031 | Chapter Thirty-One - Is it over?

Who exactly is the hidden man?

The signs of spring began to spread across the land, with lush green branches and flowers blooming in profusion. Xiaoyue happily watered the flowers in the courtyard, tending to the plants and humming a song with ease.

Two months have passed since Mary's incident.

Although she often doubts herself, wondering if she has gone too far, or... not done enough?

As she fell into deep thought, the watering can in her hand stopped mid-air, the glistening water cascading down, shimmering brilliantly in the warm sunlight—

A pair of hands wrapped tightly around her from behind, and almost without warning, began to kiss her neck and ears passionately.

"Ugh...! Vincent!" As the watering can slipped from her hand, Diaz caught it and placed it neatly on the low table beside her.

"What are you thinking about? I've called you three times already, and you didn't hear me?" His voice was deep, but there was no reproach in it. His eyes were full of doting affection as he slowly turned her around to face him.

Xiaoyue blinked. So Diaz had called her earlier?

He sighed, his rough fingertips tracing her cheek, as if he could already see some doubt in her blue eyes, and uncertainty about her own choice.

"Thinking about Mary?" He didn't beat around the bush and asked directly.

Xiaoyue was also startled by this question that struck her heart, and she lowered her head without saying a word.

Seeing her reaction, Diaz swept her up with one arm and easily lifted her up, allowing her to reach the top of the pergola, where a beautiful cluster of wisteria blossoms swayed in the breeze.

The delicate petals swayed between Xiaoyue's fingertips, their beauty calming the mind.

"As I said, I will support all the decisions you make." He looked at Xiaoyue's gloomy profile, his tone firm, "and I will make sure your decisions are fully implemented."

"So that bitch Mary can't escape, she'll be stuck in that lousy brothel for the rest of her life..." Diaz held her in his arms as if she were weightless, and strode toward the bedroom.

But what Xiaoyue found most complicated was far more than that; it was...

"That child, in the end, is innocent, and also..." She knew she had boasted that she was "not a saint," but the thought of the child who was about to be born, who might now be destined to live in the red-light district for the rest of her life because of her decision, was unbearable.

This sense of guilt was something she hadn't anticipated.

But then Diaz spoke up.

"Child? You really think that's my seed?" Diaz placed her on the bed and swiftly took her place. "I checked, that woman is truly vicious."

"The child in her belly isn't my child, it's that damned 'Marceo Grant's' child! Using something like that as a bargaining chip? I've never seen anything like it before!" His eyes were fierce, his brown pupils icy, yet his tone was the same gentleness he used when speaking to Xiaoyue, and—

"That child was strangled to death by Mary herself at birth."

She looked at Diaz in astonishment, seemingly unable to process what she had just heard.

"Strangled...to death?" Xiaoyue repeated those words, a wave of bitterness washing over her, mixed with incomprehension and contempt. "Your own child...you strangled him to death with your own hands?"

Diaz lay on his side beside her, his fingertips twirling the ends of her glossy black hair, his expression darkening. "After she went to the brothel to pick up her first customer, the child was in a hurry to be born."

"She seemed to insist that the child was her father's, so our people took him for genetic testing. When she heard the report, she went crazy and killed the child herself."

"...He's gone mad now." Diaz's tone held no regret, not even a trace of pity, as if he had long been accustomed to such things. If one had to say something, it would only be his tenderness and concern for Xiaoyue.

But no matter what, this development was something Xiaoyue hadn't expected... Yes, she hated Mary. She hated Mary for bringing misfortune and threats into the Diaz family, and she also hated Mary for her mad desire to possess Diaz, destroying her heart and almost causing the two of them to go their separate ways.

She wanted Mary to suffer a fate worse than death, to torment her, but when she got her wish, she didn't feel the satisfaction she had imagined...

"I thought... I could take this calmly, even applaud it, and say she deserved it." Xiaoyue gently tugged at his shirt, her blue eyes lowered, her brows furrowing slightly, her voice muffled, "But I've realized that this isn't as easy as I imagined..."

As soon as he finished speaking, Diaz pulled her into his arms and patted her back soothingly.

"No one... can push someone off a cliff and then pretend nothing happened and continue living their life." His deep voice vibrated in his chest, steady as if giving her strength, "...not even me."

"But I know very well what I want, what I have to give up, and what sins I have to bear on my shoulders." Diaz gently pulled her away, placed a kiss on her forehead, and revealed a gentle expression that he only showed in front of her.

"The reason I've always kept you out of the underworld is because I don't want to see your face... with that expression."

Xiaoyue looked at him. Although the guilt in her heart still existed, his words were like the morning dew, nourishing the tips of her leaves. The warm feeling immediately spread to every cell in her limbs.

"Mary deserves what she got for her sins," Diaz added earnestly, his brown eyes instantly turning serious. "Even if you hadn't decided to do it this way, my original method was far more cruel than yours."

He gently rubbed against Xiao Yueguang's bare shoulder, his gaze gradually deepening.

"Now... I don't want to talk about other women anymore."

"I just want to hold my woman tight..."

After he finished speaking, his large hand gripped the back of Xiaoyue's neck, leaving her no room to dodge. His gentle yet forceful kiss was an irresistible kiss on her sweet, intimate spot that belonged only to him.

Her breathing grew heavier, and Xiaoyue's clothes were already disheveled, hanging half-covering her body, neither fully revealing her skin nor allowing her to take them off in an ambiguous way.

"Ha... Husband...! Mmm!" The crisp sound of flesh colliding echoed in the room. Even though it was only ten o'clock in the morning, he was like an impatient big boy, loving his most cherished toy again and again.

"Call me 'husband' a few more times... I like it..." he shouted gruffly, holding her thigh with one hand and thrusting his waist hard into her body. The corners of his mouth were deeply curved, as if he were admiring some beautiful treasure. His loving eyes could not be hidden at all.

Under his frenzied thrusting, Xiaoyue lost consciousness several times, but she seemed to gradually understand that Diaz was trying to make her forget her guilt through this crude method. It was also as if he was telling her—this is something you shouldn't have to worry about.

All you need to do is stay by my side and be yourself.

However, in one of the underground casinos on Zhongjie Street—

"Damn it! Damn it! Damn it!" A dilapidated stool was slammed against the wooden wall with a loud thud. The man roared, and some black streaks appeared on his short orange-red hair, which seemed to be newly grown hair.

"That useless Mary! I should never have partnered with her!" Marcheo clutched his hair, his chest heaving violently, his wide eyes showing he was on the verge of collapse.

"I finally managed to falsify those reports..."

"That damned old dog thought he was going to die... and now the entire East Coast has issued a kill order against me?" He punched the wall, scraping his knuckles and leaving bright red marks.

"Ten years... I've been keeping this thread buried for ten years..."

"To lose to a damn bitch, damn it!" Marcheo roared again, losing control and venting his anger on the chairs and tables around him, causing the wooden furniture to fall to pieces and the floor to be covered with fragments.

The casino was pitch black and empty of other customers. Only a dim light shone on the gambling table, and the scattered fragments around created an eerie scene. Smoke swirled lightly around the red and white chips.

A hand adorned with expensive jewelry and featuring distinct knuckles gently toyed with the chips, chuckling softly.

"You just can't keep your composure."

"At the gambling table, opponents who wear their emotions on their sleeves are always easier to deal with than those old foxes." The man raised his cigarette and took a deep breath.

Then it slowly exhaled, like a thick fog obscuring the cards and numbers on the gambling table—

"The game isn't over yet; never let your opponent see your cards." The voice was flat and still, like a lake in the mountains, yet it carried an undeniable power.

His short, silvery-white hair shimmered in the dim light. Mário listened to his words, finally swallowing his violent impulse, lighting a cigarette, and saying nothing more.