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Bio-dad backhands me hard across the face. My head rolls back around and I spit the blood pooling in my mouth at his feet. “Did I hit a nerve,papá? The truth hurts, doesn’t it?”
Esteban looks like it’s taking him great restraint to not hit me again. “Regardless of what you think, I loved yourmadre. She was my sweet flower—the only woman to make me feel anything other than anger. I did what I had to do to make her see what she meant to me. After a couple of weeks, she accepted it. Had Cruz stayed away, you would have grown up in a household with doting parents who loved each other deeply.”
“You’re delusional if you think she accepted it,” I say with a humorless laugh. “She was buying her time ‘till help came or she found a way to escape.”
Clenching his hand around the corded whip, Esteban shakes his head. “You’re wrong, my boy. We were happy. And my happiness was stolen from me the day Cruz took her and you from me.”
He walks behind me. I brace myself for his wrath.
The whip cracks out loudly, cutting into the flesh of my back. I arch forward, gritting my teeth.
Christ does that burn.
Again, the whip connects with my back. I growl. “Stop fucking up my ink!”
Esteban cracks the whip again with an angry cry. I squeeze my eyes shut, baring my teeth.
Stop antagonizing him, Maceo.
But I can’t help it. “Josephine hits harder during foreplay.”
After that comment, I lose count of how many times he unleashes that whip on me. I nearly cried out a few times, but instead, I clamp down on my tongue to stop myself. I’m surprised I didn’t bite the damn thing off. The pain searing through my body is agonizing, and I start to fade to numbness.
When Esteban loses his steam, he drops the whip. He comes back around to face me, raising my chin with his fingers. “I’m sorry, Maceo. But you will learn to obey.”
