"C-c-can't—br-bree—bree—breathe."
He does a sit-up with me in his arms, and suddenly I'm curled against his chest, sitting on his lap with my knees beneath me and his heart beating under my ear and his hands roaming, soothing.
His lips touch my ear. "You're okay. You were deep asleep. You just woke up confused. You're okay. You're safe. I've got you." He lifts my hand, puts his palm to mine. "Look at our hands. This is real."
Flashes:the cell. Dirty, sweaty, evil, leering, drooling faces. Grunts. Violation. Rafael—locked in his room. Drugged. Used. Rewarded for cooperation—made his whore.
Things I've still never spoken of.
"R-Rafael," I chatter.
"We're gonna catch him and you're gonna put a bullet in his fucking skull. But for right now, he's nowhere near us. We're safe. No one but Jakob knows where we are."
I shake my head—but that knowledge does ease the panic. "When I…when I told you what happened. After the wedding."
He goes still, hands tensing on me and then immediately gentling. "Yes, my love."
"I wasn't…entirely truthful."
"Okay. You can tell me anything."
"I made it sound like I got pregnant with Little Ren soon after. I didn't."
He doesn't answer right away. "I know, Soph. The timeline you gave never added up."
"I couldn't conceive. Not for…a long time. Years—I don't know how long—I was allowed to recover from what was done to me. Rafael allowed that. For his own selfish reasons, not out of care for me." I swallow hard. "Once I got my strength back, physically, it took a long, long time for me to…" I shake my head. "I was all but catatonic for a time. Could barely eat. I weighed less than a hundred pounds at one point."
"Fuck," he hisses. "Soph."
Telling eases the panic, somehow. It's been locked inside me for so long, eating away at me like battery acid corroding a terminal.
"Rafael didn't so much as enter the room with me for over a year. I heard gunfire at one point soon after the wedding—a lot of it. Rafael murdered my father and took over in a violent coup. He sent a doctor in, a psychologist. A therapist. The doctor tried to touch me so he could examine me, and I snapped his neck." I shake my head. "I forgot about that until now. He didn't deserve it."
"No need to add to that list, Soph."
I shrug at this; perhaps, perhaps not.
"I came out of it on my own, very, very slowly. And as I came out of the catatonia, the…horror, the trauma, it sort of…crystallized. Hardened. Into…hate. Rage."
"Understandable."
"I got my health back. That took a while, too. It was…oh, nearly two years after the wedding before I left the room I was in. Before I even saw Rafael again. I had blocked out the wedding. Forgot. Or chose to forget. But then he…he visited me."
Lorenzo sighs. "Ahdeus, meu amor."
"It didn't start right away. He…he knew better than to just come at me, after what I went through. But I knew. I knew what he wanted. What he expected. And he knew I was dangerous. He drugged my food. I knew it after the first time, but I had to eat. My hate and anger were too great to allow me to hunger strike. So I ate. It was a sedative, mild enough that I remained conscious but powerful enough that I was helpless.
"And he…he would visit me, after it took hold. At first, he would just…touch me. Innocently. My arm, my leg. I couldn't stop it. He really was trying to restrain his…more violent and disgusting urges. Credit where credit is due, I suppose."
He opens his mouth to speak, but I touch his lips. "Let me get it all out."
He nods, swallowing hard. "I’m listening."
"For months, it was just that. As long as I ate the food so he could visit me and do as he wished, I was otherwise left alone. I had a TV, books, puzzles, workout equipment, and a balcony where I could get fresh air. The room was locked and guarded." I close my eyes, but I see him again, and open them. "Then he stopped drugging my food. He visited me. Touched me. I was…confused, so I allowed it. He tried to grope my chest, and I hit him. Broke his nose. He sent six men in to beat me. When they were done, he sat beside me once more, and cleaned away the blood and told me that if I cooperated with him, I would not behurt. And if I cooperated well enough, I could go outside. I could take walks under guard. I had not been outside other than the balcony for more than two years, remember."
"Jesus Cristo."
"He left. I was not fed again for nearly three days. He came back. Told me to take my clothes off." I dig my nails into Lorenzo's chest. "And I did. I…I was weak. I didn't want to be beaten again. I wanted to be able to eat. So I took my clothes off."
