Chapter 2
I took Sofia and Lily upstairs.
No questions.
No family politics.
First, food.
Then rest.
A doctor checked Sofia’s hands.
No permanent damage.
I still felt sick looking at them.
Three months.
While I traveled.
While I held meetings.
While I came home and assumed silence meant peace.
Sofia sat on the bed.
Lily fell asleep beside her.
I asked softly:
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
She looked at me like the answer might hurt.
“Because Delia said you agreed.”
My chest tightened.
“To what?”
“That I needed to learn my place.”
I stood.
Then sat again.
Anger should not become another thing Sofia had to manage.
“What place?”
She looked ashamed.
“Wife.”
That word sounded ugly in her mouth.
Delia told her Montoro wives historically served senior family women during their first year of marriage.
Not publicly.
Privately.
A tradition.
Apparently.
She said my mother had done it.
My grandmother.
Every outsider woman who married into the family.
Sofia believed her.
Why wouldn’t she?
She was twenty-five.
New to a family built on rituals nobody wrote down because powerful people preferred ambiguity.
“And Lily?”
“If I refused, Delia said Lily would be treated as belonging to my side, not yours.”
There.
Bloodline punishment.
Inherited through disobedience.
Classic old-family cruelty.
Sofia whispered:
“She said you wouldn’t defend me because you’d be embarrassed I couldn’t handle it.”
That hurt because she believed it was possible.
Not completely.
Enough.
I asked:
“Did I ever make you think that?”
She hesitated.
That was worse than yes.
Then:
“You let Delia correct me all the time.”
Small things.
How I greeted captains.
Where I sat.
Which jewelry I wore.
What events Lily attended.
I told myself Delia was helping Sofia adapt.
She was establishing authority.
And I allowed the foundation because it looked like etiquette.
I closed my eyes.
“I’m sorry.”
Sofia nodded.
Not absolution.
Good.
Then she whispered:
“There’s more.”
Of course.
“What?”
“Delia has a book.”
I looked at her.
“She writes down every time I disobey.”
May you like
My sister had not just invented tradition.
She had been keeping a record.
