Chapter 2The Good Girl's Rebellion

Dominic left me there.

As his engine roared in the underground garage, I received a text.

[I won't be around for a while. Pack up your things at the house.]

[I'll send someone to change the locks in two weeks.]

I didn't reply.

I silently cleared my traces from the villa I had lived in for five years.

After a long time, my phone screen lit up.

Dominic must have met the terrified Bella.

He was tying up the loose ends of our ten-year relationship with "dignity."

"Call me if you need anything."

"Except for a title, we're still friends."

I loved Dominic for ten years.

In exchange for a casual "friends."

...

The torrential rain lasted for two whole days.

The city was soaked, the dampness seeping into my bones.

I couldn't sleep, waking up in the middle of the night to flick my lighter.

The year I got with Dominic, he was just a thug living in a basement, unable to pay rent.

In the humid air, only the flame of the lighter flickered.

Click. Click. Ignition, extinction.

Dominic, with his buzz cut, stared at me in my school uniform.

"Think clearly, Chloe."

"Guys like me have no future."

"I can't give you the life you want."

I was so innocent back then.

I kicked off my wet Converse.

I shoved my freezing feet into his embrace.

Through his thin tank top.

Dominic's body heat was like a torch, gradually igniting me.

There was only the flicker of a lighter.

But I nodded stubbornly.

"Dom, I don't want a future."

"I just want you."

I held guns with Dominic, held knives with him.

In nights filled with the smell of bandages and antiseptic.

Choking each other, making love until we passed out and woke up again.

Dominic said the first thing he'd do when he went legit was marry me.

Now he's going legit.

And the first thing he's doing is drawing a line between us.

I am twenty-eight. I'm not a kid anymore. I can't keep messing around.

My family kept a man for me, waiting for me to give him a title.