His features were harder now, mean lines etched around his scowling lips.
I stepped out of my hiding spot, revealing myself before he had the chance to shout my name. I didn’t want my family to hear his deranged bellow; I wouldn’t make them relive the events of that awful day.
His gray eyes glinted like steel when they landed on me, and his lips peeled back on a feral growl. “I knew you’d come back.” His voice was gravelly, roughened by the ravages of alcohol and cruelty.
He launched himself at me, and I didn’t resist when he grabbed my shoulders. His fingers bit into my flesh, and he shook me hard enough to make my teeth rattle.
His eyes narrowed, and his nostrils flared like a provoked animal. “Don’t you have anything to say to me, Marisol?” he demanded.
When I didn’t answer right away, he shook me again. My brain reverberated against the inside of my skull, and the world shuddered around me.
“What do you want me to say?” I managed faintly.
Now that his hands were on me, my body began to feel horrifyingly solid. The remembered, toxic taint of his violent grip burned my flesh. It singed my insides, searing my core with a reminder of the raw, wrenching pain of his cock tearing into my unwilling body.
Falling into my ingrained, protective response, I began to go utterly still. When he shook me, I was like a ragdoll in his grip. If I didn’t resist his violation, he’d inflict less damage. I would survive. Raúl would come back to me, and he’d find a way to heal me again.
“What do I want you to say?” Gehovany roared in my face, spittle spraying my cheeks. “Start by begging for forgiveness. You thought you could bring some thug here to kill me, and my friends wouldn’t warn me?” His teeth snapped a hairsbreadth from my lips. “I want you to beg for my mercy. I was driven from my home because of you. I was forced to leave town. You ruined my life!”
Something jolted in my brain, smacking me back to full awareness. A sudden wave of fire rolled through my system, rage and hatred burning me up.
“I ruined your life?” I shrieked. “You beat me. You raped me. You killed my mother!”
My body acted without conscious thought, but instead of shutting down, I attacked. A raw scream burst from my chest as my hand cracked across his cheek. My nails raked over his skin, scoring his flesh with red furrows.
I registered the flash of steel in his maddened eyes just before pain exploded in my jaw. My head snapped back from the force of his punch, and the world winked out of existence for a few heartbeats.
Agony wrenched me back to reality as his boot drove into my stomach, battering my internal organs. My diaphragm collapsed, and my insides writhed. I couldn’t breathe; I couldn’t move. Pain overwhelmed me, frying every nerve ending and debilitating my physical responses.
Another deafening, monstrous roar rent the air, and I helplessly dreaded the next excruciating kick.
The blow didn’t land.
A strangled shout was drowned by a beastly snarl. The terrifying sound was the most beautiful thing I’d ever heard.
Raúl. My lips formed his name, but I didn’t have the breath to speak. My insides continued to spasm, preventing even the most basic survival mechanisms.
The crushing panic lifted from my heart, and a sense of peace blanketed my ravaged body. I didn’t have to worry about my survival. Raúl was here. He would protect me.
The world was a blur, but I could make out the massive, fiercely powerful form of the man I loved. Gehovany’s face was an indistinct smear of tanned skin and flashes of the whites of his eyes, but I could clearly hear the gagging sounds of his failed, desperate attempts to draw in oxygen. A sickening crunch crackled through the air, but my stomach was twisting too viciously for the sound of death to increase my nausea.
My abuser’s body dropped to the cracked pavement with a final, definitive thud.
My vision began to clear, and his bloodshot, blank gray eyes stared at me. His neck was cocked at an impossible angle, and his tanned cheeks were still flushed purple from oxygen deprivation.
Before my budding revulsion could bloom into horror, Raúl’s huge body blocked the awful image. He crouched beside me, and his luminous green eyes filled my entire world.
“Raúl.” I managed to croak his name.
“Corderita.” His thick fingers trembled as he slowly reached for me,