"That's not weakness—"
"I—was—WEAK!" I scream, sudden and piercing. "I was weak! I gave him what he wanted. And…and I kept giving it to him. Whatever he wanted, I did it. All of it, no matter awful or disgusting or depraved.” I shudder, choking back bile. "I refused one day, about six months after that first beating. I'd had enough. I hated myself. I hated him. I hated the things he liked. So I refused. I was beaten unconscious, electrocuted. Beaten again. Starved for almost a week."
"Fucking hell, Fuckingfuckme," Lorenzo snarls, his voice shaky and wet. "Sophia…my Sophia."
“He came back once I was somewhat recovered. He demanded, and I let him. He rewarded me with a week of freedom—from him. I was allowed to go outside whenever I wanted. A woman came and did my nails." I look at my hands. "I haven't had a manicure since, actually. I was given food. Wine. Cannabis. A massage. Rewards for behaving."
"He broke your spirit." Lorenzo's voice is just that—broken.
"No!" I hiss. "Not broken. Not entirely. Only…almost." I pause, thinking. "He was very busy running his empire. Things settled into something like normal. I stopped fighting him, stopped refusing. He was gone quite frequently and for long periods, so it…it wasn't so bad. For the most part, I was the mistress of the estate. I could ride wherever I wanted on his fine Arabians. With guards, of course. The men—his men he leftthere to guard me and his estate, they came to fear me. I was…cruel. Any man who crossed me in the slightest way, I killed him. If they stood too close, or spoke in a way I didn't like. Rafael knew this, of course. He allowed it. He liked it, I think. He thought I'd become what he wanted: a wife. Someone like him. But I was…" I shake my head. "The hate was festering. Growing. Everyone I saw around me, I hated. They looked at me, and I could tell they knew. Theyknewwhat had been done to me by my father. Theyknewwhat Rafael did to me. Sometimes, he would…he would lose control and hurt me. That's what he likes. He's a sadist. The sickest, most twisted, vilest, most perverted and disgusting sadist imaginable, and I truly hope you cannot imagine the things he enjoys."
I lapse into silence, and Lorenzo remains quiet, just holding me.
"That's how I became the kind of…ofcreaturewho could do what I did. But it wasn't a year or two or three or whatever you may have thought. It was almost ten years that I was his…belonging. His pet. Forten years, I was Senhora Sousa.La Víbora, the Spanish-speaking workers called me—Rafael liked to hire Spanish-speaking laborers so they couldn't understand him when he spoke of business around them.La Víbora—The Viper.La Reina de Hielo—the Ice Queen. I earned those titles. I am not proud of who I was in those years. As bad as my father, as bad as Rafael. I was cruel and vicious and wicked and violent.”
She lapses into silence for a while.
"And then…Rafael came home from a business trip, and he wanted what he wanted, and he got it, as always. And he…he was violent. Very, very violent. The details of that night will go with me to my grave, like the details of my time in that cell. Some things cannot be spoken of."
"I know," he whispers.
“I was left a ruin again. It took weeks to recover. Maybe even months—time is hard to measure when you’re delirious from agony. The pain…such pain, Lorenzo." My eyes burn as I try to force away the memories. Instead, however, they roll through me. I see the things he did, and I let them exist.
I wallow in them.
I am wracked with sobs so violent I nearly vomit.
He holds me through it all.
Eventually, I recover enough to continue. And I feel….lighter, yet again. As if the ocean of acidic nightmare within me is reduced yet again, dwindling with each exorcism until it’s nearly nothing.
"He impregnated me, that day. Neither of us realized it until I missed three periods. My cycle was never the same after the rapes. I still had them, they were just irregular. But when I missed three, and when I started getting sick at the sight of certain foods, I knew. I didn't tell him. I didn't tell anyone."
I sigh, swallow, continue.
"He came to me a few months later, after being away on business for a very long time, and I was…big." I make a rounding motion over my belly. "That earned me a reprieve from his attentions for the rest of the pregnancy. I relished it. And…plotted. The hate was so…much, so hot yet also so cold. So vicious and dark and powerful that I couldn't…I couldn't live with it anymore. And I knew the birth would be the end of the reprieve. I couldn't go back to taking his vile abuse. And the staff…the pity when they saw me waddling around the estate…the laughter, the disgust. They didn't understand how I could let a man like Rafael have me. They thought I…they didn'tknow. But I didn't see that. I was blinded by hate and rage."
"Sophia, my love—”
"Almost done, Ren." He kisses my crown, and I let the rest tumble out. "I came to hate the staff as much as I did Rafael.I planned to escape with the baby, and I was willing to do whatever I had to in order to get away. I didn't plan what actually happened. I went into labor early. I wasn't ready. The midwife wasn’t there. My water broke and there were no drugs. It was just me alone on the bed, screaming, in agony, terrified that my child would die, or turn into Rafael, or…or be taken away. That I'd die before I could murder Rafael." I choke, swallow. "As a man, you cannot fathom what it feels like. I don't know if you have ever witnessed a woman giving birth, but we are not always exactly…rational…under the best of circumstances. And I was far, far from rational. The midwife showed up when I was about to actually give birth. And thank god for her, or I would have lost him. He was twisted, and she…she knew what to do." I shake my head, sniffle. "I regret her death, too, even though she was a mean, spiteful woman. Hers and the stableboy, most of all."
A brief silence.
"I was so…mad, so crazed, with rage and hate and pain and the hormones of birth….I don’t know. I just snapped. I've told you the rest." Another pause. "I was eighteen when my father put me in that cell, and I was twenty-eight when I slaughtered Rafael's staff."
"Sophia, I…"
I turn in his arms so I can wrap my arms around his neck and bury my face in his throat, feel his pulse thrum against my nose. "There's nothing to say, Ren. That is who I am. I spent the next ten years hiding from all of that. Letting it all harden inside me like…" I shake my head. "I don't know."
"I have heard of a rare medical condition," Lorenzo says. "A woman becomes pregnant, but it isn't…viável."
“Viable," I offer the English word.
"Yes, viable. I am upset for you and….yes." He sighs, clears his throat. "Instead of miscarrying, the dead fetus stays inside the woman and fossilizes, essentially. It hardens into this thing.Calcifies, I think the word is. It makes her sick, after some time. I think that is what you mean."
I nod. "Yes. Exactly like that. And I had to get it out. With the girls. With you."
"Thank you for sharing that with me," Lorenzo says.
