Chapter 1 The Sound Of Silence

• Lidia’s POV
• Silence is a liar. A cruel, grinning bastard dressed in stillness, laced with the scent of fear and leather.
• Most people think silence is peace. A break. A breath. A place to think, to heal, to remember who you are.
• But for me, silence is the warning before the storm breaks.
• In the quiet, you learn to listen differently. You hear the floorboards creak in places they shouldn't. You count the seconds between footsteps. You memorize the hiss of a bottle opening, the weight of a belt being unbuckled, the crackle of raw anger waiting to be unleashed.
• I was twenty-one, but I'd stopped being a child a long time ago—maybe the day my adoptive mother died. Maybe the day I realized what kind of man Carlos really was.
• Maybe the first time his belt found my skin and kissed it open.
• Carlos.
• My father, by law. My captor, by fate. The monster who raised me in a cage of broken dreams and bloody promises.
• The silence tonight was thicker than usual. I felt it in the pit of my stomach before I even heard the shift in his voice. Before the coldness bled into the hallway and curled around the edge of my door.
• I was still. Very still. Like a deer who knows the hunter's rifle is already aimed, and moving means dying quicker.
• He opened the door without knocking, the way he always did. His eyes were glassy—drunk again—but not enough to stumble. He never stumbled when it came to me.
• His hand gripped the belt at his waist with the ease of muscle memory. The metal buckle glinted under the weak hallway light like it was excited. Like it knew tonight, it would taste blood.
• “I heard what you said to the neighbor,” he slurred, voice low but clear. “You think you’re grown? Think you can run your mouth like your whore of a mother?”
• I didn’t answer. I knew better.
• Silence was the only shield I had, even if it never held long enough.
• “Say something,” he snapped, stepping closer. The belt slid free in a hiss that cut sharper than the leather ever could. “Say something!”
• But I didn’t. I couldn’t.
• Because I knew—when he begged for words, it was already too late. He didn’t want answers. He wanted to break something.
• My back arched with the first strike. The second tore through my shirt, the fabric giving up the fight long before I did. The third made me taste copper.
• Pain was nothing new. Pain was a language I spoke fluently. But tonight, it carved deeper. Not because it hurt more. Because I didn’t flinch. I didn’t scream.
• That enraged him.
• “You killed her,” he whispered, voice venom-coated. “She died for you. And you dare walk around like you deserve to breathe.”
• My knees hit the floor with a hollow thud, the cold wood biting into bruised skin. I didn’t fight it. Didn’t cry. I learned long ago that tears only fed him.
• “I’m going to make sure you never forget,” he said, breath ragged with fury.
• But I never had the luxury of forgetting.
• The scar on my shoulder—the one shaped like a burned crescent moon—was proof. The memory etched into skin I was too young to remember, but old enough now to carry like a curse.
• My name is Lidia Avallon.
• And this is how my story begins—on a floor soaked in silence, blood, and a hatred I didn’t ask for.
• I didn’t choose this life. But I will choose how it ends.
• And if Hell is the only place that will have me…
• Then I’ll make sure it burns for him too.