Chapter 1: The Kitchen Floor and the Desperate Two-Word Message
I said nothing, biting my lower lip until I tasted copper. He had always mistaken my survival silence for total surrender. When I stumbled down the grand staircase and reached the kitchen, Victor’s parents, Helena and Raul, were already seated at the polished mahogany table, acting like royalty waiting for their court. Helena wore a smug, venomous smile, while Raul watched me with cold amusement, as if waiting for the curtain to rise on a tragic play. Victor’s younger sister, Nora, sat opposite them, holding her smartphone pointed directly in my direction; she pretended to scroll through social media, but the red recording light glinting off the camera lens gave away her malicious game. Helena sneered across the room, "She carries one baby and suddenly thinks she deserves royal servants." Victor pointed a commanding finger at the stove. "Eggs. Bacon. Pancakes. Try not to ruin them like you always ruin everything else." My stomach churned with violent nausea. I opened the refrigerator door, but suddenly the kitchen violently spun on its axis. The white tile floor seemed to rise up to meet me, my knees buckled under the unbearable weight, and I collapsed hard onto the cold ground, wrapping both arms frantically around my abdomen to shield my unborn child. Raul burst into cruel laughter. "There she goes again, faking for attention."
Victor walked right past my fallen body without offering a single finger of help. Instead, he reached into the corner of the pantry and picked up his father’s heavy, brass-tipped wooden cane. "I told you to stand," he hissed. Before I could even draw breath, the first strike landed brutally across my thigh, tearing through my clothes and ripping a scream of agony from my throat. I curled tighter into a protective ball around my baby. Helena clapped her hands together in sadistic delight. "Hit her again, Victor! Maybe she’ll finally learn some respect for this household." And Nora never stopped filming, capturing every agonizing second for her private amusement. Through my blurred, tear-filled vision, I spotted my shattered-screen phone lying just inches away beneath the kitchen table. Ignoring the fire racing through my limbs, I dragged myself across the tile inch by agonizing inch, bleeding and broken. "Stop her! She’s trying to call someone!" Raul shouted, leaping to his feet. My trembling fingertips finally brushed against the cold metal casing of the phone. With my last ounce of consciousness, I swiped open a hidden emergency contact—a name that made even Victor’s ruthless father tremble—and typed out the only two words I had time to send: Help. Please. The tiny envelope icon flashed, indicating the message had gone through. But an instant later, Victor stamped down on my hand with his heavy leather boot, snatched the phone away, and hurled it against the brick wall, shattering it into a thousand useless pieces. He grabbed a fistful of my hair and forced my face upward. "You really think someone is coming to save you?" he whispered, his hot breath reeking of whiskey. "No one would dare challenge this family." The cane came down again with sickening force, and complete darkness swallowed me whole.
