Chapter 1

On Christmas Eve, I was scrolling through a YouTube Live drone stream.

Fireworks over Elliott Bay lit up the Seattle sky in brilliant flashes of color. And there, in high definition, was my wife of five years, passionately kissing her best friend, Daniel.

I calmly closed the stream and dialed her number.

It rang for a long time before she finally picked up. The background noise bled through the speaker.

"Where are you?"

After a brief silence, she said, "At the office. Didn't I tell you I had to work late tonight?"

"Working late with Daniel?"

The silence on the other end stretched out, heavy and suffocating.

I heard my own voice, eerily calm as I asked the question.

"You always do this. Whenever you don't have an answer, you just shut down."

"Well, from now on, you don't have to answer at all."

I hung up. The apartment went dead quiet.

On the dining table sat a roast chicken, a salad, and a few side dishes. Stone cold.

I stared at that ruined dinner for a long time. A bone-deep exhaustion washed over me; I didn't even have the strength to lift a finger.

Five years ago today, my wife, Victoria Hale, was still living in a cramped rental apartment in Capitol Hill.

During dinner, she suddenly pulled a velvet box from her pocket.

"Marry me, Ethan."

"I can only afford a silver ring right now, but I promise, I'll give you better."

Her eyes were so bright when she said it.

I still wore that silver ring today. The metal had oxidized and tarnished, but I had never once taken it off.

She said she would give me the best, and I believed her.

When we first started our business, it was just the two of us.

She handled the tech; I handled finance and operations.

During the day, she wrote code while I chased down clients. At night, we packed shipments together, huddled in the service hallway of our shared office building, splitting the cheapest Cup Noodles we could find.

Once, while rushing to meet a government RFP deadline, I slept a total of eight hours over three days. I ended up passing out inside a FedEx Office.

Victoria practically carried me to the hospital, her hands shaking the entire way.

With bloodshot eyes, she told me, "Let's quit the startup. I'll go find a regular job. I can't watch you push yourself like this anymore."

I shook my head. "No. We're close to a breakthrough. I can hold on."

And eventually, we did it.

The day Hale Systems secured its first round of seed funding, Victoria threw herself into my arms, burying her face in my chest.

My shirt was quickly soaked with her tears.

"Ethan," she whispered, "I will be good to you for the rest of my life."

By our third year, the company finally found its footing.

We bought our own house. We upgraded our cars.

"Ethan, let's have a baby."

I smiled and nodded.

A year later, we had our son, Lucas.

Lucas was born with a severe congenital heart condition. For the first few years, we practically lived at the hospital.

I had just solidified my position as CFO and Head of Operations, but to take care of our son, I handed in my resignation.

Victoria held my hands tight. "Stay home and don't worry about a thing. I can support us."

When Lucas was two, he spiked a sudden high fever in the middle of the night and went into convulsions.

I rushed him to the ER. Victoria sped there straight from the office, running multiple red lights.

While the doctors were resuscitating him, she gripped my hand in the hallway, her nails digging into my skin.

"He has to pull through, Ethan... You're all I have."

Back then, I thought that was what happiness looked like.

Until six months ago, when Daniel Cole got divorced and moved back to Seattle with his son, Noah.

Victoria went to the airport to pick him up personally.

She came home very late that night, her clothes carrying the faint, unmistakable scent of another man's cologne.

Taking off her coat, she sighed. "Daniel's raising that boy all by himself now. It's pathetic. I had to help him find a place."

From then on, "pitiful" became Daniel's permanent label.

Daniel's car broke down; Victoria went to handle it.

Noah got sick; Victoria accompanied them to the clinic.

Daniel felt depressed; she stayed out drinking with him until dawn.

My gentle questions turned into interrogations, and my interrogations turned into screaming matches.

Victoria would just look at me and say, "Ethan, you didn't use to be like this."

And I would reply, "Neither did you, Victoria."

Then, she would shut down.

No matter how angry I got, she would just stare at me quietly, then turn and walk away.

Leaving me standing alone in the living room, feeling like a lunatic.

Even tonight, she couldn't be bothered to come up with a decent lie.

She said she was working late at the office.

Yet she was on a public live stream, kissing another man.

The sound of the front door unlocking broke my train of thought.

Victoria walked in. Seeing me sitting there with a table full of cold food, she paused.

"You're still up?"

I didn't answer.

As she approached, the sharp scent of men's cologne hit me again. My stomach turned.

"We had a server emergency at the company..." she started.

I cut her off. "Lucas has his cardio follow-up tomorrow. Eight a.m."

Victoria opened her mouth, the excuse she had prepared dying in her throat.

I stood up and headed for the bedroom. Suddenly, she grabbed my wrist.

"Ethan, I'm sorry."

Her voice was low.

"It was a mistake. It won't happen again. Once Daniel gets on his feet..."

I gently pulled my hand free.

"Don't bother waiting."

I looked her dead in the eye.

"I want a divorce, Victoria."