Chapter 3

After hanging up, Chloe leaned back on the sofa and continued to gush about her husband.

"Jessica, I really have to brag about my husband. He's the best man I've ever met."

She scrolled through her social media feed and showed it to me.

"He always says I'm young and need to see the world, so he takes me on a trip every month."

"Last month we went skiing in the Alps, and next month he's booked a helicopter to take us to see the Northern Lights."

The screen was filled with photos of them doing extreme sports all over the world.

I swiped through them one by one.

In one photo, Kevin, dressed in a ski suit, held her close from behind.

The next showed them bungee jumping off a cliff. Kevin held her protectively in his arms, his gaze so intense it seemed to burn.

In another, they were at a private shooting range. He stood behind her, his hands covering hers, teaching her how to hold a gun.

In every photo, he smiled with a wild, uninhibited joy. It was a look I hadn't seen on his face in years.

If not for these pictures, I might have forgotten that before Kevin, I was the beloved jewel of the Moretti family, a firebrand of the criminal underworld.

Shooting, racing, skydiving… I loved all those extreme sports. But every time I suggested them to Kevin, trying to get him to join me, he would just wave it off.

"Jess, I just want to live a quiet, stable life now. That exciting stuff isn't for us anymore."

"Just be a good wife, take care of the family, and that'll be enough."

And so, for him, I had willingly sheathed all my sharp edges.

It turned out it wasn't that those things "weren't for him," they just weren't for him to do with me.

My eyes began to sting.

"He really loves you."

"He does. I'm so lucky." Chloe rested her chin on her knees, her eyes crinkling with a smile. "It's all thanks to his gold-digging ex-wife who abandoned him that I got to meet such a wonderful man."

Ex-wife? Gold-digging?

My fingers tightened around the glass.

"Your husband… was married before?"

"Mhm." Chloe pouted, her expression immediately filling with contempt. "I heard his ex-wife was an incredibly greedy woman."

"She took all his savings and ran off with some lowlife. No one has heard from her since."

"They didn't even finalize the divorce."

"My husband feels bad about it, so to make it up to me, he's willing to buy me anything and everything."

She was still rambling on, but I had nearly forgotten how to breathe.

In the story Kevin had woven, I had become the despicable woman who ran off with all the money, a promiscuous tramp.

And he was the poor, betrayed victim.

"That's just his side of the story," I said, my voice hoarse. "Has it ever occurred to you that he might be lying?"

"Even if he lies to me, his mother wouldn't, right?"

Chloe shook her head and held out her wrist for me to see.

A diamond bracelet flashed with a cold, unrelenting light.

"Two years ago, in the fall, on the day we got engaged, his mother put this bracelet on my wrist herself. She said it was worth a hundred thousand dollars and was meant to make up for things."

"She also said that if her son ever dared to mistreat me, she would be the first one to make him pay."

The blood in my veins ran cold.

That hundred thousand dollars was my money.

Two years ago that fall, my mother-in-law, Lily, urgently needed an expensive experimental treatment.

She had held my hand, tears streaming down her face. "Jessica, Kevin is working so hard. I can't bear to make him worry about me. Please, I'm begging you to save my life."

"Once I get through this, I will absolutely make it up to you."

My heart had softened, and I hadn't doubted her for a second.

I hadn't brought much with me from my family and didn't want to contact my parents, so I opened the private safe I rarely touched.

Inside were some antique jewels left to me by my maternal grandmother, including a gemstone-encrusted brooch.

It was also the emergency token I had brought with me, a symbol of my status as a Moretti princess.

I took it to the most discreet appraiser in the city and quietly sold it for what felt like a pittance: one hundred thousand dollars.

I had always believed that money had saved her life.

I just never imagined she never had the surgery at all.

That money, my goodwill, and my family heirloom had all become bargaining chips for her son to win over his new lover.

I thought I had grown numb to this marriage, but as another truth was unveiled, my heart was still torn apart.

The overwhelming absurdity felt like an invisible hand choking me, and the room began to spin.

"Jessica, are you finished?" Chloe put down her napkin and jumped up to take my hand.

"We've been talking for so long. Want to come see my apartment?"

"It's really close. I get so bored being alone."

This time, I didn't refuse. I followed her out of the restaurant.

I wanted to see what kind of home Kevin had built for this woman.

It wasn't until we walked up to the most luxurious high-rise directly across the street from my own building that I stopped.

I looked up, and the irony almost made me laugh out loud. My eyes stung with unshed tears.

This building was directly across from our home. The two buildings were separated by a street barely a block wide.

It meant that for two whole years, Kevin had been keeping another woman in a home right under my nose, in an apartment we could see from our own balcony.

No wonder he always said he was working late and would just sleep at the office.

It turned out his so-called office was right across the street, visible from my window.

And I, like a blind fool, had been kept in the dark, never suspecting a thing.

Inside the elevator, we ran into one of Chloe's neighbors.

"Chloe, all by yourself today?" the woman asked with a teasing smile. "Your husband isn't following you around like a puppy dog for once? The whole building is talking about how much he pampers you."

The neighbor's face was full of envy. "We're all so jealous of your lovey-dovey relationship!"

My fingertips tightened. "Her husband is usually that clingy?"

"More than that," the neighbor said, amused. "He does whatever Chloe says. Makes her breakfast, does the laundry himself. Where can you find a man like that these days?"

Chloe shyly covered her hot cheeks. "Oh, stop it, you guys. Don't tease me."

The elevator door opened with a ding. I took a deep breath and followed her out.