Chapter 41 Tiny Battles

• (POV: Isabela)
• Days crept by in the beautiful Miami prison. Each sunrise felt the same – golden light hitting the huge glass wall, showing me an ocean I couldn't touch, a freedom I couldn't reach. The wedding was a dark cloud getting closer every hour. Less than a week now. After the horrors – the escape failure, the punishing violation in the safe house, the constant feeling of being watched even in my sleep – something inside me shifted. The raw terror was still there, a cold weight in my stomach, but beneath it, a different feeling began to grow. Not hope. Not exactly defiance. But a stubborn refusal to be completely erased.
• Mateo wanted obedience, yes. But more than that, he wanted emptiness. A blank doll he could control completely. Learn your place, he’d hissed. The memory of his kiss, hard and claiming, still made my lips tingle with a phantom bruise, a reminder of his power. If I just gave up, just became the hollow shell he wanted, then he truly won. I couldn't let that happen. I had to hold onto me, even in tiny ways.