Chapter 1

The sound of shattering glass cut through the noise of the party. It was a sharp, final sound.

My Pappy Van Winkle, a pre-prohibition bottle, my crowning achievement, was now a dark stain spreading across the hardwood floor.

Caleb Fowler stood over the mess, a stupid grin on his face. He nudged a piece of the broken bottle with the toe of his expensive shoe.

"Oops," he said, not looking at me. "Just some old whiskey, right?"

My wife, Nicole Anderson, was at his side in an instant. She put a protective arm around his shoulder, glaring at me.

"Nathaniel, don't make a scene," she said, her voice low and cold. "It was an accident."

"An accident?" I looked from the puddle of priceless bourbon to Caleb's smug face. "He threw it."

"He's had a little too much to drink," Nicole snapped. "Be the bigger person. We have guests. Important guests."

She turned her back on me, fussing over Caleb, her childhood friend, the spoiled trust-fund kid she always protected. She wiped a non-existent speck of dust from his jacket.

"Are you okay, sweet boy?" she cooed.

"I'm fine, Nicky," Caleb whined. "He's just being dramatic."

I didn't say another word. I walked away from the scene, from the whispers of the guests, from my wife's disappointed glare. I went to my study and made a phone call. My family still had connections, old Kentucky connections that ran deep.

Caleb Fowler needed a lesson in consequences.

The next week, Caleb received a letter. It was an offer for a "once-in-a-lifetime" internship. A grueling, miserable post at a remote Alaskan fishery. It was an offer, my contact assured me, that his father's company couldn't afford for him to refuse.

Nicole was furious.

"You exiled him!" she screamed at me in our kitchen, days later. "To Alaska! Do you have any idea how cold it is there?"

"He'll have a thick coat," I said, pouring myself a glass of water.

"This isn't a joke, Nathaniel! This is Caleb! You did this to hurt me."

"He destroyed something that mattered to me," I said calmly. "And you told me not to make a scene. So I didn't."

She stared at me, her eyes filled with a hatred I had never seen before.

"You will regret this," she said, each word a precise, sharp promise. "I will make you regret this."

I didn't know it then, but she meant it. That was the day our marriage truly ended. The day she decided to burn my world to the ground.