Chapter 1 - The Departure
I watched Daniel's car disappear down the quiet suburban street as he left to console his mistress on our tenth anniversary.
He truly believed I was staying home to cry in my expensive navy-blue dress.
Instead, I packed exactly two suitcases with the things I could not replace.
I left the expensive dishes, the wedding album, and the custom furniture I had spent years choosing.
At exactly 10:18 p.m., I placed my diamond wedding ring on the cold kitchen island.
Beside it, I left a single sheet of paper with four simple words.
You chose, and so did I.
My best friend, Natalie, was waiting outside in her idling car.
I climbed into the passenger seat and immediately turned off my ringing phone.
Daniel Whitmore was finally about to find out what his life looked like without me holding it together.
As Natalie drove us away from the neighborhood, a profound sense of relief washed over my entire body.
For the first time in a decade, I felt completely in control of my own destiny.
Natalie kept her eyes locked on the dark road, her knuckles stark white on the steering wheel.
She quietly asked if I had managed to secure the financial documents from his locked desk drawer.
I patted the heavy leather bag resting on my lap.
I told her I had every bank statement proving he secretly transferred two hundred and forty thousand dollars from our joint accounts.
We pulled into a deserted roadside diner to grab coffee and figure out our next move.
I turned my phone back on just to check if my divorce attorney had emailed me back.
A barrage of text messages from Daniel instantly flooded my glowing screen.
He wasn't begging me to come back to the house.
He wasn't apologizing for ruining our marriage.
The very last message was a grainy photograph.
It was a picture of Natalie's car, taken from behind, on the dark highway we were currently driving on.
May you like
The text beneath it sent a violent, freezing shiver down my spine.
He told me to pull over right now, or the brakes on our car would fail in exactly two miles.
