The Don Tore Up Our Divorce (Gemma and Cassian) novel Chapter 422

Chapter 422
Gemma’s POV

Watching the wary, defensive flicker in Sandra’s eyes sends a cold, clear wave of satisfaction through me. I’m not a vengeful person by nature. My moral code is simple: live and let live. Don’t start trouble with me, and we won’t have any. But if you’re foolish enough to poke the hornet’s nest with a stick, you don’t get to complain when it rains down on your perfectly coiffed head. If she wants to peel back the scabs on my life, I’m more than happy to rip the gaudy, tattered curtain off the Collin family’s little stage.

“That particular massage parlor,” I say, my voice laced with false helpfulness, “isn’t just famous for its male therapists, you know. I’ve heard the female staff are also exceptionally… skilled.”

I know this by pure accident. 

Back when Claire was trying to set me up, Reyna, in a rare moment of useful spite, had exposed Claire’s fondness for that establishment. 

I had sent Zina to do some quiet reconnaissance. Zina, being Zina, didn’t just take notes. She became a one-woman paparazzi squad, capturing over a hundred photos from every conceivable angle. 

The images were so graphic, so compromising, that just having them in my gallery felt legally precarious. I had never intended to use them. 

Zoey was already dealt with; blackmailing Aaron Collin held no appeal. The file had sat in a secured folder on my phone, forgotten… until now. 

Sandra’s face undergoes a fascinating transformation, the pallor chased by a flush of furious blood. She glares at me, a cornered animal trying to project dominance. “Gemma, don’t try to bluff me. I’m not some naive girl you can intimidate.”

I can’t decide if she’s being cautious or willfully obtuse. “Mrs. Collin,” I ask, tilting my head, “have you ever wondered why? Zoey is the Collin family’s treasured only daughter. Yet after her arrest, Aaron never once approached me. Not a call, not a threat, not a lawyer’s letter. Nothing.”

The thought hangs in the air. Aaron Collin didn’t build his fortune by being a pushover. He’s a shark. The fact that he left me completely alone after I was the catalyst for his daughter’s imprisonment… it’s a glaring anomaly in the world of powerful, vengeful men. Sandra should be able to connect those dots.

She scoffs, the sound brittle. “You? You’re just a woman who clings to men for survival. First Cassian, now the head of Dream International. You’re always orbiting some powerful man. You’re nothing on your own.”

The projection is almost impressive in its audacity. “You could always ask Aaron yourself what he knows,” I reply, my gaze dripping with undisguised contempt. People who shout the loudest about others’ flaws are usually describing their own reflection.

I pull out my phone. My movements are deliberate, calm. I open the long-dormant album. With a few precise taps, I don’t need Sandra’s number. The Wi-Fi here is strong, and the digital walls between devices are like tissue paper to me. I select the most damning, yet strategically non-explicit, images and execute a simple broadcast command to every device on the network.

Finally, she lowers the phone. She tries to salvage it, her voice trembling with forced defiance. “These… these can be faked! Anyone with Photoshop can create this! AI! Why should I believe you?” She points a shaking finger at me, attempting to shift the narrative. “Gemma, what is your game here? Manufacturing evidence to slander my family?”

It’s the last, desperate gambit of someone with no cards left: to slander the source and deny the medium. Sandra’s voice climbs an octave, trying to make it a performance for the gathered crowd. 

“These are clearly fabrications! Digital forgeries!” 

She’s trying to plant the seed of doubt, to claw back some shred of dignity from the wreckage..I simply shake my head, almost amused by the desperation. 

“If I’d gone to the trouble of fabricating these, wouldn't I have brought them to you, or to Aaron, immediately? I would have liked a private payoff for silence. Why would I sit on them for months only to release them publicly now, at a charity gala, for free?”

I watch her flounder, her mouth opening and closing. A cold smirk touches my lips. “If you hadn’t shoved me and spilled your wine, Mrs. Collin, these pictures would have stayed buried on my phone until the end of time. You brought this spotlight on yourself.”