The Fan Cam caught my husband with his arm around another woman while she wore

"Back off, Daniel!" Rachel yelled, instantly stepping in front of me and reaching into her purse.

"Shut up, Rachel! This is between me and my wife!" Daniel screamed, his voice cracking with hysteria. Passersby on the sidewalk stopped, staring at him, but Daniel was completely beyond caring about witnesses. He was drowning, and he was thrashing at everything in sight.

"Daniel, you need to turn yourself in," I said calmly, stepping out from behind Rachel. I kept a five-foot buffer between us, my hands free, my posture steady. "The U.S. Marshals have a warrant. If you run, they will find you."

"A warrant?!" He let out a ragged, hysterical bark of laughter, running both hands through his disheveled hair. "For what?! For loving someone else?! For trying to build an empire for us?! You were always small-minded, Claire! You were content living in that rotting old house, working twelve-hour shifts wiping spit off stroke patients! I was trying to give you the world!"

"You were trying to steal everything I owned to play dress-up as a millionaire," I answered, my voice cutting through his manic delusions like ice. "You stole my mother's ring. You forged my signature. You took everything I trusted about this world and used it as collateral."

"I made one mistake!" he roared, lunging forward, his hands clawing toward my coat. "One mistake on a stupid camera! If you hadn't made a scene, if you hadn't texted me like a vindictive bitch, the Vance deal would have closed tomorrow! We would have been set for life!"

Before his fingers could graze my sleeve, two plainclothes officers who had been monitoring the federal building exit sprinted around the corner.

"Federal agents! Don't move!"

Daniel froze. His head snapped toward the badges flashing in the afternoon sun.

"Daniel Henderson, put your hands behind your back. Do it now!"

For one brief, insane second, I saw Daniel calculate his chances of running. He looked at the street, he looked at the alleyway, and then he looked at the Glock drawn and pointed directly at his chest.

The fight drained out of him all at once. His shoulders slumped. His knees buckled, and he sank down onto the cold, damp concrete of the sidewalk.

The agent grabbed his wrists, pulling them behind his back with a harsh, metallic *click* of handcuffs.

As they hauled him to his feet, Daniel looked at me. There were tears streaming down his grimy cheeks, mingling with the sweat on his jaw. "Claire... please. Don't let them do this. I'm your husband. We took vows. For better or for worse... remember? For better or for worse!"

I looked at the man I had loved for seven years. I searched inside myself for anger, for sorrow, for a lingering shred of the affection that had once defined my life.

There was nothing.

The void he had left had already begun to heal, sealing over with the hardened scar tissue of self-preservation.

"The vows said 'forsaking all others,' Daniel," I said softly, my voice barely above a whisper. "You broke the covenant first. The rest of this is just the bill coming due."

The agents pushed him into the back of an unmarked black sedan. The heavy door slammed shut, cutting off his muffled cries, and the car pulled away into the Chicago traffic, leaving nothing behind but the faint smell of exhaust.

Rachel exhaled a breath she seemed to have been holding for two days. She wrapped an arm around my shoulders, pulling me tight against her side.

"Is it over?" she asked quietly.

I looked up at the sky. The heavy gray clouds that had blanketed the city all day were beginning to break, letting through thin, golden shards of late afternoon sunlight.