Chapter 2

The drive home was silent. I didn't have to post their bail, the feds weren't letting them go that easily. They were processed and held for a bond hearing. Her parents' high-priced lawyer got them released by morning.

When Chloe walked into our modest house, the one I paid for, the one she called a "shack," the dam of her narcissism broke.

"How could you!" she shrieked, throwing her Chanel bag on the floor. "You publicly humiliated me! In front of all those people! In front of Kyle!"

"I humiliated you?" I asked, my voice dangerously quiet. "You were arrested for a federal crime, Chloe. You lied to me. You cheated on me. You destroyed something I have spent my entire life protecting."

"Oh, stop being so dramatic!" she waved a dismissive hand. "It's a stupid flower! You care more about that swamp than you do about me! This is your fault! All of it!"

I just stared at her, the woman I had once loved, now a stranger screaming in my living room.

"My fault? How is this my fault?"

"You're boring, Leo! Your life is boring! You come home every day smelling like mud and mosquitos. I want excitement! I want a life! Kyle gives me that. He's going places. What are you doing? Playing with bugs in the dirt!"

She paced the room, her energy frantic, toxic. "You have to fix this. You know all those people, the park director, the federal agents. You need to call them. Make this go away."

"No."

The word hung in the air between us, solid and final.

"What did you say?"

"I said no, Chloe. You broke the law. You'll face the consequences."

Her face contorted with rage. "Fine! I don't need you!"

She grabbed her purse and stormed out, slamming the door so hard a picture frame fell off the wall. It was our wedding photo. The glass was shattered.

I didn't move for a long time. Then, I picked up my phone. I opened the tracking app I had insisted on after she'd gotten "lost" on a shopping trip in Naples.

Her location pinged. A luxury hotel on South Beach. The same one I'd paid for her "girls' trip."

I turned off the phone. The silence in the house was a relief.

Hours later, just as I was drifting into a restless sleep, my phone rang. It was an unknown number with a Miami area code.

"Am I speaking to Leo, Chloe's husband?" a professional female voice asked.

"Yes. This is he."

"This is Mercy Hospital. Your wife has been admitted. She has a ruptured ovarian cyst. You should come as soon as you can."