Chapter 8
LORETTA
Atremor ran through my hands.
Then I felt him move.
Rafael.
He crouched beside me.
He didn’t touch me at first. His proximity alone was enough to alter everything.
I turned my face slightly toward him out of instinct, though I couldn’t see anything.
Only darkness.
Only him.
His breath brushed my ear when he spoke.
“Repeat after me,” he said.
My throat felt dry, like I had been walking for hours instead of kneeling for seconds.
He began.
“I, Loretta...”
My name sounded different in his voice.
There was no warmth in the way he said it, no hint of affection or familiarity.
He spoke it with the detached formality of a man reciting the terms of a contract rather than addressing the woman he had married only hours ago.
“...do solemnly affirm that my marriage to Rafael ‘El Mencho’ Pérez is not founded on love, affection, or romantic intent, and shall remain strictly contractual in nature for its duration.”
The word landed in my chest like a stone.
“Say it,” he ordered quietly. “Word for word.”
My lips parted slightly, a protest already forming at the back of my throat.
But it never made it out.
My voice betrayed me as I repeated the words exactly as he had spoken them, while something inside my chest fractured quietly with every sentence I gave him.
An agonizing moment passed.
The kind of silence that did not empty the world, but filled it too much.
“The vows you made are set in stone. Do not ever forget your place in this marriage.”
Then I heard him rise beside me.
