Chapter 1

My husband, Ethan, gave my grandmother' s priceless Martin guitar to his intern at his startup' s SXSW launch party.

He called it a "bonus."

The guitar was a one-of-a-kind vintage piece, a gift from my late grandmother, a celebrated Bluegrass musician. It was all I had left of her.

Now it was in the hands of Sabrina Chavez, a girl barely out of her teens.

She held it awkwardly, her smile wide and fake for the crowd of tech investors and Austin socialites.

"Oh my god, Ethan, I can't believe this," she gushed, her voice dripping with false humility. "I don't know what to say."

Ethan wrapped his arm around her shoulders, beaming. "You earned it, Sabrina. Your dedication is an inspiration to the whole company."

He looked over at me, his eyes cold and dismissive, as if daring me to make a scene. My heart hammered against my ribs, a painful, heavy beat. I felt the eyes of everyone in the room on me, the supportive wife who was supposed to smile and clap.

Sabrina, trying to look cool, attempted to strum the guitar. She didn't know how to hold it. Her movements were clumsy, a mockery of the music my grandmother used to create.

Then, with a theatrical little laugh, she pretended to trip.

The guitar slipped from her grasp.

It hit the corner of a marble-topped table with a sickening crack that echoed through the sudden silence. The beautiful, aged wood splintered. A string snapped with a sharp, metallic twang.

A collective gasp went through the room.

Sabrina covered her mouth, her eyes wide with fake horror. "Oh my god, I am so, so sorry! It just... slipped!"

My breath caught in my throat. I couldn't move. All I could see was the broken instrument on the floor, a symbol of my grandmother's legacy, shattered.

Ethan rushed to Sabrina's side, not even glancing at the guitar. "Are you okay? Did you hurt yourself?"

He then turned to me, his face a mask of annoyance. "Jocelyn, don't just stand there. It's just an old guitar."

His words hit me harder than a physical blow.

"Just an old guitar?" I whispered, my voice trembling. "That was my grandmother's."

"So what?" he snapped, his voice low and vicious so only I could hear. "Your grandmother was just some hick musician from Tennessee. This is Austin. This is the big leagues. Stop being so dramatic and embarrassing me."

The final thread of hope I' d been clinging to for our marriage snapped. The man I had moved across the country for, the man I had put my own dreams on hold to support, had just desecrated the memory of the person I loved most in the world.

And he didn't even care.

In that moment, standing in a room full of strangers, I decided it was over. Not just the marriage. His entire world.

I would burn it all to the ground.