Chapter 1

My wife had red-green color blindness. She couldn't tell red from green, so she never drove.

For our wedding, she hired a design team to decorate the venue. Everywhere I looked was green.

Even my groom's hat had been custom-made in green.

My oldest friend spoke up for me in front of everyone. I just smiled and let it go.

"My wife decorated it, so I like it."

Then the city launched a traffic crackdown, and I was pulled in to help with roadside enforcement.

At the end of the shift, the car I stopped turned out to be my oldest friend's.

I kept my helmet on, planning to mess with him a little.

"Afternoon. License and registration, please."

The license came through the window, and I looked up.

My wife was behind the wheel.

My oldest friend was in the passenger seat.

Chapter 1

...

"Officer, is something wrong?"

Mallory Voss frowned, staring at the license clenched in my hand.

I came back to myself, handed it over, and nodded toward the roses piled across the back seat.

"Nothing. You two seem very affectionate. It’s sweet to see this romance even after marriage."

Through the helmet, my voice came out flat and muffled.

Mallory went blank for a second, then snatched the license back, impatient.

Colin Reddick laughed and pulled her against him.

"We're just dating."

He took her hand like it was nothing and laced their fingers together.

"Today's our third anniversary."

Three years.

Mallory and I had married exactly three years ago.

Today was our anniversary too.

"These are our custom couple's rings. That's her favorite flower on them. Apricot blossom."

Colin lifted his hand to show off the engraving, and his smile turned deliberate.

"In red, especially."

"Stop it..."

The cool expression Mallory had worn all along broke, and her face went pink.

She playfully swatted his chest.

The glaring flash of red on the ring kept flickering before my eyes.

My fist closed. I thought about the balcony at home, crowded end to end with foxtail grass.

So she had never cared about the flower’s symbolic meaning of faithful companionship.

She only wanted all that green to mock me openly.

I took a slow breath and quietly texted her.

"Honey, I can get home tonight after all. Let's do our anniversary."

The woman in front of me saw her screen light up, picked up the phone, and didn't change expression at all.

Her thumbs flew.

A second later, her message landed on my phone.

"Baby, I'm so sorry. I've got a project due tonight, so I won't be back until tomorrow."

"I'll make it up to you for our anniversary then. Love you."

Watching how practiced she was, I finally understood all the late nights since the wedding.

They were never for our home. They were for another man.

"My girlfriend's actually got a husband."

Colin volunteered it out of nowhere.

His smile never faded, yet his eyes cut toward me like sharp blades.

Like he wanted to cut straight through the visor and meet my eyes.

"But he's useless. Can't even hold on to his own woman.

"You have no idea how far gone she was over him. She had his name tattooed on her waist.

"And now? Now it's mine over the top of it."

Colin's laughter came out through the half-open window and carried down the whole road.

I set my jaw and forced the fire in my chest back down.

"You're not worried her husband finds out?"

Colin raised an eyebrow and snorted.

"Her husband's a doormat.

"I borrowed twenty‑thousand dollars from him two years ago. He still hasn't worked up the nerve to ask for it.

"I lived in his house for three months last year, ate his food, didn't pay a dime. He even kept a spare key for me.

"His wife ends up in my hands, that's on him.

"I could marry her tomorrow and he'd show up with a check in his hand and toast us obediently."

Every word of it went into me and stayed there.

So all those years of my loyalty and kindness merely read as weakness to him.

They had toyed with me like a dog for their own amusement.

"All right, enough. Our parents are waiting at the Rosegate Grand.

"We're going to be late."

Mallory cut him off with a small pout.

Her foot came down, and the car shot past me.

The Rosegate Grand.

The same place Mallory and I had held our wedding.

Something uneasy started spreading through my chest and wouldn't stop.

I turned off my body‑worn camera, finished my shift, and drove straight to the hotel.

I got two steps into the lobby and stopped.

A bright‑red welcome sign bore the words “Wedding Banquet” in huge lettering.

Underneath were the names Mallory Voss and Colin Reddick.

Chapter 2

A red carpet ran from the door all the way to the stage, and red wedding decorations covered everywhere.

They'd even booked the same ballroom I'd used, with the same staff working it.

Cheering went up inside.

Colin escorted Mallory in, walking slowly and gracefully.

I spotted the suit at once. I’d spent the better part of a year commissioning this custom‑tailored piece.

I had planned to wear it for my wedding, but at Mallory’s request, it had been remade in green.

Colin faced her parents and patted his chest firmly.

"Mr. Voss, Mrs. Voss, don't worry. I'll take good care of her."

I watched Sharon Voss's eyes redden as she wiped the corners of them.

Two weeks ago, she'd been lying in a hospital bed crying the same way, thanking me for traveling across the country to secure a suitable heart donor for he.

Gary Voss put a satisfied hand on Colin's shoulder.

A few months earlier, after I'd quietly emptied my savings to clear his loans, he'd thanked me exactly like that.

Every warm little scene in front of me had already happened once, at my wedding.

The only difference was that Mallory hadn't smiled like this then.

Two of the waitstaff were whispering nearby, and it carried to me.

"She's really something. Married three years ago, and she's already remarrying?"

"That's not it. She never filed for a license the first time. She had a fake one made to fool the guy."

I stood there.

I remembered driving Mallory to the county clerk's office, and how she'd been careless and left her ID at home.

By the time I'd brought the car up from the garage, she was pulling two marriage certificates out of her bag.

Then she stuck her tongue out at me.

"I was messing with you! Surprise!"

I'd shaken my head and tapped the end of her nose.

That was her. She loved a joke.

Every time she caught me standing there stunned, she would giggle and say, "Silly, I fooled you.”

So what about this?

Maybe this was another one of her jokes.

Maybe she'd talked every person in this room into playing along, just to surprise me.

I looked down and texted her again.

"Honey, I'm almost home. You must be worn out. I'll bring dinner by your office in a bit."

Mallory picked up her phone and froze.

The next second she gathered her skirt and ran for the door.

Colin's eyes went wide, like something had clicked, and he went after her.

"Mallory, where are you going?"

She didn't look back once before she was gone.

The room broke into murmuring behind her.

I let out a breath. Then I opened the camera feed at my apartment, and my fingers went unsteady.

Clothes were scattered across the living room. There were stains on the floor.

Even the wedding portrait on the bedroom wall had been swapped for a photo of the two of them.

I ground my teeth and watched Mallory come through the door and start cleaning in a panic.

When she finally let out a long breath, I timed it and pushed the door open.

I ignored the sour smell hanging in the air and made myself look surprised.

"I thought you were working late. How'd you beat me home?"

She ran over and threw her arms around me, sweet as ever.

"You know me. I lied. I wanted to surprise you."

I used to think I knew her.

To marry me, she'd stood up to her own parents until they stopped speaking to her for a year.

So I could leave for an assignment with a clear head, she'd smile me out the door and swallow the crying until I was gone.

So I wouldn't be distracted, she'd gone through the miscarriage alone and never told me.

But the men's cologne on her now made her a stranger to me.

On the table, Mallory's phone lit up.

Before she could flip it over, I'd read it.

"Mallory, the ceremony's starting. Are you backing out?

"Fine. I'll go tell everyone this was all one-sided on my end."

Her pupils shrank. She grabbed the phone and made for the door.

"Adrian, my boss needs me. It's urgent."

I caught her wrist, and for the first time in my life I heard myself beg.

"It's our anniversary. Can't you tell him it'll wait until tomorrow?"

She hesitated for a heartbeat.

Then she pried my fingers off one by one.

"Adrian, don't start. I really have to go. We'll do the anniversary tomorrow."

And she shoved past me.

The door slammed shut in my face.

Whatever was left in my chest broke apart with the sound.

I turned around and took the photo of Mallory and Colin down off the bedroom wall.

Then I opened my phone and put the rest of my groomsmen into a group chat.

"Guess what — Colin got married behind all our backs. You guys want to help me put together a surprise?"

Chapter 3

By the time I got back to the wedding venue, Mallory was already linked arm‑in‑arm with Colin, waiting for the ceremony to start.

Suddenly, every light in the room went down, and the whole place fell quiet.

The screen behind the stage lit up.

The moment I saw what was on it, my breath caught in my throat.

It was a montage of Mallory and Colin, everything from the day they met.

The two of them sitting on the shore, waiting for the sunrise on Valentine's Day.

That was the night my wedding ended. Guests had poured drink after drink into me, and I didn't wake up until the next afternoon.

The first cake they ever baked together, two hearts linked in frosting.

That same day, they threw me a birthday party and brought out a cake exactly like it.

The trip they took to Masonridge on the quiet, holding hands, posing for every camera they could find.

I'd been posted to Masonridge that whole stretch, working assignments that could have killed me any day of the week.

When it ended, the two of them turned up out of nowhere, laughing, saying they'd come to surprise me.

The joke of it was that I was standing somewhere in the background of every memory they shared.

It felt like two hands had closed around my chest and were squeezing the air out.

Then the footage cut, and my whole body locked up.

The camera moved into the ballroom.

Standing dead center, dressed in their best, were Colin's parents.

My breath caught, and my nails dug into my palms.

Mallory led them up to Colin by the hand, her voice thick.

"Colin, I know you were scared you weren't good enough for me, so you didn't dare ask your mom and dad to come.

"But I'm telling you right now, I'm not scared of any of it.

"I brought them here so we could have them watching when we're happy."

It should have been such a touching scene.

Yet I laughed.

Walt and June Reddick had been my parents' closest friends for twenty years.

Twenty years ago, my mother and father were sent into the mountain counties on a child-trafficking case.

It made national news. More than a hundred families were caught up in it.

Every one of those children was brought home in the end.

Colin was one of them.

My parents saw how bright he was and felt sorry for the poor educational conditions in the mountains. They talked it over and brought him down to the city to live with us.

The two families had been bound together ever since.

Every holiday after that, no matter how buried my parents were in work, they drove us up to Cedar Hollow to see the Reddicks.

And they told me over and over that when I was grown, it would be on me to look after them.

Ten years ago, my parents were killed on the job.

Walt and June traveled all day and night to get to the funeral, and they stood over both coffins and cried until they couldn't stand up straight.

They held me and sobbed and swore they'd raise me like their own son.

Life was hard for them in the mountains, but they insisted on sending me two hundred dollars for living expenses, every year without fail.

Neither of them was well, but they still changed buses all night to be at my wedding.

"Adrian, if we get to stand in for your mom and dad and see you happy, it was worth every mile."

They'd held my hands then, with tears sitting in their eyes.

And now the same beautiful surprise was playing out for their own son.

But the temperature in the room had dropped through the floor.

The guests eyed Walt and June’s faded, worn‑out outfits and leaned toward one another to whisper.

Colin lowered his head, both fists locked tight.

"Colin, your dad and I don't have much."

June reached into a worn cloth bag and lifted out a red box, cradling it in both hands.

"This pendant's the only thing at home worth giving. You and Mallory take care of each other."

The box opened slowly.

The whole room went silent at once.

A deep green pendant sat inside, clear as water under the lights.

Every neck in the place craned forward, and someone sucked in a breath.

"Is that... is that an emerald?"

"Look at the color on it, look how clear it is. That's got to be top grade."

"God, that must be worth several million dollars!"

Colin's head snapped up, and his eyes instantly blazing with greed.

I stared at that pendant, and my breathing came faster and faster.

Chapter 4

That pendant was the Keene family heirloom, passed down from my great-grandfather to my father.

It was also the only thing my parents left behind.

Walt and June had personally returned it to me on my wedding day.

So how...

How had it come back into their possession, wrapped up as a gift for the two people who'd betrayed me?

Before I could get my head around it, Mallory's voice came through the speakers.

She clung to Colin’s arm and put on an affectation of bashfulness.

"There's actually one more thing I want to tell everyone today. Even Colin doesn't know.

"I'm pregnant."

It went off next to my ear like a thunderclap.

After the miscarriage, she'd been left with complications.

She'd clung to me when I finally made it back from out of state, crying until she couldn't breathe.

It had hurt like something was being cut out of me.

I had sworn inwardly that I would never let her suffer such agony again.

And now she was carrying another man's child.

Everything in front of me blurred.

I heard the wire that had been pulled tight inside me snap.

Then somebody tapped my shoulder.

My heart skipped a beat.

"Excuse me, are you with the bride's family or the groom's?"

I turned, and the smile dropped off her face.

"Mr. Keene... I'm... I'm so sorry..."

Kayla Briggs recognized me, bowed in a fluster, and started to back away.

I caught her before she could.

I leaned down and said a few words in her ear.

Her eyes went wide. Then she nodded and hurried off.

My phone buzzed with messages from the groomsmen.

"Adrian, we're out front."

I looked up. Across the room, Mallory and Colin were still basking in their moment of joy.

A cold smile tugged at my lips.

Let's see how the two of you get out of this one.

Out at the entrance, Kayla had already taken the welcome board away.

All seven of them came jogging in, sweating.

My eyes stung before I could stop it.

Some were childhood playmates of Colin and me, some our school classmates.

A few were brothers I’d met while intervening to save others in emergencies.

But now they were about to watch Colin and me end.

"Where's Mallory? She didn't come out to celebrate with us?"

Ben stuck his head around the others, grinning, with no idea.

I took the confetti cannon out of his hand to cover my face.

"She went in ahead of us."

He raised an eyebrow and gave me a mischievous grin.

"Adrian, you two better get moving. I'm still waiting to meet that kid of yours."

I made myself nod along.

Then I turned and pushed the ballroom doors open.

A warm, sentimental atmosphere filled the banquet hall.

Mallory was up on stage, singing a love song with her whole heart in it.

"Oh, so Mallory's on singing duty. Colin really knows how to cut a budget. I'm doing that at my wedding."

"Come on, you know what Adrian and Colin are to each other."

The seven of them were still ribbing each other.

"Where's the groom and bride, anyway?"

Ben had barely finished asking.

Colin came out from the far side of the stage.

"Damn. I’ve got to admit, Colin looks quite presentable all dressed‑up."

"That suit looks familiar..."

Theo muttered it, and something complicated crossed his face.

I pressed a hand down on his shoulder. He'd already started wondering.

The other six were still clapping along with the crowd.

Right up until Colin reached over and took Mallory's hand.

They all stopped, and turned to look at me, not knowing what to do with their faces.

"Adrian, what... I'll straighten that little bastard out for you, just say the word."

"No, I get it. The bride's a friend of Mallory's, and Mallory set them up!"

Theo's fist closed, and his face went hard.

He was about to charge the stage when I pulled him back.

"Wait a minute."

I wanted them to witness every bit of Colin’s true nature with their own eyes..

He blew out a long breath, but the cords in his neck stayed standing.

"Hey, hey, look. There's someone on the other side. Here comes the bride."

She walked out into the lights.

All seven of them went rigid where they stood.