My thumb scrolled down her feed, faster and faster.

Hermès Birkin bags. Cartier panther brooches. The caption read: "Kil says this wildcat looks just like me in bed."

A custom Dior gown on a private yacht.

I wouldn't even dare to look at those brands through a store window. She posted them like cheap groceries.

The more I scrolled, the harder my hands shook.

Until I stopped on a specific photo.

The date was December 24th last year. My birthday.

The picture was suffocatingly intimate. Chloe lay lazily on pure white hotel sheets. A fresh, dark hickey marked her neck. A man's strong hand was tracing her collarbone.

My pupils shrank.

There was a distinct mole on the second joint of that index finger.

I knew that mole. It had touched my face. It had wiped away my sweat. It had been deep inside me.

The caption: "He missed me too much. The snow was too heavy to drive… Baby, don't make me wait so long next time."

My mind exploded.

Last December 24th. The worst blizzard of the year. All of Brooklyn was buried in white.

Killian had called me, sounding exhausted. "Aria, the roads are closed. Snow is too deep. I have to sleep on the floor at the auto shop."

I told him it was okay. I told him to stay warm.

I sat alone with a burnt cupcake. I blew out a single candle. My only wish was for him to work less next year.

I waited for him all night, curled up on the freezing sofa, terrified I'd miss his text.

The next morning, he pushed the door open. He was shivering.

He leaned down and kissed me awake. His nose was like ice. "Sorry for making you wait, baby."

My heart broke for him. I grabbed his freezing hands. I tucked them under my shirt, pressing them to my bare skin to warm him.

"Was it so cold at the shop?" I asked, stroking his hair.

He gave a low "yeah" and buried his guilty face in my neck.

Now I finally understood.

The cold on him didn’t come from any auto shop. It came from that untouchable luxury estate.

From the long nights he spent spinning lies with that woman.

And me?

Like a total idiot, I used my own body to warm the very man who ruled the underworld. The man who sat on his throne and judged me.

I bolted to the bathroom and gagged.

My stomach churned violently. I threw up the tiny bite of that white truffle croissant. Five hundred bucks. Down the drain.

I flushed the toilet. My tears fell into the water without a sound.

With shaking hands, I took a screenshot of Chloe's location tag.

Long Island. The Gold Coast.

I didn't have a car. I took the LIRR train as far as it went, then walked two miles in the freezing snow.

The wind cut my face like glass. My toes went totally numb, but the fire in my chest kept me moving.

When I finally saw the estate, my knees nearly buckled.

It wasn't a mansion. It was a fortress.

Gothic spires. Wrought-iron gates. A sprawling private estate guarded by twelve-foot walls and electrified wire.

I swallowed hard and dragged my frozen feet toward the gates.

"Stop right there!"

A harsh shout broke the silence. Two massive men in black suits stormed out of the guard booth.

One of them reached for his waistband. My breath hitched. It was a real gun.

"Where the hell did this crazy bitch come from? Get lost!"

The guard pulled his gun halfway out of the holster. He didn't point it at me, but the threat was clear.

I opened my mouth, but no sound came out.

My husband.

The man who came home covered in motor oil every day. The man who counted pennies with me over a twenty-dollar bill.

He really was the ruthless Mafia Don everyone feared.

I tried to fool myself that what I overheard was just a crazy joke.

But now, the cold barrel of that gun completely shattered my last illusion.

"You deaf? Move, before I treat you as a hostile." The guard shoved my shoulder hard.

I stumbled back and fell into the snow. My fingers were too frozen to push myself up.

Forget it, Aria, a voice whispered in my head. Leave. You've seen enough.

Just as I forced myself to stand, a deafening engine roared up the driveway.

A blood-red Aston Martin stopped inches from my boots.

The heavy door swung open. A long leg in a black stiletto stepped out, followed by an ankle-length white fox fur coat.

Chloe.

The ruby necklace gleamed against her pale skin. She pulled off her sunglasses and looked down at me. A cruel, mocking smile spread across her red lips.

"Well, well," she murmured, tipping my chin up with a sharp nail. "If it isn't Kil's pathetic little stray from Brooklyn."

I jerked my face away from her touch.

Chloe chuckled. She wasn't angry. She leaned back against her sports car, looking me up and down. Her eyes dragged from my cheap beanie to my soaked sneakers.

"No wonder Kil says you're boring. You look like absolute trash."

I clenched my frozen fists.

"Why do you call him yours?" The voice that came out of my throat was hoarse, raw. It didn't sound like me.

Chloe froze for a second. Then, she threw her head back and laughed.

She laughed so hard her fur coat slipped off her shoulder, exposing the dark bruises on her collarbone.

"Why?" She wiped a tear of pure amusement from her eye. "Oh, honey. You tell me. Why do you think he's yours?"

She took a drag from a slim cigarette. "He is Killian Moretti. The Don of the Moretti family. One of the Five Families of New York."

My ears started ringing.

"Three years ago, a rival family sent six hitmen after him. His real fiancée died in a car bomb." Chloe blew a smoke ring right into my face. "He needed a cover."

"A perfect, civilian cover. A clean, stupid orphan with no background, no status, and zero connections. A 'peasant wife' his enemies would never look twice at."

She stepped closer. Her perfume made my stomach turn.

"Guess why he picked you?" she whispered. "Because you have nobody. Because you live in the slums. Because you'd drop to your knees in gratitude just to marry a broke mechanic."

"You are a human shield, Aria. Bought and paid for with a fifty-dollar silver ring."

I stood paralyzed. The snow fell heavier, burying my shoes.

I felt my soul being ripped out of my chest, piece by piece.

Three years.

I starved myself to save money. I rode my bike through blizzards until my fingers bled to pay our rent.

Turns out, I was just funding a billionaire Don's little game of playing house.

"Kil told me you're actually trying to buy a house." Chloe pouted her lips in mock pity. "A tiny apartment in Brooklyn? Oh, my god, that is so pathetic it actually makes me sad for you."

Suddenly, she reached out and snatched my cheap beanie off my head.

"What is this? Ten-dollar garbage?" She tossed it into a muddy snowbank.

She tapped a glittering diamond clip in her perfect hair. "Know how much this Harry Winston clip costs? Four hundred and eighty thousand dollars. Kil bought it for me last week just because I said I had a bad hair day."

I bit the inside of my cheek until I tasted copper.

“Enough.” I snapped my head up and shoved her finger out of my face. “Stop rubbing it in! That’s between him and me. You don’t get to judge!”

“Ah—!” Chloe shrieked.

I barely even pushed her, but she threw herself backward on purpose.

The steps behind her were slick with ice.

Her forehead smashed against the sharp edge of a Roman pillar. Blood instantly gushed out.

My frozen legs gave out. I crashed hard into the snow.

Thorny dead branches ripped into my palms.

My hands were covered in blood. The pain was blinding.

“Chloe!”

The carved iron gates burst open.

Killian sprinted out, a dozen men in black suits right behind him.

His eyes locked onto Chloe in a pool of blood.

Then his head snapped to me, sitting in the snow, trembling all over.

His pupils contracted. Raw panic and sheer agony flashed in his eyes.

Pure instinct made him take a step toward me.

“Kil… help me…” Chloe sobbed weakly. Blood was dripping into her eyes. “Are you going to let me die… just like you let my brother die?”

That sentence stopped Killian dead in his tracks.

His jaw ticked hard. His eyes went bloodshot. Finally, he turned and scooped the bleeding Chloe into his arms.

He looked at me. His voice was incredibly hoarse.

His eyes were filled with a desperate, pleading look I couldn’t understand.

“Aria, listen to me. Go home right now! It’s too cold out here.” He rushed out the words. “I owe Chloe’s brother my life. I can’t let her die! I have to get her to the family hospital now!”

“Wait for me at home. Be good. I’ll explain everything tonight. The whole truth, okay?”

He didn’t even have time for a second glance. He rushed to the Rolls-Royce with Chloe, never looking back.

Engines roared. The convoy sped off, kicking up icy slush that slapped against my face.

The guards cleared out too. I was left completely alone outside the massive estate gates.

I looked down at my bloody, torn palms.

Suddenly, a bitter laugh escaped my lips. I couldn’t stop it.

Go back to what home? That crappy apartment where you watched me act like a clown, starving myself to save pennies for you?

Explain? Explain how you watched me live in dirt-poor misery for three years? How you sat on your high horse, testing my cheap, worthless devotion?

Burning up with a fever, I walked through the snow for a long, long time.

Until the headlights of a cross-country bus cut through the dark.

I emptied all the cash in my wallet, plus the debit card holding all my part-time pay. $3,274 in total.

The money I meant to use for Killian’s knee pads. For our bills. For our “future.”

I bought a ticket to the West Coast and stepped onto that Greyhound bus heading to the other side of the country.

Save your explanations, Killian.

I will never, ever forgive a calculated lie.

Goodbye forever.