Chapter 1

The morning after my wedding, I sat in a cold interrogation room.

My beautiful white dress was gone, replaced by a gray jumpsuit that felt rough against my skin. The smell of stale coffee and fear filled the air.

Across the table, two detectives stared at me. One was old and tired, the other young and eager. They had been asking the same questions for hours.

"Jocelyn, just tell us what happened at the brunch."

"Why would you do it? They loved you. They gave you everything."

I said nothing. I just stared at the metal table, my hands cuffed in my lap. The wedding ring Ethan placed on my finger yesterday felt heavy, a cold circle of a life that was already over.

The door opened. A uniformed officer leaned in and whispered to the detectives. They looked surprised, then annoyed. They stood up and uncuffed me.

"You' re being transferred," the older one said, his voice flat. "Don' t know why. Don' t care."

They led me out into the hallway. I saw Ethan at the far end, his face a mask of pain and confusion. Our eyes met for a second. I wanted to scream, to tell him everything, but my throat was tight with a silence I had to keep.

He turned away.

The transfer was a setup. As soon as the police van left the station' s driveway, two large pickup trucks blocked it, front and back. Ranch hands, men I' d known my whole life, jumped out. They were carrying tools, not guns, but their faces were hard.

They pulled the driver and the other officer out. They didn' t hurt them, just disarmed them and tied them up.

Then, the back doors of the van flew open.

Ethan stood there. He looked terrible, his eyes red and swollen, his expensive suit wrinkled. He looked like a man who had lost his entire world.

He looked at me like I was a stranger, a monster.

"Get her," he said, his voice raw.

Two men I used to share summer barbecues with grabbed my arms. They were not gentle. They pulled me out of the van and pushed me toward one of the trucks. I didn' t fight. There was no point.

Ethan got in the driver' s seat. He didn' t look at me once as we drove away, leaving the police van and the confused officers on the side of the road. We drove for what felt like an hour, deep into the empty plains, until an old, abandoned grain silo stood against the sky.

This was where we used to sneak away as kids, to talk about our futures.

Now, it was a place of judgment.