Chapter 1 - The Anniversary Video
At 8:07 that morning, the chime of my phone broke the silence of the kitchen. A text message from an unknown number flashed across the screen. Attached was a twelve-minute video and a single, arrogant sentence: “Thought you should see what real love looks like.”
It was our twentieth wedding anniversary. My husband, Grant Holloway, had supposedly flown to Chicago for an urgent investor meeting. Instead, the video unspooled a montage of betrayal across Napa Valley, Miami, Manhattan, Paris, and a private villa in Turks and Caicos that Grant had claimed was strictly business.
There were shots of their hands intertwined around wineglasses, a clip of Grant fastening a diamond necklace around another woman's throat, and footage of him asleep while she whispered into the camera, “Mine.” The woman was Sloane Mercer.
Six months ago, this evidence would have shattered me. But by now, I was past the stage of tears. I had noticed the unfamiliar perfume on his shirts, the restaurant charges on nights he claimed to be working late, and the way his phone never left his palm.
Then, at the forty-six-second mark of the video, Sloane danced barefoot in one of Grant’s white shirts while Grant smiled from the edge of a hotel bed. Behind them stood a wall-length mirror. I paused the frame, zoomed in, and enhanced the screenshot. Reflected in the glass was Grant’s laptop screen, displaying words that froze my blood:
PROPERTY LIQUIDATION — PHASE ONE.
Beneath it were three addresses: 148 Madison Street, 622 Harbor Industrial Drive, and 31 Lake Briar Road.
May you like
My mother’s home, our company’s warehouse, and my father’s lake house.
I closed the video and dialed Daniel Mercer, the family attorney who had represented the Hawthorns since Grant and I married. “I need county records on three properties,” I said, my voice steady. “Why?” Daniel asked. “I think Grant is trying to sell them,” I replied. There was a heavy pause. “Without you?” “Without me knowing,” I said, staring at the screen. Daniel’s tone darkened. “That’s not possible.” “I know,” I whispered. “And Grant knows too.”
