Author's Note: I'm back! Sort of! Life gets crazier by the minute. My son is now a year old, and I'm (surprise!) already pregnant with Kiddo #2, who's due in July. Needless to say, life doesn't leave me a lot of time for writing these days, but sometimes a story smacks me upside the head and makes me write it. This was one of those.

I must warn you, this story deals with a very sensitive subject, which may cause flashbacks in some people. If you've seen Bombers, you know what I'm talking about.

Silencio

The door clicks shut behind Scotty as he leaves (it's work, like always), and I can't help but sigh with relief as I go back to the kitchen and finish with the dishes. He's been over for dinner, like he is all too rarely, and things are like they always were…but it's strange, being around him now. He comforts me, just like he always has, he laughs he jokes, he's my son…but he…he knows things. How could he not, doing what he does for a living? I know my son. He knows more than he's letting on, and the questions won't stop until he learns everything…and it unnerves me. Terrifies me, even. Makes me want to hide under the table, like a child. But still, I want him around, because him knowing whatever he knows, regardless of the horrible thing he doesn't know, the thing he must never know…for some reason, it makes me feel better.

I guess I should start at the beginning.

I just was going for groceries. It was late at night, too late for a woman my age to be out by herself. That's what Ramiro said, anyway…but I smiled, kissed him, and told him I'd only be gone a few minutes. We didn't need much, and there was no sense dragging him away from his cigars and his easy chair just to help me buy seafood and rice for paella. The man worries about everything…but I can take care of myself. I'm a grown woman, for heaven's sake.

But that's when he found me. I don't know where he came from or why he chose me, but he was there in the parking lot when I was walking to my car. It…it just happened so fast. He knocked me down and took my purse, and I thought that was the end of it. I was staring at the pavement, trying to ignore the wrenching pain in my knee and instead focusing on five pounds of rice spilling out from a shattered bag and wondering how I was gonna get more when I could barely walk, my purse was missing, and I couldn't even call Ramiro because my phone was gone, too…

…but he wasn't finished with me. Not even close. He made me get up, shoved me into my own car…and then he held me down in the back seat…I tried to fight him, but he was so strong…he put his hand over my mouth and told me that if I made a sound, he'd kill me…and then…then…madre de Dios…

…he made me.

That's what's so hard. He made me. He made me give him something I had saved for one man and one man only, something I kept closely guarded until I met a cocky young Cuban with a grin on his lips and a twinkle in his eye, and then I knew. I knew he was the man who was worthy of my gift, and I gave it to him. Freely. Willingly. Because I loved him. Ramiro Valens never took anything from me….not like this man.

He told me not to look at him…said he'd kill me if I did…but that was the one thing I could control. One choice I could make.

So I did. I looked.

And I wish I hadn't…or, failing that…I wish he'd kept his promise. Because now, every time I close my eyes…I see him. I see him as though he were standing right in front of me, towering over me…I see him. Every minute of every day I see him. He made me see him.

He made me.

I am a strong woman…at least, I used to be. I had to be. I raised two boys, and my husband might as well be number three. You don't live in a house with three Valens men and not learn to stand your ground.

But this man was stronger than I am. He made me. He made me.

He…he raped me.

There. I said it. And you are the only soul who'll ever hear it. You think I'm gonna tell my boys what happened? Ramiro worries himself sick about me already. God only knows what he'd do if he knew the truth. He knows something's wrong, but he won't press me. Not after last week. Not after I begged him to let it drop. He's stubborn and hard-headed, but when I shed tears, he'll do anything I ask. I don't use this often, and I don't mean to manipulate him…but last week I had no choice.

Scotty was getting too close. And I know it's because Ramiro told him.

I don't know what he told Scotty, or when, but he told him something….because out of the blue, a few months back. Scotty wanted to take me to lunch. That boy never takes an hour away from work if he can possibly help it. He'll run himself into the ground with that job. And here he is, calling me up, sounding casual, wanting to meet me for lunch. Please. I always know when he's lying. Maybe he fools those people he works with, but he'll never fool his mother. I told him he and his father needed to mind their own business, but it didn't stop there. Of course it didn't. My son the detective…he kept following me, questioning me, interrogating me. Wanting me to look at mug shots. I know my son, and I know he's not trying to do this to hurt me…he just wants to know the truth.

The problem is, he can't know. My boy Scotty wants to save the world, but instead he has to watch, time and time again, the people he loves most get hurt. It's not his fault, it's never his fault…but he'll never see that. First Elisa…then Mike…I know how devastated he was that he couldn't save those two. I felt his anger and saw his tears. And now…now if he knew about this? It'd destroy him…and that is a pain I can't bear to see him suffer.

That's it. It's just to spare my son pain.

Oh, who am I kidding? I wish that were the only reason I can't tell him. But there's another reason, a prideful reason, a reason I hate, but it's a reason just the same.

Scotty will make me tell.

He's a cop, and the world is black and white to him. If someone does wrong, he wants to lock them up and throw away the key. That's how his job is. That's how he is.

But it's not always so black and white.

That man made me, you see. He made me do things I didn't want to do; he forced me to give him what belongs to Ramiro and me alone. He took my innocence, he took my virtue…he took my peace. Things that belonged to me. I—I can't even make Ramiro his favorite meal anymore, because the smell of seafood takes me back to that night. I tell him I stopped making it because it's bad for his blood pressure, and he complains, but he accepts it. I don't like to lie to my husband…but I can't let him know the truth.

I used to make him paella every Friday night…for years, I made it, every week…and that man, that wicked, horrible, awful man…he took that away, too.

Nothing Scotty can do to that man can make up for what he did. Nothing. Even if my son somehow finds him and arrests him…no matter how long he spends in jail, no matter what happens to him there…it won't change what he did to me. It won't fix it. It won't make it right. It can't make it right. What's done is done, and I'm left to pick up the pieces.

Mike picked up the pieces of his own life a few years ago when he told the world what his boxing coach did to him. I was there in the courtroom, sitting next to Scotty, and I listened to Mike tell everyone there what Coach Fitzpatrick did to him after practice. I watched him relive every second, every moment, every instant…and I watched him look at the man who did those things to him, watched him look that coach in the eye, and lay his most private hurt out there on the table for the world to see. I admired his bravery then…and I envy it now. He did something I'll never be able to do.

But Mike didn't want to tell. I knew that plain as day. He's like me. When something happens, he wants to pretend it didn't, he wants to go back to normal and make everything just the way it was. But Scotty wouldn't leave it alone. They had a fight, I heard, and I don't know what was said or done…but in the end, Scotty made Mike tell. He had to have made him. Mike wouldn't have talked about it otherwise.

I suppose it was good for him to talk about it. The coach is in jail, and Mike has "closure," or so he says. But I still see that look in his eyes, though perhaps now I'm seeing my own pain reflected there. One thing I know for sure, though: he doesn't have closure. He can't. Nothing can bring closure to such a gross violation. Not for him…and not for me, either.

So I can't do it. I can't go into that courtroom and tell people what happened to me, go through every detail of that nightmare while the man who caused it is sitting there right in front of me. I just can't. I already relive it every day. Every night. Every morning when I wake up, that face is there before me, and every night when I try to sleep, it's standing over me, mocking me, reminding me how weak and powerless I really am.

Powerless. He took my power. He took my control. He took the very essence of me. He took it all. He made me give it to him. He made me.

I cannot control what happened to me…but I can control what happens now. What happened to me is mine. Telling everyone else…that means I'm not Rosa Valens anymore. Ramiro and Scotty will treat me like a victim. I know how Scotty is with those people, those victims. He looks at them with that sympathetic look of his, like they're people who can't care for themselves any longer. He watched his abuelo, my father, grow weak and feeble toward the end…Papi couldn't even feed himself anymore, and I saw the way Scotty looked at him.

I will not have him look at me like that. My own son, who I carried and birthed and raised…I won't. What's more, I will not stand there in a courtroom and recount the most terrifying, humiliating thing that has ever happened to me before a roomful of strangers, before Ramiro and Mike and Scotty…and him. That man. I see his face enough. I don't need to be in his presence, don't need to feel the hate again, the contempt and the disgust and the sheer evil…

No. I won't do that again…and no one can make me. Not Ramiro. Not Scotty. No one.

This time, I have a choice. And I choose to remain silent.

So please, I beg of you, respect that. Respect the choice I've made. Respect my silence. It's all I have left. I've told you, and I must admit it feels a little better, not sitting on this secret anymore…but you can't tell a soul, comprende? Not a soul. Please don't tell anyone. Not Ramiro. Not Mike.

And whatever you do…don't tell Scotty. Please. I've given you my reasons. You may not understand them, but I'm asking you to respect them. I know he'll only try to help…but I can't let him fight this battle. It's already over. I lost. And Scotty will make me tell.

Please…por favor…don't tell Scotty.

Don't tell Scotty.

Don't tell…

Ring.

…Scotty.