Page 6 of Where Broken Wings Fly

“Did I say you could fucking speak?”

Slapping me hard enough to burst my crooked nose with his solid-gold wedding ring, I sob through a river of blood running down my face. Not again.

It’s barely healed after he broke it last month. I’ve lost count of the times he’s done this to me, leaving the bone permanently crooked. Every time I look in the mirror, I relive each blow.

“How dare you defy me,” Mr Sanchez spits.

“I’m s-sorry, please…”

“You’re sorry?” he utters. “That means jack shit to me, darling.”

Punching me in the stomach, I scream through the sickness battling to expel from my throat. My black and blue ribs howl in pain with each blow, loosening my tongue.

“Good, because I didn’t mean it!” I yell at him.

“Is that so? I see how it is.”

Striking me in the face, the cut on my eyebrow reopens. Hot, copper-scented blood streams down my face, painting the room in violent shades of red.

The beating continues. On and on. Blow after blow. Punch after punch. When Mr Sanchez halts, he’s panting and sweating hard, watching me sob with wild eyes.

“You continue to defy me, even after all these years.”

My emotions flare, desperate and ugly.

“Because you’re a monster!”

Kneeling on the mattress, he reaches beneath the bed. “Time to teach you another lesson, darling wife. I thought you’d have learned after all this time.”

My left arm burns at the thought. The bones never quite set properly after he shattered two of them a few years back. They ache and grind together, especially in the winter.

Injuries sometimes buy me a brief reprieve, until he grows impatient with letting me heal and drags me in here by my hair. The prostitutes only keep him sated for so long.

He likes to save his sickest games for me. Mr Sanchez flourishes a long, metal pole from beneath the bed, setting my teeth on edge. He twirls it in his hands, smirking to himself.

“N-No, not the s-spreader… p-please.”

Punching me again in the face, I howl in pain, unable to hold it in. After a few too many brutal beatings as of late, my strength has waned into insignificance. I can’t take this for much longer.

“As much as I love to hear you beg, I’m in no mood to play games with you tonight.” He attaches the spreader to the restraints pinning my legs open. “Open wide. Let me see your cunt.”

With the click of a button, he extends the bar to its maximum length. My legs are spread so far open, it makes my joints sear in pain. I hate this thing so much.

With no panties on, he can see every inch of my bruised and aching core. There’s no hiding from his stare as he removes his shirt, still drenched in another woman’s blood.

“Scream, Willow.”

“Fuck you,” I shout instead.

Striking my heavily bruised ribs, I let loose a blood-curdling scream that rips apart my sore throat. Mr Sanchez leers, practically drooling as he drinks in my visible terror.

“More, chica. Don’t make me bring Arianna in here too.”

I lose all sense of self-preservation. He can do whatever the fuck he’d like to me. Beat me. Rape me. Bruise my skin and break my bones. But no one threatens my daughter.

“Leave her out of this, you bastard!”

“She’s my daughter,” he insists. “And you are my wife. That means you will both do as I say or face the consequences.”

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