Chapter 3

By the time Mark and Rachel returned from their little road trip, I had already packed my bags and moved out of our shared rental.

He called me, screaming before I could even say hello. “Chloe, haven't you thrown your tantrum long enough? We're about to get married and you're pulling this runaway routine? Get back here and cook dinner right now. Rachel and I have been driving for hours and we're exhausted.”

“So you expect me to come back and cook for you and your mistress?”

“Do you have to make everything sound so disgusting?” Mark yelled louder. “It was just a set of corneas! It's not the end of the world! Rachel even went out of her way to buy you a bubble tea to apologize today. Can't you grow up for once?”

Before I could answer, he added, “I just texted my mom to tell her to come over for dinner. On your way back, stop by the market and grab some of those blue crabs she likes.”

That caught my attention.

“You told your mother to come over by herself? Do you have any idea that her eyes—”

Before I could finish, Mark hung up on me.

Sitting across from me, Hannah rolled her eyes so hard they nearly fell out of her head. “You wasted two whole years on a scumbag like that? Chloe, you're giving me an aneurysm!”

Hannah paused and looked at me seriously. “So, now that you've dumped that loser, what are you going to tell your grandfather? Didn't he say that if you don't get married this year, he's handing the family trust over to your cousin?”

I smiled and patted her shoulder.

“Already handled. There are plenty of men lining up to marry me. Mark wasn't my only option.”

While Hannah and I finished our coffee, my phone buzzed incessantly with Mark's Snapchat messages.

*Where the hell are you? Rachel is starving. Is this how you treat a guest?*

*Stop by the bakery and pick up a mango crepe cake for Rachel. The one on West Street. She only likes the ones from that shop.*

*Chloe, are you dead? Get your ass back here right now.*

…

I glanced at the screen, tapped the top right corner, and blocked his account entirely.

Thirty minutes later, an unknown number flashed on my screen.

“Chloe! You're a monster!”

It was Rachel's voice.

She sounded furious, choked with sobs. “You knew his mother was blind! Why didn't you tell us? Do you have any idea that she just got hit by a car?!”

Listening to her sobbing, I calmly asked, “Did I hit her?”

Rachel choked on her words.

“Since it had nothing to do with me, calling to lecture me is entirely pointless.”

I hung up on her immediately. After treating myself to a few relaxing days out of town, I finally drove to my newly purchased penthouse.

Yet as soon as I pulled up to the gated community entrance, I saw a crowd of people dressed in traditional white mourning clothes, wailing and throwing a massive scene, drawing a huge crowd of onlookers.

At the front of the mob, holding a framed funeral portrait, was Mark!

“Chloe Vance, you cold-blooded murderess! You killed my mother! Pay with your life!”