Chapter 1

On our third wedding anniversary, my husband's "best friend," Jade, told a room full of people about the night she spent kissing a scar on his hip.

My husband, Julian, just laughed. He chose her, not me.

That night, I found their secret group chat. They called me "the ball and chain." But the worst message was from Julian. He confessed he'd been swapping my birth control pills with placebos for a year, all while promising to be a sperm donor for her.

He had held me while I cried over my "unexplained infertility," telling me I was all he needed. It was all a sick, calculated lie.

The next morning, he left for her birthday trip, forgetting it was my birthday too. He told me to stay home.

Instead, I got in my car and followed them. I was done watching my marriage die. It was time to burn his world to the ground.

Chapter 1

Adaline Myers POV:

My husband's 'best friend' taught me a valuable lesson on our third wedding anniversary: a secret shared between them is just a weapon she hasn't used on me yet. And tonight, she decided to pull the trigger.

The clinking of glasses and forced laughter felt like sandpaper against my raw nerves. Our apartment, usually a quiet sanctuary, was crammed with Julian' s friends-a group I privately called "The Crew." They were a pack of sycophants who orbited Julian, basking in the glow of his success, a success I had funded with my inheritance and a mountain of debt.

"Alright, alright, settle down!" Mark, Julian' s college roommate, sloshed his beer. "Time for a round of Truth or Dare!"

A collective groan mixed with cheers filled the room. I pasted on a smile, feeling Julian' s arm snake around my waist. He smelled of expensive cologne and the whiskey he' d been nursing all night.

The bottle spun, landing first on a giggling sorority type, then on a bro who had to chug a beer. It was all harmless, stupid fun until the bottle' s neck pointed directly at Jade Shields.

Jade, with her perfectly tousled blonde hair and a smile that never quite reached her eyes, was the official queen of "The Crew." She was Julian' s best friend since college, a title she wore like a crown and used like a club.

She tapped a perfectly manicured nail on her chin. "Dare, obviously."

Mark grinned. "I dare you to tell us a secret about Julian that no one else knows."

A predatory light flickered in Jade's eyes. She let her gaze sweep over the room, deliberately skipping over me, before landing it squarely on my husband. The air crackled with a tension only I seemed to feel.

"Oh, I have a good one," she purred, her voice a low, intimate hum that cut through the party noise. She leaned forward, every eye in the room now fixated on her. "The scar on Julian' s hip? The little crescent-shaped one?"

My breath caught in my throat. I knew that scar. I' d traced it with my fingers a thousand times. He' d told me it was from a childhood fall, a clumsy bike accident. A story I had believed without question.

Jade' s smile widened, a slow, cruel curve of her lips. "That' s from when I pushed him into a bonfire during Spring Break our sophomore year. I felt so, so bad..." She paused, letting the drama hang in the air. "I kissed it better all night long to make sure it wouldn't get infected."

The room fell silent for a fraction of a second, a collective intake of breath, before erupting into a riot of hoots and hollers.

"Damn, Jade! Get it!"

"Savage!"

"Julian, you dog!"

My blood ran cold. It felt as though a bucket of ice water had been dumped over my head, the shock so profound it left me breathless. Spring Break. Sophomore year. That was the week before Julian and I officially started dating. The week he' d been telling me he was falling in love with me over late-night phone calls.

Every laugh, every cheer from "The Crew" was a physical blow. They weren' t just laughing at a story; they were laughing at me. At my ignorance. At the sacred, private space of my marriage that had just been publicly defiled.

I looked at Julian, my eyes pleading with him to say something, to shut this down, to defend my dignity.

He just laughed, a flush creeping up his neck. He nudged Jade with his shoulder. "Jade, come on. Don' t tell all my secrets." His tone was light, chiding, like she was a mischievous puppy instead of a woman who had just announced she' d spent a night intimately tending to my husband' s body.

She playfully swatted his arm. "What? We' re best friends. That' s what friends do." She leaned in and whispered something in his ear, her hand resting possessively on his chest. He laughed again, a deeper, more genuine laugh than any I' d heard from him all night.

The room felt like it was closing in on me. The air was thick and unbreathable. My champagne glass felt impossibly heavy in my trembling hand.

"Adaline! Your turn!" Mark' s voice broke through the fog. The empty beer bottle was now pointing at me. "Truth or Dare?"

My gaze flickered from the bottle to Jade, who was watching me with a smug, challenging smirk. She had won. She had taken something private and beautiful between my husband and me and twisted it into a lewd party trick.

A cold, hard resolve settled in my chest.

"Dare," I said, my voice quiet but clear.

Jade' s smirk widened. "I dare you to..."

"No," I interrupted, standing up. "I have my own dare."

I walked over to the drink table, my movements deliberate. I picked up the half-full bottle of expensive red wine-the one I' d bought especially for the occasion. The room quieted, sensing the shift in the atmosphere.

I walked directly to where Jade was sitting, practically in Julian' s lap.

"Adaline, what are you doing?" Julian asked, his brow furrowed in confusion.

I ignored him. I looked directly into Jade' s surprised eyes, and with a steady hand, I slowly, deliberately, upended the entire bottle of red wine over her pristine white dress.

A collective gasp sucked the air out of the room. The dark red liquid soaked into the fabric, spreading like a blooming, profane flower against the white.

Jade shrieked, scrambling to her feet. "What the hell is wrong with you?"

"Adaline!" Julian shot up, pushing me back with a force that made me stumble. "Are you out of your mind?!"

His hands were on my shoulders, his face contorted with an anger I had never seen directed at me before. It was always reserved for incompetent employees or bad drivers. Never for me.

"Me?" I laughed, a raw, broken sound. "Am I the one who' s out of my mind?" I gestured wildly at Jade, who was now sobbing theatrically into her hands. "She just told a room full of people she spent a night kissing your body. Your body that I, your wife, am supposed to be the only one who knows intimately. Is that not insane to you?"

The room was deathly silent. The Crew stared at their feet, at the ceiling, anywhere but at me. They knew. Of course, they knew. This wasn't a secret; it was a joke, and I was the punchline.

Julian' s face was a mask of fury. He quickly took off his suit jacket and wrapped it around Jade' s shoulders, shielding her as if I were the one who had attacked her. His back was to me. He chose her. Again.

"She was my best friend in college, Julian," Jade sobbed, her voice muffled by his jacket. "We were just kids. Why is she making such a big deal out of it? It' s not like it meant anything."

"I know, I know," he murmured, stroking her hair. "She' s just being sensitive."

He turned back to me, his eyes cold as steel. "Apologize to her. Now."

Apologize. He wanted me to apologize. The woman who had been humiliated, whose marriage had been disrespected, was being ordered to apologize to the perpetrator.

The last fragile thread of hope I' d been clinging to for years finally snapped.

"Happy anniversary, Julian," I said, my voice chillingly calm. I looked him dead in the eye, letting him see the vast, empty space where my love for him used to reside.

Then I turned and walked away.

"Adaline, don' t you dare walk out of here!" he yelled, his voice laced with venom. "It' s our anniversary!"

The hypocrisy was so staggering it was almost funny.

I didn' t stop. I didn' t look back. I walked to our bedroom, my hands shaking so violently I could barely turn the doorknob.

He caught up to me just as I reached the car in the garage, yanking my arm. "What the hell was that? You embarrassed me! You embarrassed Jade!"

I ripped my arm from his grasp and slapped him across the face. The sound echoed in the cavernous silence of the garage, sharp and final.

His head snapped to the side, a red mark blooming on his cheek. He stared at me, his eyes wide with disbelief.

Jade and The Crew had trickled out behind him, their faces a mixture of shock and morbid curiosity.

"We were just having fun, Adaline," Jade said, her voice dripping with false sincerity. "Julian and I are just friends. We' ve always been just friends. You' re the one who' s making this weird and complicated."

She was gaslighting me in front of an audience.

"She' s right," Julian said, his voice low and menacing as he rubbed his cheek. "You' re always so paranoid. It' s exhausting."

He took a step towards me, and for a second, I thought he might hit me back. Instead, he just looked at me with pure contempt. "Say you' re sorry. Let' s go back inside and finish the party."

The party. He still wanted to go back to the party.

I looked at his face, the face I had loved, the face I had sacrificed everything for. And for the first time, I felt nothing but a cold, vast emptiness. The love had been hollowed out, leaving only the shell.

He had made his choice in front of everyone. He had chosen his "best friend" over his wife on their anniversary.

I turned without another word, got into my car, and slammed the door. He banged on the window, his face a mask of rage.

"Adaline! Get out of the car! Don' t make a scene!"

I started the engine, the roar of the V8 drowning out his voice. I didn' t look in the rearview mirror as I sped out of the garage. I didn' t need to.

I knew exactly what I would see: my husband standing beside his true partner, while his wife drove away into the night, alone.

The fight wasn't over. It had just begun.

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