My Fiancé Was Sexting My Best Friend

My best friend, Maya, flew in from Miami for my bachelorette week. My last days of freedom.

She insisted on a girls' night in to celebrate, ordering all my favorite takeout.

She asked me to hold her mobile phone and wait.Then her phone lit up. A message from some guy. A shirtless pic. Text: I need you tonight.

Another photo buzzed through. Sex toys. Bondage gear straight out of a movie.

My face burned. My heart hammered against my ribs. I’d just stumbled into her secret life.

But the next image made my blood run cold.

A close-up of the man's chest. A jagged scar I knew better than my own reflection.

It belonged to my fiancé, Luciano Carbone.

My fiancé, Don Luciano Carbone, and my best friend, Maya, never got along. They fought every time they met. But just before my wedding, I found out they’d been sleeping together for a long time.

Today, Maya flew in from Miami for my last week of freedom.

She’d chopped her hair. Short, black, and rebellious.

Leather jacket, ripped jeans, and the same old pair of Doc Martens.

She was an anarchist in my world of etiquette and order. But she was my best friend.

We ordered takeout on her phone, ready for a girls' night in.

But when she went to shower, her phone buzzed on the couch. The screen lit up.

I glanced over, thinking it was the food delivery notification.

"Catherine, can you see who it is?" Maya called out.

But it wasn't a delivery app on the screen.

It was a text.

From: King of Spades

[Game on. My weapon's ready for you tonight.]

My hand froze over the screen.

That nickname… Fucking weird.

But what was weirder? The contact was pinned to the top.

The phone buzzed again.

This time, it was a picture.

I shouldn’t look. This was Maya’s business.

But my eyes were already locked on the screen.

The photo showed a set of black lace lingerie. So sheer it was almost transparent.

Next to it… My face burned. Things I’d only seen in movies. Bondage gear.

My heart pounded. Maya was into…

Then I noticed the background of the photo.

A man's chest. Hard, tanned skin. And a scar.

A jagged scar, like a lightning bolt. It ran from his left shoulder down toward his heart.

My hands started to shake.

I knew that scar. I’d seen it a thousand times.

I’d traced it with my fingertips in our most intimate moments. Luciano said he got it in a shootout. Said it almost killed him.

No.

It couldn’t be.

I had to be wrong. There were a lot of men in New York, a lot of scars…

The phone slipped from my grasp, landing softly on the rug.

I stared at it, my heart about to explode.

This couldn’t be real.

Maya was my best friend. Luciano was my fiancé.

They couldn't stand each other.

Maya thought Luciano was too dangerous for me. Luciano