I eventually learned to leave my body.
To float above it while they used what was left of me.
Days blurred into weeks into months of endless torture, beatings, and degradation.
My body became a battlefield—bruises layered over bruises, ribs grinding with every breath.
Blood and piss stained the stone floor beneath me.
Eventually, I became pregnant. I don’t know when exactly it began—only that it was the final proof of what had been done to me.
As the memories rushed now, agonizing and unrelenting, a violent tremor seized me,
Tears streamed down my face before I even realized I was crying, mixing with the dried blood still stiffening on my skin.
The present collapsed.
I curled inward sharply, pulling my knees against my chest despite the white-hot sting it sent through my shin.
Blood and tears mixed again, slipping down my face without care for dignity. I didn’t wipe them. There was no point.
I pressed my forehead against my knees, breathing in ragged, broken gasps.
My voice came out raw, shattered, barely human:
“How can I ever enjoy sex? Never. I am not even a person anymore. I am just meat. Ruined meat that still feels every single hand, every thrust, every laugh. I will carry this darkness until the day I die... and even then, I’m terrified it will follow me.”
Chapter 10
LORETTA
It was a brand-new Tuesday morning, and I was inside the penthouse conference room of the Bytenext Hotel.
This was no ordinary business hotel.
Bytenext was the city’s crown of secrecy: exclusive, heavily secured, and obscenely expensive.
Even without sight, I could tell I wasn’t in an ordinary space.
I sat to Rafael’s right.
As his new personal assistant, I had accompanied him to the quarterly investors’ meeting.
My phone rested on the polished table in front of me, recording quietly.
