CHAPTER EIGHTY-ONE

#Dorothy’s POV#

I didn’t cry.

That’s something, right?

Even though I wanted to. Even though my chest still feels cracked in half from how everything unfolded yesterday. Even though I sat outside at that damned spa villa for hours staring at the hot spring pool and thinking about all the ways I got played like a fool again… I didn’t cry.

I just kept telling myself—“you already knew better.”

Because deep down, I did.

I knew Rico was too good to be true. I knew this whole thing, all of it, from the moment Joel opened his mouth and suggested it, was messed up.

Twisted. Inhumane. I knew.

But it’s the way he said it.

The way Rico made it so clear that money, his failing life, his unfinished business, was his only real concern—that’s what’s killing me now. The way he stared through me like I was another bill he shouldn’t have signed up for.

I thought we had something.

I thought that night meant something.

Turns out it was a glitch in the system.

A fucking joke.

And I’m the punchline.

I spent