories. Only murmured prayers, the crackle of the ceremonial flames, and the suffocating scent of sandalwood and smoke.

Winter, however, didn’t shed a tear.

She couldn’t.

Her eyes were fixed ahead, but her mind drifted—caught in the echo of Dianna’s last moments. The desperate grip of her bloodied hand. The tremble in her voice. The haunted final words that refused to leave her.

“They’re coming after you.”

Not a threat. Not even a warning.

Just truth.

Winter hadn’t told Kalix everything. Not yet. But those words clung to her chest like thorns. Because it wasn’t fear she felt—it was clarity.

Dianna, for all her faults and crimes, had believed in something. In someone. She had aligned herself with the shadows, thinking loyalty would protect her. And yet, even she had been discarded like a pawn outplayed.

Winter’s jaw clenched. The flames reflected in her eyes as Dianna’s coffin was slowly consumed by fire—ashes to ashes, secrets to smoke.

“Are you okay?” Kalix whispered, voice low, only for her.

Winter nodded stiffly. “Yes,” she lied, her voice steady, though something inside her was unraveling. “But we need to be ready, Kalix. This isn’t over.”

He looked at her for a long moment, sensing the weight of what she wasn’t saying. Then he tightened his hold on her hand.

“Whatever’s coming,” he said, “they’ll have to go through me first.”

Winter didn’t look at him, but her fingers curled tighter into his.

They watched together as the last of Dianna’s coffin disappeared into the crematorium’s inferno. Her sins burned with it, perhaps, but her final truth remained—echoing in the minds of those left behind.

And as the smoke rose into the dim sky, Winter felt it—the beginning of something far more dangerous than what they’d faced before.