Chapter 4 - The Shift in Power
The air in the master suite felt thin, starved of oxygen.
Diego stepped back as if my skin were burning him. The cold, arrogant detachment he had worn like a suit of armor throughout the wedding and the car ride was completely gone, replaced by a dark, simmering fury that radiated off him in waves.
“Turn around,” he commanded, his voice shaking with a rage so intense it was terrifying.
I didn't move. I kept my face turned toward the mirror, watching him through the glass. “Why? So you can inspect your property more closely? So you can see the parts my father ruined before you finished the job?”
“I said, turn around, Noelle!” he roared, slamming his fist against the heavy mahogany dresser. The sound shook the room, but I didn’t flinch. I had flinched at loud noises when I was ten; by twenty, I had learned that fear only invited more pain.
Slowly, deliberately, I turned to face him.
Up close, Diego’s face was pale beneath his dark stubble. His eyes darted from the scars on my shoulders down to the rigid corset holding my broken ribs together. The realization was dawning on him with brutal clarity—the golden gates of the Martin estate weren't a sanctuary. They were a prison camp.
“Your father,” Diego whispered, the name tasting like poison on his tongue. “Arthur did this.”
“My father,” I confirmed, my voice as cold and flat as winter ice, “believed that a Martin woman must be flawless. When I wasn't, he corrected the mistakes.”
“And Thomas?” Diego demanded, stepping closer, his hands curling into tight fists at his sides. “Where was your brother while your father was breaking you?”
A bitter laugh escaped my lips. “Thomas locked his bedroom door and put on headphones. Or he left the house to go gamble away what was left of our inheritance. When he got older, he learned to look away. Sometimes, when he needed money, he’d ask me to wear high collars so the bankers wouldn't ask questions at charity galas.”
Diego looked at me not with pity—pity was something I would have spat on—but with a fierce, burning recognition. He knew what cruelty looked like. He had dealt in violence his entire life, had inflicted it on rivals, traitors, and thieves. But this? This was methodical, cowardly torture inflicted upon a child behind locked doors in a mansion where society judges and politicians toasted to the Martin family’s honor.
“Sit down,” Diego ordered, his tone leaving no room for argument. He pointed toward the edge of the massive king-sized bed.
“I don’t need your pity, Diego—”
“Sit down, Noelle,” he interrupted, his voice dropping into a harsh command. He walked over to the private en-suite bathroom and returned a moment later carrying a warm, damp washcloth and a first-aid kit pulled from the heavy oak vanity.
He dropped to one knee on the floor right in front of me, ignoring the pristine wool of his trousers touching the carpet.
I stared down at the top of his dark head, my instincts screaming at me to push him away, to defend myself. No man had ever knelt before me except to mock me or hurt me.
“What are you doing?” I asked, my voice tightening.
“Taking off the rest of this dress,” he said quietly, his fingers already working at the laces of the medical corset beneath my gown. “And then I’m going to clean those cuts your father left you, whether you like it or not.”
“Why?” I demanded, the confusion finally piercing my armor. “You wanted to destroy me! You wanted to break Arthur Martin’s daughter to get back at him! Why do you care if my back is ruined?”
Diego stopped his hands. He looked up, his dark eyes locking onto mine with an intensity that stripped away every defense I had left.
“Because,” Diego said slowly, every word heavy with a lethal, terrifying promise, “I wanted to punish Arthur Martin by taking everything he loved. But looking at you right now... I realize your father never loved you at all.”
He paused, his jaw clenching so hard a muscle twitched.
May you like
“And if Arthur never loved you... then destroying you won’t hurt him. It will only make me just like him.”
A shiver ran down my spine—not from the cold, but from the terrifying realization that the monster I had married was looking at my scars and deciding to become my shield.
