Chapter 7
I remembered things that night I had spent years calling normal.
Standing during dinner because my father said chairs were earned.
Losing dessert because I asked why my male cousins trained with the older men while I was told to watch.
Having my favorite necklace taken away after I refused to apologize for winning an argument.
None of it had seemed monstrous at the time.
That was the point.
Victor never began with brutality.
He began with small rules.
Then taught everyone around the child to call the rules tradition.
I sat beside Ellie while she slept.
Her stuffed blanket was pulled to her chin.
Nina remained in the doorway.
“You never told me.”
She looked sad.
“You defended him.”
I did not argue.
She was right.
At nineteen, I still believed Victor’s harshness made me strong.
At twenty-three, when I took command, I told myself I had survived because of him.
It took watching my daughter flinch at the sound of his name to understand the uglier possibility.
Maybe I had survived in spite of him.
Nina entered.
“He always hated that you became powerful without becoming like him.”
I looked at her.
“I became plenty like him.”
“Not enough.”
That hurt.
Because part of me was relieved.
She sat across from me.
“Victor thought eventually you would understand his way.”
“And when I didn’t?”
“He waited for Ellie.”
My jaw tightened.
“He thought he could shape her.”
Nina nodded.
“Or use her to shape you.”
I looked toward my sleeping daughter.
“How?”
“If Ellie became difficult, frightened, dependent—Victor expected you to start asking for his help.”
There it was.
Control returning through a child.
He could no longer command me directly.
So he created a problem inside my daughter and planned to present himself as the solution.
Nina looked at me.
“He kept saying motherhood would soften you.”
I almost laughed.
“It did.”
She nodded.
“That’s what scared him.”
I understood.
Victor believed softness meant weakness.
May you like
He never considered that loving Ellie might make me less controllable.
That was his mistake.
