9. Chapter 9 #2
“Maybe you should go,” I whispered. “You’ve already risked enough.”
She didn’t move.
I wanted her name. I wanted to know where the hidden entrance led, how often the guard would check on me, and why someone who smelled of clean soap and orange blossom lived inside Ciro Delgado’s walls.
Asking her questions might help me, but my silence would keep her here—curiosity was a powerful emotion.
So I waited.
Then she whispered, “Will your men really come for you?”
She spoke proper British English with a soft Spanish accent. Her voice was pretty enough to catch me off guard—feminine, warm, and musical, a startling sound in a place built for screams.
Her question slid another piece of the puzzle into place. She hadn’t asked who I was, why I was entangled in the nightmare, or whether anyone would realize I was missing. She’d asked whether my men would come—the same declaration I’d thrown in Ciro’s face during the interrogation.
She’d been listening.
She’d heard Ciro question me about Nik, Lucian, and the files from Madrid. She knew he intended to use me as collateral and bait. More importantly, she’d heard every answer I’d refused to give him.
“Aye.”
Her fingers loosened slightly against my shoulder.
“How do you know they’ll come?”
“Because I’d come for them.”
The answer required no thought. They were my brothers either by oath or by blood.
Mouse released a slow breath.
Her question hadn’t only been about me.
I turned over what little I’d learned about her. She knew a hidden route into this room. She’d waited for the guard to move away. She’d disobeyed Ciro to bring me water, then asked whether men from outside the compound would come looking.
“You’re wondering if they’d take someone else when they do.”
Her hand lifted from my shoulder, and her breathing stopped.
I’d caught her off guard.
“You don’t have to answer.”
The angry voices grew closer.
For several seconds, she said nothing.
Then, barely above a whisper, she asked, “Would they?”
There it was.
“Aye.”
She shifted beside me.
“If I make it to my people, they won’t leave you here if I tell them not to.”
“You don’t know me.”
“No.”
The word landed between us without apology.
She was right. I didn’t know whether she worked in the house, belonged to one of Ciro’s men, or was best friends with Isabella. I didn’t know whether the water came from kindness, desperation, or some manipulative plan of her own.
Isabella had acted afraid, too. Her mouth had told me one story while her eyes warned me not to believe a fucking word of it. I’d ignored what I saw because no woman had ever used me or lied to me like that before. Now I was chained in this dungeon because of it.
The truth was, I couldn’t trust this little mouse.
A trembling hand and a bottle of water didn’t make her honest. She could be exactly what she seemed, or she could be another trap waiting for me to step into it.
For now, it didn’t matter.
I needed her to help me escape this hellhole. I needed the hidden passage she’d used, whatever she knew about the compound, and any help she could give me getting out of these restraints. If promising her a place beside me brought that help, I’d tell her exactly what she wanted to hear.
I could decide what kind of woman she truly was once I was back home.
“I don’t need to know you to get you out,” I said. “Help me reach my people, and I’ll make sure you leave with us.”
Silence stretched between us.
“You can’t get out,” she whispered.
“Not alone.”
The admission cost me nothing. Pretending otherwise would’ve insulted both of us.
Her hand returned to my shoulder.
“If you come back, we’ll figure out what comes next together,” I said. “Until then, you stay safe. That matters more than anything you could do for me.”
She moved closer.
Her fingers rose to my face again, tracing the line of my jaw before stopping near the corner of my mouth.
I didn’t move.
I didn’t chase the touch as her breath warmed my cheek.
The guard coughed somewhere beyond the heavy door.
She should’ve run.
Instead, her lips touched mine.
The kiss lasted no longer than a heartbeat. Barely there, soft enough that I might’ve mistaken it for mere breath if her lips hadn’t trembled against mine.
There was no demand in it.
I stayed perfectly still and let the choice remain hers.
She drew back.
“Why did you do that?”
“To see if you are real.”
Her answer made the reason for the kiss clear.
It hadn’t been about wanting me. She’d heard me promise that my people would come, but freedom had been impossible for so long that she couldn’t believe the possibility of it. She’d needed proof that I was more than a voice in the dark.
I wanted to ask where she’d heard the interrogation and how long she’d been waiting for a chance to escape. But pressing her now might get her caught, and I needed her to come back.
Boots struck the corridor floor, closer this time.
“Go, Mouse.”
She didn’t move.
The footsteps were just outside the door.
“Now.”
Her hand slipped from my face. Water shifted inside the bottle as she hurried behind me, followed by a muted scrape from the hidden entrance. Then she was gone.
The clean trace of her scent was all that remained.
The main lock turned.
I dropped my head before the door in front of me opened.
A guard entered, muttering under his breath in Spanish. His boots circled the chair. Metal clicked as he tested one wrist cuff, then the other. He kicked the chair leg hard enough to jar my ribs before walking away.
The door slammed shut.
Only then did I let myself inhale a deep breath and think about what had just happened.
Ciro didn’t control every entrance into his dungeon.
Mouse knew a hidden way through the walls and understood the guards’ timing. She was frightened of being discovered but brave enough to come anyway. She wanted out, and she’d decided I might be worth the risk.
The tracker might bring Nik close to my location.
But I’d need Mouse’s help from inside.
A smile tugged at my split lip.
Ciro still held every obvious advantage.
But he had no idea that there was a little mouse slipping through his walls.