Chapter 6: The Man Beside Me

Esteban’s breathing changed.

Not much.

Just enough.

The kind of change a wife notices after years of sleeping beside the same man.

He was awake.

Lucía’s fingers tightened around mine until it hurt.

Across the room, the door handle moved again.

Click.

But the door did not open.

Esteban sat up slowly.

“Who’s there?” he asked.

His voice was calm. Too calm.

No fear. No confusion. No surprise.

Lucía trembled beside me.

And suddenly, I understood that this house had secrets I had been too trusting to see. The nightly visits. Her red eyes. My husband’s insistence that I “let it go.” The way Lucía always placed herself between us.

She had not been trying to steal my husband.

She had been trying to survive him.

And I had been sleeping beside the danger, mistaking it for marriage.

Epilogue: The Truth Before Sunrise ⬇️