Chapter 124: Cruel

Chapter 124: Cruel           The door had long since clicked shut, but its echo still rang in Marco's ears like it was his final judgment.       The silence was suffocating and the heart monitor beside him beeped with a maddening calm which was a cruel contrast to the chaos unraveling inside his chest. His fingers curled uselessly into the bed sheets. He wanted to scream. Tear the room apart. Rip out every tube, every wire, every reminder that he was now half the man he used to be—if he had ever been one at all.       But all he could do was lie there.       Alone.       And think.       He had lost her. No, he had destroyed her.       "Grace...." He uttered painfully.       Her name hit like a punch to the gut, like the thousandth echo of a name he'd spent years pretending didn't matter. But it did. She did. And now... now he could finally see what it had cost him to deny that truth.       She had loved him. God, she had loved him with a heart full of bruises, and he—he had given her