Even now, with my brothers surrounding me, protecting me, a part of me flinched when fingers brushed my arm.
Because for eight weeks, touch had only meant pain.
And consequences.
My stomach tightened as memory punched through me.
I forced myself to move forward.
The ripped gown clung to my sweat-slicked skin, barely covering my thighs.
Bloodstains bloomed across the pale fabric like dark, accusing flowers. I had to part my legs slightly to walk because bringing them together sent lightning bolts of pain through my core.
Each step was humiliation.
Each breath effort.
“I’m so sorry, Elena.”
Dario’s voice reached me faintly through the static in my hearing aid.
I turned my head toward him. His dark curls were pushed back from his forehead, revealing a fresh cut that drippedsteadily down his temple. His shoulder was stiff where the bullet had grazed him.
His eyes, though—
His eyes were wrecked.
Guilt. Rage. Helplessness.
I tried to tell him it wasn’t his fault.
But my voice was gone.
Eight months ago, in prison, they had taken that from me too.
Wrongfully imprisoned. Framed. Thrown into a cell where my aunt’s husband—Harlan, the corrupt cell officer who had always hated me—made sure I suffered. He’d sponsored a gang inside to “teach me humility.”
Beatings.
Isolation.
Forced silence.
They had choked me repeatedly, hands crushing my throat until black spots swallowed my vision. After weeks of screaming, begging, gasping—
My voice simply stopped working.
At first it had been hoarse.
Then strained.
Then nothing.
The doctors in the prison hadn’t cared.
“Psychological,” one had muttered.
But I knew better.
