Chapter 1 – The Red Heel

“KHLOE!”

I pushed open the door to my wife’s private hospital room and saw Isabella standing over her.

Khloe was seven months pregnant.

She was on her back beside the hospital bed, one hand wrapped around her belly, the other pressed against the marble floor.

Isabella’s red heel was planted against the outside of Khloe’s hip and upper thigh, pinning her down.

For one second, neither woman moved.

Then Isabella saw me.

She pulled her foot away.

“Marcus—”

I crossed the room.

Khloe sucked in a painful breath.

Isabella immediately raised both hands.

“She fell. I was just trying to help her.”

I looked at my wife.

Then Isabella’s red shoes.

Then the shattered champagne glass beside the bedside table.

Isabella reached for me.

“Marcus, just listen—”

I knocked her hand away and slapped her.

“DON’T YOU DARE LIE TO ME!”

She staggered against the table.

I stepped between her and Khloe.

Isabella stopped pretending to cry.

That change bothered me almost as much as what I had walked in on.

Then her eyes moved upward.

Toward the corner of the ceiling.

I followed them.

A small security camera had been mounted above the doorway since Khloe was transferred into the private suite.

Its recording light blinked steadily.

Isabella’s face lost its color.

I thought I knew why.

I thought the camera had caught her attacking my pregnant wife.

But Khloe reached for my trouser leg.

“Marcus.”

I crouched beside her.

Her voice was barely audible.

“Don’t let her erase yesterday.”

Yesterday?

Isabella moved toward the door.

I blocked her.

“What happened yesterday?”

Khloe looked at her.

Isabella looked at the camera again.

And suddenly I understood something worse.

I hadn’t walked into the beginning of whatever Isabella was doing to my wife.

I had interrupted the second day of it.