Chapter 1

The music was loud, a cheerful song for a wedding.

Ethan looked at Sarah, his Sarah, in her white dress. Eight years. They had waited eight years for this day.

The hotel ballroom sparkled. Friends, family, his mother Maria smiling so wide.

Sarah raised her glass. The room quieted.

"A toast," she said. Her voice was different. Not wedding-day happy.

She wasn't looking at him. She was looking at his mother.

"To Maria," Sarah said. Her eyes were hard. "For murdering my partner, Officer Alex Chen."

The music stopped.

A glass shattered somewhere.

Maria' s face went white. She gasped, her hand flying to her chest.

She swayed.

"Mom!" Ethan shouted, moving towards her.

Sarah stepped in front of him. She was not in her wedding dress anymore.

She wore her NYPD uniform. Blue, stark, official.

When had she changed?

"Our whole relationship, Ethan," Sarah said, her voice flat, cold. "Eight years. It was all a lie."

"A lie to get to her. To bring her to justice."

Maria made a choked sound. She fell.

Ethan tried to push past Sarah. "Mom! What are you doing, Sarah?"

"She killed Lex," Sarah said. "She has to pay."

He finally reached Maria. She was on the floor, her eyes wide with shock, her breath shallow.

"Someone call a doctor!" Ethan yelled.

He knelt, cradling his mother's head. "Mom, it's okay. It's a mistake."

He looked up at Sarah. "What is this? What justice?"

Sarah just stared at Maria. "She knows what she did."

Her face was a mask. No love. No eight years of history. Just ice.

Ethan felt a cold dread spread through him. This wasn't Sarah.

This was a stranger wearing her face, her uniform.

He told Sarah, his voice shaking, "My mother is kind. She wouldn't hurt anyone. You know her."

He remembered all the dinners, Maria cooking for them, laughing with Sarah.

Sarah' s eyes flickered to him. "You know nothing, Ethan."

The room was a mess of whispers, shocked faces.

His beautiful wedding, now a public nightmare.

Maria' s name, his mother, smeared with the word 'murderer' .

He pleaded, "Sarah, please. There's a mistake. Stop this."

She turned away from him, from his mother.

"It' s over, Ethan," she said to the room, or maybe just to him.

Then, men in dark suits, not wedding guests, moved forward.

They weren't gentle.