Page 93 of The Mafia's Bride

She’s not having it. Her face reddens, a mask of anger growing over her cheeks and nose.

“I am not an addict.”

“I never said?—”

“He did this.” She seethes, leaning forward. “That fucking man, he’s changed you. Made you into the perfect mafia wife like some preppy girl from our high school. They hunted for husbands, but we wanted more.”

“I have more?—”

“No!” She crosses her arms. “You’re as bad as them. I want my old Sloane back, not this new imposter.”

She acts as if the old me was better. Like she didn’t constantly ditch me when something better came along. Or left me so she could go get high with strangers.

She left me with Lex, not knowing if he would hurt or help me.

It took her weeks to reach out just now.

A true friend doesn’t do that.

Realization hits my heart like a dart, and my mouth drops open, tears pricking at the edges.Collins was right.Danica was never a great friend. She was never even a halfway decent one. I was just too drunk, too depressed to notice it.

I clung to the image of what she was—my past, my security—that I didn’t want to see the signs in front of me. I’m so stupid to not have noticed until now.

She stands, lifting her large white purse over her shoulder. It’s a beast of a purse, a few seasons old of a Louis Vuitton. I never noticed how all her clothes seem to be a season or two behind.

Grabbing her arm, she whips away, her things scattering over the sticky floor. “Shit. I’m sorry. I just wanted to explain.”

We both drop to the ground, picking things up.

I grab her phone, the screen having been unlocked in the tumble.I wouldn’t dare look, but I see her photo app is open. And there are a lot of pictures staring back at me.

I can’t help it. I click on it as she rifles for her lip gloss and mirror, shoving them away.

They’re all of me.

Some of them are of me when I was high out of my mind. On her bed. My face between her legs.

That was a few weeks before I married Lex. She took pictures of me during one of our most intimate acts. She had just broken up with her boyfriend and needed to forget the break-up.

There are more. One of me making out with two men at a raid in the warehouse district. My father died three days later.

Why would she do that?

“What is this?” I ask, anger and sorrow pitching my voice louder. I’m still swiping, unable to stop looking.

Danica has the nerve to glare back at me, yanking the phone away. “Souvenirs. I wanted them in case I needed to get you back.” My mouth drops and she rolls her eyes, annoyed. “Don’t act shocked. You were looking for all the ways to break this marriage. All the ways you could force him out. You were trying every angle, just hoping he’d divorce you. I was going to give you those pictures as a way to end this.”

She looks so honest, so earnest, but I know her tells.

She makes an unnatural amount of eye contact when she’s lying. It’s her way of trying to prove she’s telling the truth.

It’s what she’s doing right now.

She never intended for me to see those photos. She was never going to give them to me to break my marriage with Lex.

Things start to fall into place. All the tabloids, all the bits of gossip getting out. How I always wondered where they got their information, who was their source feeding them my failures.

I’m so stupid.