I showed up at the hospital to surprise my husband during his shift. But the second one of his coworkers saw me, all the color left his face. Then his eyes filled with tears. “He hasn’t said a word to you, has he?” Ben and I had been married eleven years, and for every one of those years, I had shared him with the hospital. He was a remarkably gifted surgeon.

“I’m offering a remarkably generous lifeline to a disgraced former colleague, but allow me to remind you what the other option is.”

He leaned forward, and his voice turned cold and poisonous.

“If Brian walks into that hearing, I’ll produce bank records showing he’s been sending twelve hundred dollars a month to the victim’s mother.”

The cruelty in his gaze made my skin crawl.

“The disciplinary panel will see that as flagrant witness tampering, which means real prison time on top of complete disbarment.”

Brian flinched, the last scrap of his resolve giving way under the threat of prison.