Back at the downtown lounge, the music was thumping. Mark laughed loudly at a joke Chloe made. He pulled out his sleek platinum credit card and lazily tossed it onto the small black tray the waiter had provided for their two-hundred-dollar bar tab.

He took another sip of his martini, completely, blissfully oblivious to the fact that the bright, violent red “DECLINED: FEDERAL FRAUD SEIZURE” message currently flashing on the bartender’s point-of-sale screen was the exact, precise moment his life officially, permanently ended.

Chapter 4: The Wilting Daisies

The next afternoon, the Los Angeles sun was blindingly bright, mocking the dark, catastrophic ruin about to unfold inside the hospital.

Mark strolled confidently off the elevator onto the fourth floor of Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. He wore clean, pressed clothes, projecting the aura of a concerned, dutiful husband.

In his right hand he held a cheap, ten-dollar bouquet of wilted bodega daisies wrapped in plastic.

He was mildly annoyed. His credit cards had mysteriously declined at the bar last night, forcing Chloe to pay with cash, and his corporate login for work wasn’t functioning this morning. He assumed it was a bank glitch.