Chapter 3

"It's not your fault, Chloe," I said, handing her a glass of water. We were back at my house, the silence of the large space amplifying the echo of Sarah's cruel words. "You have a good heart. You think everyone else does too."

She took a small sip, her hands still trembling. "I just can't understand it. We were married for ten years. How can all of that mean nothing?"

"It meant something to me," I said quietly. "But to her, it was just an investment. And when the investment went bad, she cashed out."

I looked at her, at the genuine pain on her face, and my mind drifted back in time. Back to a sun-drenched afternoon in a park. We were eight years old, sitting on a swing set.

"I'm gonna marry you someday, Ethan Miller," she had declared, her pigtails bouncing as she kicked her legs.

I had laughed. "Why?"

"Because you're my best friend," she said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "And you're smart. You're going to build amazing things."

Her childhood declaration was so innocent, so pure. It was a simple statement of fact from her point of view. But hearing it now, in the ruins of my life, it felt profound.

The memory shifted. We were in college now. I was twenty, full of ambition and a different kind of longing. That's when I met Sarah. She was beautiful, electric. She walked into a room and all eyes were on her. I was completely captivated. I was blind.

I remember the day I told Chloe I was going to ask Sarah to marry me. We were sitting in our favorite campus coffee shop.

"I'm really happy for you, Ethan," she had said, stirring her coffee with a little plastic stick. But her smile didn't reach her eyes. I saw it, but I chose to ignore it. I was too caught up in my own world, in the dazzling future I saw with Sarah.

A few months after Sarah and I got married, Chloe took a job in London. She said it was an incredible opportunity, a chance to build her own career. I know now that she was just trying to put distance between us. She had to leave to protect her own heart, which I had so carelessly broken.

She never said a word. She never made me feel guilty. She just packed her bags, wished me a lifetime of happiness, and left. And for ten years, I built a life with a woman who saw me as a stock ticker, while the person who truly loved me was an ocean away.

Now she was here, having abandoned everything for me. And Sarah was gone, having taken everything from me. The scales were so horribly unbalanced.

"You should have been the one," I said, the words slipping out before I could stop them.

Chloe looked up, her expression confused. "What?"

"Nothing," I said, shaking my head. "Just thinking out loud."

But it wasn't nothing. It was everything. It was the great mistake of my life. I had chosen the wrong person. I had built my empire with a partner who was only interested in the spoils, not the struggle. And I had let the person who would have stood by me through anything walk away.

I couldn't undo the past. I couldn't get back the years I had wasted. But I could shape the future. I could make sure that in the end, loyalty was rewarded and greed was punished. The plan in my mind became clearer, sharper. It was no longer just about justice. It was about honoring the person who had always seen the best in me, even when I couldn't see it myself.