The Dark Side Of Fate by Karima Sa'ad Usman

66 The Journal of Worms

~Tamia~

I woke in the morning with a bit of morning sickness. So I rushed to the bathroom and threw up what was left of my dinner from last night. Sylvester joined me in the bathroom and rubbed my back gently. Belongs to (N)ôvel/Drama.Org.

Knowing why I was throwing up, neither of us was bothered.

He kissed the top of my head, and I wiped my lips gently and smiled at him.

"Good morning," he said to me, gently patting my hair. I smiled in response. We sat down on the bathroom floor.

Sylvester placed his hand on my stomach and rubbed gently.

"I can't wait to meet our baby, Tamia," He said, and I gently touched his hand on my tummy.

"We still have a long way to go; it's flat," I pointed out, and we laughed.

We got ready for the day and headed downstairs. I could not wait to go through the journals.

As much as I wanted to get to the bottom of things, I was curious about Jenny's life because the woman had a lot of skeletons in her closet and seemed a bit eccentric.

"Good morning," Linda said, smiling at me, and her smile was extra, which made me know Theodore had done a lot of work.

"Good morning," I greeted her and Theodore, and he smiled at me while rubbing her back.

Avery and Marcel were yet to join us.

Sylvester pulled out a seat for me to sit down. I sat and looked at Linda. She was glowing. She looked nothing like the Linda that I used to know. It was amazing what true love could do to someone. We were lucky.

We came to the north as war prisoners and found love in the process. Like in the east when our husbands were friends, likewise in the north. It was amazing to see how intertwined our destinies were. It was still in the very same order.

"Where is Marcel?" Sylvester asked Theodore, and he smiled.

"They will soon join us, I hope," Theodore answered, and Sylvester laughed. I knew there was a subtle exchange between the men, which we weren't privy to, so I squeezed my man's thigh.

"Have you decided what our team would wear during the polo?" Theodore asked Sylvester, and he shook his head.

"Maybe our women would decide that," Sylvester said, lifted my hand and kissed it.

"I want to look sexy while you cheer me on during our games," he said, and I smiled at him.

"That is an easy colour. Black polo shirt and white trousers. Black and white everything," I said, and he nodded.

"As you wish, my Lady," he said, and I felt tingles.

"I am so excited about the ball before the sports games begin. I learned everyone would be there," Linda said, and I wondered why she would be excited. Then it hit me that our exes might be coming for the games, but I also knew that the east and most of the south were never invited to the all- region games.

"You will get to rub it in his face one day, Linda but not at the games. They never invite the east," I linked her, and her smile dropped. She really wanted to laugh at Kyle. I could understand. Theodore was an upgrade from the douchebag.

Theodore was a powerful Alpha and third in command of our world. A position Kyle could never dream of. It would have been nice if she and Avery got the chance to rub the joy on their faces. Call it petty, but there was a true satisfaction that would come with their pain and disbelief. I knew one day it would happen, and no matter how much they claimed not to care, they would because the women had an upgrade.

Avery joined us with Marcel, and with how they looked, I knew what they had been up to.

Marcel did not button all the way up, meaning they were in a rush, and Avery looked like she packed her hair before tumbling in the sheets. She couldn't take the time to comb and pack the hair again, so she decided to pat it and fix herself up.

"Shall we eat?" Sylvester said, and we dug in.

I ate everything. My appetite was over the roof, and Sylvester kept adding things to my plate.

Breakfast ended, and I was the first to leave the table to head to where we kept the journals.

There were six journals altogether, and somehow it wasn't a daily record of her life; browsing through the page, I realised she only recorded significant events.

"Read aloud, Tamia," Marcel said. We were all eager for answers, so we sat in the living room, and I picked the oldest journal, judging by the dates, to read.

"Today was the worst day of my life. I told Maurice I would like to have a baby with him, and he shut it down. He said he already has one bastard; he can't have another. It really hurt because I love him so much, and it would be a gift to have a baby with him," I finished.

It wasn't informative, but we now knew how Maurice felt about having a baby with her; maybe that is why the baby is nowhere.

I flipped through, looking for something significant.

Jenny seemed the type to rant a lot, and I wasn't surprised. She was alone most of her life, so she was bound to rave in her journals. Everyone needed an outlet, and this was hers, especially since she had dirty disgraceful secrets.

"Maurice punished me today because I wanted something permanent. He told me he did not like Stephanie anymore, but he flared up when I asked him to make me his Luna. He did the worst thing ever to me, and I will never forgive him for it. Asking his friends to share me with him was the most humiliating thing ever. He wanted me to know how he saw me, as his whore. I might not be in his harem, but I wasn't different from them in his eyes. I was foolish to think he would fall in love with me." It read, and I could not feel sorry for her because Stephanie was her friend. She got what she deserved.

"It is clear that Maurice is lying to me. I know he loves Stephanie; I can see it in his eyes now he has banned me from speaking her name. I hate that bitch so much," it read, and we laughed.

"I think we should skip that book and read the later ones," Sylvester said, disgusted by the content of the journal I was reading.

"No, please let her read some more pages, and we will move to the next one," Marcel said and looked at me.

"Read an interesting bit, Tamia," He said. It was clear we all believed she got treated the way she should.

" Alissa is a bitch, and I will put her in her place. How dare she take him from me. I have to find a way to get to her. I do not know how, but I will start somewhere. Friendship always makes it easy. I will try and be her friend and pretend to support her against Stephanie. The woman is a thief and a menace, and she needs to be sent back to where she belongs," It read, and I could only imagine her state of mind when she wrote it.

I dropped the journal and went for the second to the last one. The one she started the year Maurice would go on Pilgrimage.

"You will skip all these ones?" Linda asked, and I nodded.

"The woman is mad and obsessed with her lover. Unless we want a whole day of how she feels about all the women the wolf lord was screwing, we need to move on from them," I said, and Linda was silent.

"You know you can read them at your leisure. I plan to do so," I told her, and she smiled at me.

I picked up the book and opened it.

I flipped through the pages and found a relevant entry.

"Today, I was wronged to my soul. Maurice has never spoken of my son. He behaves as if he does not exist. He even favours his bastard over my son. Planning to make David head of the council is just wicked. I have to alert Stephanie. I am sure she would be mad, and she might fight him. Who knows, Maurice may snap and dump her arse. If he does, he will definitely come to me, and I can find a way to get my son back," It read; now we understand why she bothered to alert Stephanie about Maurice's decision.

We also knew she had a son who was not with her. Clearly, she wasn't in her son's life and might not know where he was. It sounded like Maurice took her son from her, but I could not draw

conclusions yet.

The other pages showed how she and Stephanie would ensure that Dominic got the Balyaev seat. She indeed planned on double-crossing Stephanie in that regard; the woman was vile.

I picked up the last journal and read most of its content until I could not read it aloud anymore.

Jenny had made several entries that could get Stephanie in trouble. It was part of her final records.

"What is it?" Avery asked me, and I tried to play it off.

"Nothing interesting; we should go through the files," I said, and they agreed.

Linda picked up the first journal while I held onto the last one.

"Are you alright, green-eyes?" Sylvester linked me, and I looked at him.

"We need to talk in private," I linked him back.

"Is it about something that is in that book?" he asked me through the mind link, and I nodded.

"Go upstairs; I will join you," He said, and I pretended to have a stomach upset and would read the journal while in the toilet. So I headed up to the room. I entered, sat on the bed and read the pages.

"I have always known that Stephanie was behind Maurice and his officers' death. She had denied it, but now I have proof. Today I received a letter from my spy in the south. An anonymous person sent the letter to Devin, claiming that the wolf lord was planning to attack and take over the south. The content of the letter was wicked. The writer had described the route the wolf lord would take, his alias and the company he was travelling with, where he would stay, and the time he should attack. The sender also lied that the wolf lord was travelling with a secret army. The writer gave Devin the

details he needed to strike and succeed. Only one person would have this much information on Maurice: Stephanie.

I have scanned the letter and emailed it to her. I have also threatened to expose her so she would bear the full wrath of her punishment. Once she is put on trial, we can easily say that she connived with her sons to have their father killed so they can take over the lordship and head the council. It will automatically disqualify them, and Sylvester and Dominic will not ascend. I will have the last laugh." It read, and my hands began to shake.

I read the rest of the contents; Jenny had blackmailed Stephanie with the letter for five years.

According to the entries, Stephanie denied writing it. She even told Jenny not to hurt her son's reputation with the lies. Jenny found her pleas amusing and wrote about how she enjoyed tormenting Stephanie with the letter.

We needed to confront Stephanie, and she needed to come clean so Sylvester would know how to deal with the matter.

Just then, Sylvester walked in, and I looked at him with fear in my eyes.

"Jenny was a very disturbed woman," I said, and he frowned and came to sit with me on the bed.

"You have to confront your mother, Sylvester, and she better come clean," I said, and he asked me why.

"Because Jenny claims she was the one that got your father and his friends killed. Jenny got a letter someone sent Devin and mailed your mother a copy. She has been blackmailing your mother for five years now," I said, and he was in shock.

I could only imagine what was going on in his mind.

Even if Stephanie did not do it, the wolf lord's death was a serious matter. Now I understood why Stephanie was hell-bent on Sylvester taking revenge. If someone had already been punished for the crime, she can't be tried for the same offence; no one would dig since the culprit has been dealt with.

As much as I knew Maurice deserved it, Devin wasn't lying when he said the Wolf Lord trespassed. He was made to believe the wolf lord had trespassed by whoever sent the letter.