Breaking Midnight (Il Paradosso Series Book One)

Chapter forty-eight

When I was a little girl I dreamed of being on top of the highest building in the world, and throwing myself off, spreading my large wings and soaring through the clear blue sky.

I wanted to be a bird, to be able to go any place that my heart desired with no one to hold me back, feel the wind blowing on my face and smell the sweet fragrance of the blooming flowers in the summer breeze.

My mother had never explained the essence of life to me, for she never took the time to become an actual guardian; she had been anything but reliable during my years of infancy.

I was spread around from hand to hand, allowing random strangers to take advantage of the darkest years of my youth, taking away my innocence at a very young age.

When I was thirteen a man who claimed to be my father, took guardianship of me, which he held onto for three agonizing years.
I was beaten, tortured and raped repeatedly by the monster with the audacity to call himself a father.

For years, the foul smell of his breath had lingered in my memory. The feeling of helplessness, of not being able to protect myself from the incessant abuse had followed me throughout decades, and kept me a far distance from a non-toxic relationship.

I was the toxic one.

And then Antonio came along.

Ironically he had made the nightmares vanish for a while, as if they never existed.

I had a reason to believe that there were forces more powerful beyond the demons that my said father had released upon me.

There was a reason to wake up in the morning, knowing that he solely existed and that with all of the obstacles that stood in our way, our paths would collide.

Whether it would be during the day, when he was in the gym working out and I'd be able to sneak a peak of his glistening abs through the glass, or the evening when he'd piss me off to the point where he would be the first one to initiate the steamy make-up sex.

He drove me up a steep wall but somehow always found a way to bring me back down to the ground, wrapping me in his warm embrace, and I allowed him to pull me deeper with every little endearing touch.
To hear the melodious sound of his voice when he called my name, was the greatest feeling in the universe or to feel his lips brushing against my skin on a cold winter night, cuddled in between the safety of his arms.

But was he really mine? Had he ever been so?

Why did he feel so far away now?

Was he thinking of me?

Did he know that I was being smothered under piles and piles of mudded dirt?

Would he be able to hear my prayers from many miles away?

Would God send them to him or would they land on deaf ears, once again?

My chest was heavy with the pain in my broken ribs and death stroking cramps in my pelvic, mounted by the stack of tiny rocks that were jabbing into my flesh as I tried to wiggle my arms behind my back.
I struggled to keep my mouth closed but was breathing in particles of dust through my nose, the dryness stinging the back of my throat.
I had seen so many movies where people were tossed into graves, and somehow made it back to the surface by clawing their way through the dirt.