Page 74

In one picture, Nick has one hand on her neck and the other on her breast. And the last one is a screenshot of Nick’s contact—probably proof that it’s his number and the conversation is real.

The phone slips from my grip and crashes to the marble floor with a sharp, echoing sound. My heart feels like it stops. Like something just tore straight through my chest.

“Sierra?” Thalia sits upright, alarmed. Her voice cuts through the sudden ringing in my ears. “What’s going on?”

She sees my frozen expression, the tears welling rapidly in my eyes, the way my body is locked in place—paralyzed.

“Ser, talk to me.”

But I can’t speak. My throat tightens like a fist. A strangled sob rips from my lungs and I collapse, knees buckling as the weight in my chest drags me down.

My body trembles violently, and hot tears pour uncontrollably down my cheeks, stinging like acid. I clutch my stomach, trying to hold myself together—but it’s useless. I’m unraveling.

Thalia scrambles to grab the phone from the floor, her fingers trembling now, too. She reads the messages and swipes through the photos, her face darkening instantly.

“What the actual hell? Who the fuck is Samantha?” she asks sharply, her voice laced with disbelief and anger. “Do you think this is real? You have to talk to Nick first…”

I push myself up off the couch, gasping for air like I’m drowning. My chest is tight, my vision blurred. I can barely see. I can barely think.

I sink to the floor beside the couch and cradle my head in my hands, my fingers digging into my scalp like I could claw the pain out.

“She’s that puck-bunny I told you about,” I whisper hoarsely, barely able to breathe, “from the Hockey Gala. The one he slept with. The one who kept coming onto him even while I was standing there as his fiancée.”

My voice cracks, then erupts into a broken, heart-wrenching yell.

“And he never stopped her, Thalia. I realize now that he never said a word in my defense.”

My body shakes with sobs. My lungs burn. My skin feels too tight on my bones. Everything inside me aches.

“My husband got another woman pregnant. He cheated on me.”

Thalia drops down beside me, pulling me into her arms with force, holding me like I’m going to fall apart completely. And maybe I am.

“No, no, Ser, please—don’t jump to conclusions. It could be fake. You don’t know anything yet.”

But I don’t hear her anymore. My mind spirals, sucked into a black hole of betrayal and pain. This was my worst fear—Nick not being capable of being with just one woman. And I had given him everything. My heart. My trust. My future.

I handed him every piece of me.

And he shattered both. So carelessly. So easily.

Suddenly, a wave of anger surges through me—hot and fast and unforgiving.

I push away from Thalia’s embrace and get to my feet on shaky legs, every cell in my body screaming to move, to run, to do something.

“I need to get out of here,” I say, my voice hollow but burning with hurt. “I can’t breathe. Thalia, please… can we go somewhere? Anywhere but here.”

She nods without hesitation, eyes glistening with worry and something else—fear, maybe.

“Of course. I’m right behind you.”

And just like that, I walk out the door—barely aware of the fact that I’m barefoot, or that my chest still heaves with the force of silent sobs—stepping into a storm I never saw coming.

It’s been six hours since I walked out of my apartment, six hours since the ground cracked open beneath me. The bass from the club vibrates through my bones, but it doesn’t drown out the ache in my chest.

I’m slightly dizzy, not sure it’s just the alcohol or the mess in my head. Probably both. Definitely both.

Thalia leans in close, her expression pleading as the strobe lights flash over her face.