BILLIONAIRE WAR: WHOSE TWINS ARE THEY?

CHAPTER FIVE

Latoya’s POV

The silence in the penthouse was suffocating.

I sat on the couch, my mind spinning in a relentless loop of panic, regret, and fear. Harry had walked out. He had never done that before—not after an argument, not even after our worst fights.

But this wasn’t just an argument.

He felt betrayed.

I pulled my knees to my chest, hugging myself as I tried to stop the shaking. My chest ached with the weight of everything. Renny. My daughter. My secret. My lie.

Jack had nearly lost control.

For the first time, I had seen a side of him that terrified me. The way his hand had lifted, the way his entire body had trembled with rage—it wasn’t just anger. It was something deeper, something fractured.

I wasn’t naïve. I knew Jack came from a world where power and control were everything. But I had always believed he would never hurt me.

And yet… tonight had changed something.

I reached for my phone on the coffee table, my fingers trembling as I unlocked it. I hesitated before clicking on Jack contact. The call rang. Once. Twice. Then—

Straight to voicemail.

I dropped the phone onto the couch, burying my face in my hands. The tears came then, hot and relentless, streaming down my cheeks as I tried to make sense of the mess I had created. How had it come to this? How had I let things spiral so far out of control?

The sound of the front door opening snapped me out of my thoughts. My heart leapt into my throat as I turned toward the foyer, half-expecting—no, hoping—it was Jack. That he had come back to talk, to fix this, to give me a chance to explain.

But the man who walked through the door wasn’t the Jack I knew. This version of him was cold, distant, and utterly unreadable. His usually warm brown eyes were like shards of ice, and his jaw was set in a hard line. In his hand, he held a manila envelope.

My stomach dropped.

“Jack,” I whispered, my voice barely audible. I stood up, my legs unsteady beneath me. “Please, let’s talk. I can explain—”

“Explain what, Latoya?” he interrupted, his voice low and dangerously calm. “How you’ve been lying to me for years? How you kept something this huge from me? Or maybe you’d like to explain why I had to find out from someone else that you have a daughter?”

His words hit me like a punch to the gut. I flinched, taking a step back as if I could physically distance myself from the pain in his voice. “I was going to tell you,” I said, my voice breaking. “I just… I didn’t know how. I was scared.”

“Scared?” he repeated, his tone dripping with disbelief. “Scared of what? That I’d be angry? That I’d leave you? Because guess what, Latoya—you’ve accomplished both.”

I shook my head, tears streaming down my face. “Jack, please. I made a mistake. I know that. But we can fix this. We can—”

“No,” he said sharply, cutting me off. “We can’t fix this. Not this time.”

He stepped forward, thrusting the envelope into my hands. I stared down at it, my heart pounding in my chest. I didn’t need to open it to know what was inside. The weight of it, the finality of it, was enough to make my knees buckle.

“Divorce papers,” he said, his voice devoid of emotion. “I’ve already signed them. All you need to do is sign, and this will be over.”

“Over?” I choked out, looking up at him. “Just like that? You’re just going to throw away everything we’ve built?”

“You threw it away the moment you decided to keep this from me,” he said, his voice rising for the first time. “You had no right, Latoya. No right to keep a child from me. No right to lie to me for all these years.”

“I was trying to protect her!” I cried, my voice breaking. “I was trying to protect you! Do you have any idea what your world is like? What it would have done to her? To us?”

“That wasn’t your decision to make,” he said, his voice cold and final. “You don’t get to decide what’s best for me, or for her.”

I opened my mouth to argue, to plead, to say anything that might make him change his mind. But the look in his eyes stopped me. There was no warmth there, no love. Just pain and betrayal.

“Sign the papers, Latoya,” he said, turning toward the door. “I’ll have my lawyer contact you to finalize everything.”

“Jack, wait!” I called after him, desperation clawing at my chest. But he didn’t stop. He didn’t even look back. The door slammed shut behind him, the sound echoing through the penthouse like a gunshot.

I sank to the floor, the envelope clutched tightly in my hands. My mind raced, trying to find a way out of this, a way to fix what I had broken. But deep down, I knew it was too late. The damage was done.

I had lost him.

And now, I was going to lose everything.

---

The hours passed in a blur. I sat on the floor, staring at the envelope in my hands, unable to bring myself to open it. The weight of it felt like a death sentence, a final nail in the coffin of the life I had built with Jack.

When the sun began to rise, casting a pale light through the floor-to-ceiling windows, I finally found the strength to move. I stood up, my legs stiff and aching, and carried the envelope to the kitchen table. I poured myself a glass of water, my hands shaking so badly that I spilled half of it.

I sat down at the table, staring at the envelope. I knew I couldn’t put it off any longer. With a deep breath, I opened it and pulled out the stack of papers inside. My eyes scanned the words, but they barely registered. All I could see was Jack signature at the bottom, bold and final.

I reached for a pen, my hand trembling as I held it over the line where I was supposed to sign. But I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t bring myself to make it official, to admit that this was really the end.

The sound of my phone ringing startled me, and I nearly dropped the pen. I glanced at the screen, my heart leaping when I saw Renny’s name. I answered the call, my voice barely above a whisper.

“Renny?”

“Mum…..I need you!”