Page 50 of Sinful Lies

Or so I had thought.

I said my goodbyes to Kelly, promising to come back next Thursday to collect my Versace dress, and left the store. My toes throbbed in my heels, my arms ached under the weight of too many shopping bags, and my coat clung to me like a furnace.

The city heat only made it worse.

As I wandered down 57th Street, debating where to burn more money, my phone buzzed in my bag.

I stopped, juggling the bags cutting into my legs, and finally set them down to dig out my phone.

“Jade Whitenhouse,” I answered, pressing the phone to my ear.

A woman’s voice, trembling, sniffed on the other end. “Miss Whitenhouse, it’s Laura, your mother’s nurse. I’m deeply sorry to inform you… she’s gone.”

The world tilted.

My heart plummeted, hitting the pit of my stomach like a stone.

“What?” I whispered, barely recognizing my own voice.

“Your mother passed away this morning, Jade?—”

I didn’t hear the rest.

My head barely registered the words because, at that exact moment, some homeless guy in a baseball cap sprinted past and yanked my Chanel bag right off my arm. I didn’t even move. Didn’t chase him. Didn’t scream. I just stood there, stuck to the pavement like my feet had turned to stone, my tears hot and prickling behind my eyes, refusing to fall.

Three years ago, my mama got sick. Breast cancer.

That’s why she had begged me to come home, to stay with her.

But I didn’t. I couldn’t.

Instead, I’d thrown money at the problem—gotten her the best doctors, the best treatments. I’d brought her to live with me, but she had hated it.

She’d said Bay Village was her home. I had let her go back, thinking it was fine.

I’d called her every day, sent flowers and told myself I’d done enough.

She was the strongest person I knew.

She was supposed to make it. Shehadto make it.

“But… you said she was doing fine,” I choked out.

Laura sighed heavily. “I’m so sorry, Miss Whitenhouse,” she said again, her words a distant hum as the city spun around me.

And all hell broke loose.

I screamed—loud, raw, and unforgiving—my phone slipping from my fingers, hitting the pavement with a harsh crack. My throat felt like it was being shredded, the kind of pain that rips through your chest and doesn’t stop.

Tears blurred my vision.

I didn’t care that I was standing on a crowded street, people walking past me like I was a ghost. The world kept spinning, like nothing was happening, like I wasn’t crumbling right there in front of them.

Faces stared straight ahead, eyes glued to their screens, too busy to notice.

My pain was just noise to them, background static they couldn’t even be bothered to acknowledge.

Meanwhile, my world shattered for the third time in my life.

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