“If you don’t want to honor my request, I am happy to resume the original fight,” Victor let me know. His smile was even more malicious than last year when he presented me with the wedding ring I’d hidden away in my nightstand drawer next to my back massager.

I glanced at Yaron, who was still swaying on his feet, then back to Victor.

“He will stay where he is,” Victor answered my unspoken question. “He must learn, too.”

What he was asking…what he was commanding me to do was cruel. It was humiliating. Immoral was just one of the many terrible words to describe it. What he was doing broke all the rules of right and wrong that I’d been taught during college.

Consent… Female agency… personal autonomy… all the things I’d learned in college….they vaporized as he sat there before me, chin raised like a king waiting for his servant to do his bidding. Like fairytales based on legends that may or may not be true.

And that memory invaded again. Victor standing over a man his family members had maimed beyond all recognition…and emptying a gun into his destroyed body. Without a second of hesitation.

I glanced over my shoulder at Yaron, who had been so kind and helpful to me.

His biggest regret was that he hadn’t been more attentive to his girlfriend until she asked him to move out a couple of months ago. And now he was trying to prove he could be the boyfriend she deserved. The reason he hadn’t been at his post today when Victor arrived was because he’d gone out of his way to make it to her recital in Boston, even though he knew he’d be bored out of his mind.

He’d never, ever tell his ex-girlfriend that my adobo was better than hers, even after she dumped him. In fact, he liked this job because it held zero danger. And he’d been talking about moving them to Rhode Island and putting a down payment on a house. He’d told me that he could give them a whole house here in Providence for what a one-bedroom apartment costs in Beantown.

Yaron was a human being with hopes and dreams. And Victor gave zero fucks about that.

There were no rules when it came to this monster.

The opposite of love wasn’t hate; it was Victor.

And our so-called marriage? This first anniversary? It was about punishment. And only about punishment.

Somehow I’d forgotten that while playing my girlish game of Good As New. And trying to live my best life despite.

But I remembered now.

“I’ve reset the timer,” he informed from his seated position. “It’s now or never.”