Chapter 67 A Deliberate Choice!

Chapter 67 A Deliberate Choice!
Saintilia’s POV

The slap was swift and sharp. A burst of pain that exploded across my jaw. The force of it sent me sprawling onto the hard floor. My cheek met the cold surface, my hands catching too late to brace myself.

For a disoriented moment, lying there, my thoughts swam. My jaw throbbed. My ears rang.

I wondered if this fury was truly meant for me, or if it was a storm originally stirred by Tina's actions. Her unwanted visit, her overbearing presence, her failure to leave when he wanted her gone. Perhaps I was simply the nearest, most convenient outlet for his rage.

‘Was he frustrated with Tina and decided to take it out of me?’

The thought offered no comfort, but it offered perspective. Emilio was not all-powerful. He was a man with moods swings and irritations, and today Tina had been an irritation.

A strange calm settled over me as I slowly, deliberately, pushed myself up from the floor. Every movement was measured, unhurried despite the pain radiating from my jaw. I would not give him the satisfaction of haste, of fear, of desperation.

I resumed the position with knees on the floor, head bowed. But this time my gaze dropped to a crack near his feet. A thin line running through the gray surface. I focused on it, letting my mind retreat inwards.

‘He believes he is mastering me. He believes this posture means submission. He is wrong.’

My mind went to a quiet, fortified place he could never access. A room within myself, walled and guarded, where my thoughts remained my own. In that space, I was not kneeling. In that space, I was not his prisoner. In that space, I was free.

This physical submission was just a performance. The core of my being, my defiance, my will, my sense of self; remained untouched. He could demand this posture, could force my knees to the floor, could strike my face, and leave bruises. But he could never truly own the person within it.

This knowledge was my private power, a silent strength he was too blind to see.

The sting in my jaw would fade. The redness would heal. But this inner victory was mine to keep forever.

I must have been moving too slowly for his liking.

"Get back on your knees."

This time, the command came with less enthusiasm with more form than feeling, as though even he recognized the emptiness of the gesture.

‘I was already there. I had never truly left.’

His voice was a low growl, vibrating with an anger so intense it felt like a physical blow. I pushed myself back up, my movements stiff and pained, one hand instinctively cradling the tender, throbbing side of my face where his fury had landed.

When I looked up, I couldn't believe what I was seeing. My eyes refused to process the scene unfolding before them as he began to remove his pants. The sight was so unexpected, so completely outside the realm of anything I had anticipated, that it felt as though my mind was short-circuiting. It was a moment of pure, unadulterated shock. And for the very first time, a sense of genuine, soul-shaking fear crept over me, cold and absolute.

‘What is he doing?’

In all the time I had been trapped with him, Emilio had never exposed himself to me. There was no intimacy between us, only a brutal, one-sided power dynamic. Apart from that first, horrifying night when he had stripped me naked, he had not seen me unclothed since. Sex, when it happened, was never my choice. It was a forced, fumbling assault that left us both fully clothed, a transaction I had learned to endure by detaching myself from my own body.

Over time, I had numbed myself to his predictable patterns of cruelty, building a fortress of indifference around my mind. I knew what to expect. I knew how to survive it.

Yet this sudden, deliberate change in his behavior was startling. A crack in the familiar foundation of my abuse. I was not prepared for this, for the raw, deliberate vulnerability of his exposure. It left me reeling, my mind scrambling to understand the abrupt shift from his usual, drunken violence to this new, terrifyingly sober intention.

‘Why now? Why this?’

"Touch me," he ordered.

The command hung in the air, unusual and obscene, leaving me completely in the dark about his intentions. I could not comprehend what had triggered this. Why was he asking me to touch him?

‘touch you? Touch you for what?’

Confused and paralyzed by a rising tide of uncertainty, I fell back on my only defense: I ignored him, praying that if I gave him nothing, he would eventually stop this menacing dance around me. Silence. Stillness.

But his movements only grew more erratic, a predator circling its prey. A profound sense of discomfort curdled in my stomach, heavy, and sickening. He continued to circle me, his proximity a suffocating pressure as he closed the gap until I could feel the warmth radiating from his skin, the ghost of his breath against my hair.

Yet his motives remained shrouded in terrifying ambiguity, a darkness I could not penetrate.

I was transfixed, a captive audience to an outrageous scene. Out of nowhere, an unsettling sensation rippled through me as I watched him, alarmingly close to my face. The sheer, overwhelming reality of it made my head spin, the room tilting dangerously at its edges.

‘Don't look. Don't react. Don't give him anything.’

I forced my gaze upward, locking my eyes with his, pouring every ounce of defiance I could muster into my stare. If I could not fight with my hands, I would fight with my eyes. If I could not speak, I would speak through my refusal to look away.

His anger was escalating, his face contorting with a fury so raw it was almost inhuman. The implications of that wrath were ominous. My mind racing with the potential consequences if I continued to defy him.

"Why were you at Jacob's house today?"

‘There we go again with his stupid question. Why is this man so obsessed with Jacob?’

The question cut through the haze of fear. What had happened between these two men? What history bound them that I did not understand? That reminded me, next time I see Celia, I should ask her about what happened between them. If anyone would know, it would be Celia.

"I refused to answer."

"From now on, I want you to stay away from that house."

"Tch."

The sound escaped my lips before I could stop it, a click of dismissal. Not worth answering. Not worth acknowledging. His jaw tightened.

"You stay away from them. And if you insist, I will break your legs."

‘Break my legs. As though that would stop me. Now I really need to know what happened.’

I made a choice to remain silent, fully aware it would pour fuel on his fire. My silence was my weapon, my resistance, my small claim to action in a situation designed to strip me of all power.

Continue.........