The Thorne Heiress Unveiling Shadow novel Chapter 5

The decrepit pickup truck backfired once, a loud, pathetic cough, before lurching away from the curb, its engine rattling like a can full of stones.

Aria's Instagram Live was a triumph of schadenfreude. The viewer count had swelled to over five thousand. She was giving her audience the exact kind of drama they craved.

"Let's follow for a bit," Aria said to Tiffany and Brittany, her eyes gleaming with vengeful excitement. "I just want to make sure she gets... home... safely. I'd never forgive myself if something happened."

The lie was transparent, but her followers ate it up, flooding the chat with heart emojis and praising her kindness. They climbed into Aria's gleaming Carmine Red Porsche, the engine a low, powerful growl that was the antithesis of the sputtering truck. It was a predator stalking its wounded prey.

They trailed it through the glittering streets of Manhattan, then onto the FDR Drive, heading out of the city. Aria kept a running commentary, her voice dripping with fake concern as she described the truck's every shudder and squeak. "Oh, look, I think a piece just fell off! I hope that wasn't important."

But the journey didn't end in a rundown neighborhood in Queens or a desolate corner of the Bronx. To their growing confusion, the pickup truck took an exit leading toward a series of manicured, tree-lined roads in the suburbs of New Jersey, an area known for its discreet, old-money estates hidden behind high walls.

Then, it turned onto a private access road. A simple, elegant sign, carved from granite, read: "Teterboro Private Airfield."

Aria's Porsche skidded to a halt just outside the gates. Her narration faltered. "Wait... what is this? Maybe he's just a delivery driver?" The excuse sounded weak even to her own ears.

The live stream viewers were just as confused.

Isn't that the private jet airport for billionaires?

Why are they going there? My dad's boss flies out of there!

The pickup truck rolled past a security checkpoint without stopping and onto the tarmac, directly beside a vision of sleek, aerodynamic perfection.

WTF IS HAPPENING? A G800? THAT'S A $75 MILLION JET!

WHO IS SHE???

Is this part of a movie? This can't be real.

In her Porsche, Aria stared, her perfectly made-up face pale with shock and a dawning, sickening horror. The world she thought she knew had just tilted on its axis, spinning out of her control. Her public triumph had just become a spectacular, viral humiliation.

With a trembling finger, she frantically ended the live stream, but it was too late. The image of the "poor girl" boarding one of the world's most expensive private jets was already being screen-recorded, shared, and dissected by the very social circle she had tried to impress. The queen she thought she had exiled was, in fact, just beginning her ascent.