In Love With His Coldhearted Mafia Brother

“What are you doing?”“What does it look like?”I turned and walked out slamming the door with enough force behind me that everyone walking the hallway stopped to see what was going on.I made it to the sidewalk outside the hotel before my legs began to shake again. I stumbled into the first alley I saw, leaned against the cold brick, and threw up the little I had for dinner.When there was nothing left, I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand, but the shaking got worse.What am I going to do?I blinked the tears away, sniffling. Jace was my everything. How could I be so stupid. Believing his business trips and meetings even on unusual days?!I should've seen it before it all got to this.In a few hours I would've been walking down the aisle with a chronic cheat, a liar, a man who only saw his wife and kid as an asset. I should've known when he flaunted us whenever a talk about his stepbrother came to us. Taunting him for not having a child yet. I should've known when he got angry b

Three hours later, I stood outside the wedding venue in a dress I'd borrowed from Chloe's closet. It was sleek, black, and entirely inappropriate for a wedding guest or even the bride who was exceptionally late. Fortunately Dan was sweet enough to send us the footage from the hallway to the room Jace and his whore booked. The walls are thin to a fault so besides the footage of them shoving their tongues down each other's throat before they even made it to the room, there was also a recording of what he had said and the back and forth moans.Chloe stood on one side of me, and our friend Mira on the other. Mira ran a local blog about city gossip since her senior year in high school. Since she couldn't bag a job as a journalist she decided to take the blog seriously, and the gleam in her eye told me she already knew exactly what kind of story this was about to become."You sure about this?" Mira asked quietly."I've never been more sure of anything. Jace will pay for ruining my life."T

Chloe appeared at my side before I could say another word to him, her hand finding my elbow with a grip that said she'd let me have my moment but now it was over."We've got a problem," she murmured close to my ear, her voice low enough that only I could hear. “Car won't start. Something with the battery, I think. I've been trying to call the technician but his line isn't going through.”I blinked at her, the fog in my brain struggling to shift from Dante to the problem at hand. “What?”“Car. Won't. Start.” She jerked her head toward the street where Mira was already standing by the hood, looking at her phone with growing impatience while Lily slept against her shoulder. "I'll have to go get him."Dante cleared his throat. “I can drop you off.”I turned back to face him, my heart stuttering at how close he'd moved without me noticing. “No. That's—no. Thank you, but we're fine. We'll just call a taxi.”“Eva.” I should probably ask him to stop calling my name like that. “You have a slee

I didn't answer, I really couldn't answer. Because what was there to say? Yes, I kissed a stranger in a bar hallway twelve hours before my wedding . Yes, I let him drive me home and carry my sleeping daughter to the couch while my heart pounded like a teenager's who just had her first kiss.Half measures had never been my strength if we're being honest, but that's not the point. What I did was wrong and it's never happening again. Chloe can have a field day just this one. But she seemed to sense that I'd reached my limit for interrogation. She squeezed my shoulder once, then busied herself making tea in the small kitchenette.The tea was chamomile, because Chloe knew me too well. I wrapped my hands around the warm mug and let the heat seep into my fingers while she sat across from me on the floor, her back against the couch, her own mug cradled against her chest.“We'll figure it out,” she said quietly. “Jace is an idiot, seriously don't let him get to you.” She rolled her eyes. “Eve

“It could be something really important, urgent.” Chloe squeezed my arm.I wasn’t angry about it…honestly I wasn't. Yes it's…what's the word? Sad? Disappointing? It was sad, but I never made a big deal out of it so for me it wasn't.But I was looking forward to it since I had nothing else to do today, and Chloe noticed. So when she announced that we were getting ice cream whether I liked it or not, I didn't argue. Maybe sugar would help, fresh air, at least I get to move around, and that was the distraction I needed that made me accept the meet up in the first place.The ice cream shop was two blocks from the apartment, a tiny pastel-colored building that had been there since I could remember. Chloe ordered vanilla with sprinkles and chocolate sauce, and I got vanilla and white chocolate chips in a cup.“You're doing that thing again,” she said, licking her spoon.“What thing?”“What are you calculating, I'm the one paying, it's my treat.”I stabbed my spoon into the ice cream. “I'm n