I think of the note she left, the shame and horror in every word. I think of the autopsy report that confirmed she was pregnant.
Sixteen years old and pregnant with her rapist’s child.
My thumb taps the screen.
“This,” I say, holding the phone out to Sophia, “is your father.”
She looks at the screen, and I watch her face carefully. First confusion, then recognition, then horror as she understands what she’s seeing.
The photo shows a man tied to a chair in a concrete room. His face is swollen and bloody, barely recognizable. But his scorpion tattoo is unmistakable.
“No,” Sophia whispers. “No, that’s not?—”
I swipe to the next photo.
This one shows the same man, but the damage is worse.
One eye is swollen completely shut.
Blood covers his shirt.
“Keep looking,” I say coldly.
She shakes her head, but I grab her chin and force her to look at the screen as I swipe through the images.
Each one shows progressive damage.
Each one shows her father suffering.
The final photo shows him slumped in the chair, clearly dead. A single bullet hole in his forehead.
Sophia makes a sound like a wounded animal.
She tears away from me and vomits in the corner of the chapel, her whole body shaking.
I watch her without emotion. Or at least, I try to. But something about the way her shoulders shake, the way she gasps for air between heaves, reminds me of Nicole. Reminds me of finding my sister broken and destroyed.
No. She’s not Nicole. She’s his daughter. She deserves this.
When Sophia finally straightens, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, her eyes are different.
The fear is still there, but now it’s mixed with something else.
Hatred. Pure, burning hatred.
“You killed him,” she says, her voice hoarse. “You murdered my father.”
“I executed him,” I correct. “For his crimes against my family.”
“What crimes?” She’s shouting now, her voice echoing off the chapel walls. “What did he do that was so terrible you had to torture him? That you had to force me to marry you?”
I step closer to her, and this time she doesn’t back away. She stands her ground, glaring up at me with those blue eyes blazing.
“Your father and three of his men broke into my home six months ago,” I say, my voice low and dangerous. “They were looking for money I supposedly owed them. They didn’t find any money. But they found my sister.”
Sophia’s expression flickers. “Your sister?”
“Nicole. She was sixteen years old.” The words taste like poison. “They raped her. All four of them. They left her pregnant and broken. And three months later, she killed herself in the bathtub because she couldn’t live with what they’d done to her.”
