Page 87 of Heart of Stone (Dark Billionaires)

At Brax’s continued silence, the helplessness overflowed. Daniel may not have been the perfect boyfriend. Could she even call him that, when he’d ghosted her after he’d taken her virginity? Her gaze fell to the floor. “Is this what Warren plans? To torture and kill anyone who ever—”

Warren burst into the room, the door slamming against the wall. Paint flaked off, crumbling to the floor. The very sight of him sent Kate scrambling away, but his long legs tore across the room. Shaking with fear, Kate flinched away from him when he opened his mouth to speak.

A ringtone interrupted him.

The tension in Warren’s face drained away. His hand disappeared into his suit pocket, retrieving his phone. Kate caught a glimpse of the caller’s name.

Dr Baranovska

Instead of putting it to his ear, Kate frowned as he answered it on speakerphone. “Stone.”

The accented voice of the obstetrician was a soft, out-of-place echo around the room. “Good afternoon, Mr Stone. The gender and paternity results have just come back from our laboratory. Is now a good time to talk?”

Paternity results?

But that was the least of Kate’s worries. Daniel’s corpse loomed large behind Warren. Moisture brimmed her eyes once more. No, this was not a good time to talk. The father of her child had apparently tortured her ex-boyfriend to death, and he lay in a pool of thick, congealed blood.

She thought of gender reveals, of happy couples learning the gender of their babies in clouds of pink or blue smoke, or popping balloons full of confetti, or even biting into cupcakes, surrounded by excited crowds of well-wishers.

Kate had the burnt corpse of her ex-boyfriend.

It wasn’t what she wanted for her child.

Warren didn’t share Kate’s reluctance. “Yes. The gender. Are they a boy or a girl?”

“A girl,” Dr Baranovska replied.

Incredibly, Warren smiled, his face suddenly lit from within as though they had indeed been transported to some fantastical gender reveal party. Kate blinked up at him, downright anxious at his mercurial mood changes. She had no space in which to rejoice at the news she was having a daughter, but Warren chuckled, rasping a hand over his face. “A baby girl.”

Dr Baranovska continued. “Now, as for the paternity resul—”

Warren cut her off. “Delete them. I already know she’s mine.” He ended the call abruptly, looking down at her with the excitement she’d wanted to see when she’d first told him she was pregnant. His laugh was sweet. “We’re going to have a little girl, kitten.”

Kate couldn’t laugh. Not when Daniel’s corpse stared her in the face. “You tortured and murdered an innocent man,” she whispered, huddling her arms around her middle.

Was that triumph in his expression? “This—” Warren pointed to Daniel’s frozen corpse “—isn’t Daniel. His name was never Daniel. He was never a teacher. This is William Graves.”

Now she was utterly lost. “Excuse me?”

Warren walked over to the metal countertop on the other side of the room, shuffling through a drawer—just under the security camera.

“Were you watching the security feed?” she asked.

He threw a smile over his shoulder. “Clever kitten.”

“Don’t call me that.”

Warren handed her two items: a passport and a driving licence. “Look at these.”

She didn’t have to look for long.

Graves

Mr William Daniel

Swallowing, she gazed at the photograph next to the name.Daniel.There was no mistaking him. Kate opened the passport, coming to the same conclusion.

Warren lifted her chin, holding firm against her attempts to jerk out of his grip. “You told me once that you met him on a dating app. That he disappeared after you’d slept with him.”

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