Chapter 2

At his shout, the guests instantly crowded around to gawk.

That lock screen was a photo I took of Chloe on her birthday last year while she was making a wish.

She didn't even know I had taken it.

The crowd looked at me with open disgust.

"What a sick freak! Stalking another man’s wife? He's basically a peeping tom!"

"He looks all dressed up, but he's disgusting on the inside. Who knows what other gross pictures he’s hiding on that phone?"

"Austin, you should search his phone! This has to be illegal. Sue him the minute the wedding's over!"

My frown deepened.

Their accusations were spiraling into total absurdity, and a few guys stepped up to corner me, as if terrified I might run.

"It’s just a side profile," I said coldly. "How can you be so sure it’s your wife?"

It was ridiculous.

I didn't want to waste my breath arguing with these backwater idiots, but my response only fired Austin up more.

Holding my phone high in the air, he pulled his own phone from his pocket.

"You’re delusional, man! You think I wouldn't recognize my own damn wife?"

With a smirk, he flashed his lock screen for everyone to see.

The picture showed Austin and Chloe, their faces pressed intimately together.

She was beaming with genuine, radiant joy—a smile that stabbed straight through my eyes and pierced my heart.

I had always thought Chloe hated taking photos.

My camera roll barely had any pictures of us together.

Let alone anything intimate like that.

Even that birthday snapshot was taken secretly while she had her eyes closed.

I stood frozen. In an instant, I realized I had never truly known the woman I married.

Seeing my silence, Austin didn't stop. He wanted to crush me completely.

He unlocked his phone and opened a hidden folder full of photos of Chloe.

There were even several explicit, intimate photos in bed.

When I saw that the woman in those pictures was indeed Chloe, the breath was knocked out of my lungs.

Looking at her flushed face, half-lidded eyes, and the red marks scattered across her pale neck, a sickening nausea washed over me.

The date on the most recent photo was last Sunday.

I remembered it crystal clear. Last weekend, Chloe told me her company sent her on an urgent business trip out of state.

I had found it odd at the time since her department never required travel, but she brushed it off, saying she was covering for a sick coworker.

She had been lying to my face the whole damn time.

Austin paraded the screen around like a trophy, and his buddies chuckled crudely, making vulgar comments about her body.

As a man, I knew exactly what filth was running through their heads.

My hands clenched into tight fists. I couldn't take another second of it.

"Shut the fuck up!"

I shoved two of the guys away violently. Their smiles vanished instantly, and their fists came up.

Austin slammed my phone hard onto the concrete.

"You piece of shit! You came here to crash my wedding, didn't you?"

"Before the ceremony starts, I’m gonna beat the living hell out of you for lusting after my wife!"

"Yeah, beat this pervert half to death! He had it coming!"