At five in the morning, when the city was still breathing silence, violence burst into my life with a brutality that left no room for doubt or hope.
The bedroom door slammed against the wall with a dry crash, as if announcing the beginning of something that had been brewing in the darkness for too long.
Victor saw me as a person, as a problem, as an obstacle, as something that should be corrected with shouts and control.
—“Get up, you useless cow!”— he shouted, tearing off the sheets, reducing my humanity to a word that hurt more than any physical blow.
I was six months pregnant, but at that moment, my body was not a refuge of life, but a battlefield where fear and survival fought without respite.
