Cristian lay in our bed, eyes shut softly and a five o’clock shadow on his face, looking as if he wasn’t the cruelest crime lord in New York City. I sat next to him with his phone in my hands and his messages with Chiara pulled up on the screen.
That video played over and over and over again without sound. And I couldn’t get myself to stop watching it. Cristian had fallen asleep hours ago, but I had stayed up all night after we had s*x because … I felt both betrayed and angry that my own family could do that to me.
ThatNo matter how many times I shut the phone off and placed it in my lap, vowing that had been the last time I would ever watch it, I would pick it back up and glare at the video, at the sight of little Roxie being abused and not knowing why this was happening.
I felt her pa
