Andre Abbott bends toward my wife at her promotion dinner, brushes his mouth against her shoulder, and watches me over her head. Sienna Zimmerman leans close to his ear and murmurs something that makes him grin like he has already won. Then he looks straight at me and says, “If you want to see how this celebration really ends, come to Room 808.”

Sienna’s knees seemed to finally give out. She sank slowly down onto the edge of the king-size bed, her hands trembling so badly she could no longer hold the edge of her dress together. The silk parted, revealing the pale skin underneath, but she didn't even try to cover herself.

“Reid,” she whispered, her voice barely audible over the hum of the air conditioner. A single tear cut a clean track through her carefully applied evening makeup, carving a dark streak down her cheek. “Reid… please. Look at me.”

I didn't move from my chair. I simply looked at her—not with anger, not with triumph, but with a profound, clinical detachment, as if she were a specimen in a glass jar I had finished studying.

“I’m looking, Sienna,” I said quietly. “What do you want me to see?”

“We… we can fix this,” she sobbed, the dam finally breaking as she covered her face with both hands, her shoulders shaking violently. “We’ve been together for seven years. You know my family… you know how hard I worked for this position… if this gets out, my career is over. I’ll never work in this industry again. I’ll go to prison, Reid!”

“Yes,” I agreed simply. “You probably will.”

She dropped her hands, her red, swollen eyes staring up at me in absolute disbelief. “You’re going to let them destroy me? After everything we built together? After all those nights you stayed up helping me with my presentations?”

“You didn't build anything with me, Sienna,” I said, standing up from the armchair and walking slowly toward the center of the room. I stopped ten feet away from her, looking down into her tear-streaked face. “You used me as a safety net while you climbed, and when you decided I was too heavy to carry up the ladder, you tried to throw me off.”

I reached into my breast pocket, pulled out a crisp, white legal envelope, and dropped it onto the glass coffee table between us.

“What… what is that?” she whispered, staring at the envelope as if it were venomous.

“That is a petition for dissolution of marriage on the grounds of adultery, financial malfeasance, and breach of fiduciary trust, prepared by my attorneys and filed electronically forty-five minutes ago, right before I came upstairs.”

Sienna stared at the envelope as if the paper itself were burning.