The silence in the hospital room was a fragile thing, shattered by Linsy’s quiet, devastating words. "Don't you know there has always been someone else in my heart?"

Michael recoiled as if struck. The confirmation, delivered with such flat finality, was more brutal than any physical blow. Hanuel. The name was a ghost that had haunted the edges of their marriage, and now it stood fully formed between them. A corrosive, bitter envy twisted inside him, envy for a man who had done nothing but ...