Chapter 1
Nadia's POV
Married for five years, my husband, Reid, constantly played the poverty card. He’d blame crashing company revenues, claiming we couldn't even afford to upgrade to a house with a small yard. His favorite excuse was that we had to subsidize his chronically ill, adopted sister, Vivienne.
Yet, he frequently went out late at night, his phone practically glued to his hand. I suspected he was having an affair, but I couldn't find a single shred of evidence.
So, for our fifth anniversary, I gifted him a custom leather belt with a micro-GPS tracker hidden inside.
At 2:00 AM, the tracker pinned him at a private suburban farm—while he claimed to be pulling an all-nighter at the office.
Furious, I drove out to the middle of nowhere, my head full of scenarios where I’d catch him in bed with another woman. But when I arrived, the entire farm was locked down by the police.
A grim-faced detective stopped me and asked coldly, "Ma'am, are you the family of the deceased?"
At 2:00 AM, I sat in the pitch-black living room, eyes glued to my phone.
On the tracking app, a blinking red dot sat motionless at "Oakhaven," a private farm forty miles outside the city limits.
I picked up my burner phone and dialed Reid’s number. It rang five times before he picked up. The background noise sounded like the hum of an air conditioner.
"Nadia?" Reid’s voice was thick with exhaustion. "Honey, why are you still awake?"
"When are you coming home? I kept dinner warm for you." I forced my voice to stay deadpan.
"Sorry, not tonight. The IRS is doing a surprise audit on some major clients tomorrow. I'm stuck at the office running numbers. Might be an all-nighter. Go to sleep, don't wait up."
"The office?" I asked.
"Yeah. Gotta go, my boss is calling me. Love you."
He hung up.
I sneered and tossed the phone onto the sofa. His downtown office was a full hour’s drive from that rural farm. He wasn't just lying; he was lying effortlessly.
I grabbed my car keys and coat, marching straight to the underground garage. The moment the engine roared to life, months of suppressed rage ignited in my chest.
I was sick of his excuses.
Reid was a top-tier private wealth advisor for upper-middle-class clients. Yet, whenever I brought up moving out of our cramped apartment into a house with a yard, he’d put on a miserable face.
"Nadia, company profits have tanked for three quarters straight. My commissions got slashed in half. We just can't afford it right now."
Whenever the holidays rolled around, he’d add another layer of guilt: "Vivienne’s chronic illness is flaring up again. Fletcher is always out of town on construction jobs, so he's no help. As her brother, I have to help cover her medical bills."
I used to believe him. Until a few months ago, when I noticed him constantly zoning out. He always kept his phone face-down and even took it into the shower with him.
My intuition was screaming at me—he was cheating.
I checked his phone, laptop, and dashcam while he slept. Clean. Too clean. No weird transfers, no texts, not even an unusual call. It was so completely sanitized that it confirmed he was hiding something massive.
Since his tech was bulletproof, I decided to bug his wardrobe.
Last month, for our fifth anniversary, I got him a custom-made, genuine calfskin belt.
"Honey, this will really elevate your professional look for those big clients," I had smiled, buckling it on him myself.
He loved it. He wore it every day. But he’d never know that inside the lining was a micro-GPS chip.
For a month, his routine was completely normal: downtown office, or across town to visit his "sickly" sister, Vivienne.
Until tonight.
The speedometer was pushing eighty. Night wind howled through the cracked window. Gripping the steering wheel, I mentally rehearsed catching him in bed with some stranger. I was going to rip off his "family man" mask and take him for everything he had.
The GPS told me I was half a mile away.
But the dark country road ahead was suddenly lit up like daytime by flashing red and blue lights.
I slammed on the brakes. My tires screeched against the gravel.
Three patrol cars blocked the road behind a long strip of yellow police tape. Beyond it, looming in the shadows, were massive wooden horse stables illuminated by searchlights.
I looked down at my phone.
The red dot was sitting perfectly dead center in the crime scene.
What the hell did he do? Caught soliciting a prostitute? An illegal gambling ring?
I threw the door open and marched toward the tape.
"Ma'am, step back! Active scene!" A rookie cop intercepted me, shining his flashlight directly into my face.
"I'm looking for someone." I raised my phone to block the glare. "My husband is in there!"
The cop froze. He lowered his flashlight and keyed his shoulder mic.
"Detective Briggs? We have a situation at the perimeter. A woman here claims to be family of the victim..."
