Betrayed

For years, Lara had studied a sunken galleon that was well known and had been dived and raided numerous times, but Lara discovered a secret storage locker on the ship that she firmly believed no one else would have found. Lara paid to take herself and Chase to Monaco to dive the galleon.

The night before the dive, they went to a casino, where Chase began gambling, with Lara’s money. It meant nothing to her, it was only money, and she had no lack of it. Chase went on for hours before Lara became bored and went back to their room without him. When she awoke, Chase still wasn’t back and then their dive time arrived and passed and he still wasn’t back. A furious Lara knew Chase was with another woman, so she went on the dive alone, muttering insults about Chase the entire way.

Heart broken, Lara dove into the ocean, having faith that she was about to discover something new, to accomplish her dream. As she searched through the sunken ship, her excitement grew when she found the storage locker she had been seeking. Pulling open the door, she expected to find the rare coins (that she had planned to donate). Instead, she found a chess piece, a knight. Chase’s calling card.

Lara confronted Chase later that day, demanding the return of the coins. Chase, at a table with another woman, explained that he had borrowed money while gambling the night before from the woman who was sitting with him at the table. He had dived for the coins because he needed them to settle the debt with the woman. Lara decked Chase, then grabbed the bag of coins from the table and dumped them on Chase. If he had only broken her heart, it would have been something she could have recovered from – but Chase had taken her dream, and after all she had lost, he’d damaged her spirit.