13 years ago (Six Months Later)
ENZO
THE FIRST HIT came so fast I didn’t even see the belt.
The crack split through the air, sharp enough to make the lamp flicker. Pain followed a second later—burning, hot, and too familiar to shock me anymore. My body jerked, but I didn’t make a sound.
Marcus’s voice filled the room, bouncing off the walls like it needed somewhere to land.
“You think this is normal?” he shouted. “You think it’s right?”
Another strike. The leather snapped across my back, the pain spreading hot beneath my skin.
I stayed still. I’d learned not to cry. Not because it didn’t hurt—Gods, it always did—but because tears only made him angrier. Crying made you weak, made you something he could break over and over until he felt better about himself.
So I kept my eyes down, m
