16. Chapter 16
Chapter sixteen
Isabella Delgado.
The first name hit like another burst from the stun gun. The last put every instinct I had on alert.
No fucking way.
For one ugly second, the house in Jersey flashed through my head—the half-finished renovations, the needle in my neck, and Isabeast smirking while my muscles stopped obeying me.
Then flash forward to the dungeon and everything that cunt had done while trying to force that goddamn name out of my mouth.
Now the woman standing between my knees claimed the name was hers.
Of course there were two.
The whole thing reeked of the kind of insane bullshit Ciro Delgado would create.
Every alarm in my head started screaming at once.
Another trap.
Another beautiful woman with a sad story, a soft voice, and something she wanted from me.
Maybe the water, the hidden passage, and the trembling hands were part of a different performance.
Maybe Ciro had sent one Isabella to bring me here and another to find out what pain couldn’t drag from me.
I still didn’t know what Mouse wanted from me beyond a way out.
Desperation made people useful. It didn’t make them honest.
Then the dungeon came back into focus. Her fingers tightened around a fold of her skirt, but she kept those pale blue eyes locked on mine. She was afraid of whatever the truth might make me do, and yet refused to look away.
Mouse had guts.
The cuffs rattled when I flexed my hands.
She flinched.
I forced my hands to stay still and my shoulders to relax.
Scaring her wouldn’t get me out of this chair. She was my water, my escape route through the compound, and possibly the only person inside this place willing to help me, whatever her reasons. Until I knew which side she was on, I needed her close and trusting me enough to unlock the cuffs.
So I shoved the ugliest part of my reaction behind my teeth and kept my voice calm.
“Delgado, as in Ciro?”
“He’s my father.”
“Your father,” I repeated.
“Yes.”
Fuck me. Mouse was Ciro Delgado’s actual daughter.
For the life of me, I couldn’t make the quiet woman who’d slipped through a secret passage to tend my wounds fit with the bastard who owned this place.
I studied her, trying to process the impossible. Her arms hugged her middle, and her pulse beat too fast at her throat. Fear, but not the polished kind Isabeast had used in her office. This looked real.
My gaze caught on her bare feet, then rose to her face—delicate features, a soft mouth, and pale blue eyes framed by dark, wavy hair that fell nearly to her waist. She was fucking gorgeous, the kind of unexpected beauty that had no business in a cartel compound hidden in the Salvadoran mountains.
Even fucked up and half-starved, I had to make myself stop staring.
Good to know suspicion hadn’t killed my dick or my eyesight.
Under my stare, she tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and shifted one bare foot behind the other.
If she was telling the truth, nothing about her resembled Ciro Delgado.
I searched her features for any trace of his scarred face or cold, dark eyes and found none. That proved exactly nothing, though. Children didn’t come stamped with their parents’ sins across their faces.
I must’ve stared too long. Her arms tightened across her middle as though she were bracing for my judgment.
“Start at the beginning, Mouse.”
Her shoulders lowered a fraction at the nickname.
“The woman from New York,” I said. “She’s been using your identity?”
Her mouth tightened. “Her real name is Isabella Marcela Reyes.”
“And Ciro passed her off as his daughter while he kept you hidden?”
Her chin dipped once. “Yes.”
That was more than stealing a name. Isabeast had taken Isabella’s place in the outside world while Ciro kept his real daughter locked inside the compound.
“Why would he need a replacement when he already had you?”
She drew a careful breath.
“It started long before Isabeast came here. My mother was Princess Eliana Sofija Dravik of Eslovenya. Father abducted her and brought her to this compound. I was born here.”
Figures he would kidnap a fucking princess.
Ordinary evil had never been enough for men like Ciro.
“You’ve lived inside this place your entire life?”
“Yes.”
The answer came without drama, which somehow made it worse.
“When I was thirteen, Mother tried to escape with me. But the jeep went off a mountain road.” Isabella’s fingers tightened around her arms. “She died, and somehow I survived.”
“Damn,” I muttered. “I’m sorry.”
“Afterward, Father added more guards, tightened every rule, and started locking me in my bedroom at night.” She glanced toward the ceiling. “My room’s directly above us.”
A princess’s daughter locked in a pretty room where every scream rose through the floor. Ciro hadn’t only kept her prisoner. He’d built her entire life around the knowledge of what happened to people who defied him.
“Then Isabeast came,” she said.
She paused, but I waited instead of pushing her.
Real pain washed over her features—or one hell of a performance.
I hated that I could no longer trust myself to know the difference.
“We were close in age, and for a while, we were always together. She acted like she understood what I was going through. I trusted her with things I’d never told anyone—how much I hated my life here and how badly I wanted the chance to do the normal things girls our age got to do.
Things she’d already done. Then she twisted everything I said into proof that I meant to escape and poisoned Father against me. ”
“So he punished you and rewarded her.”
“Yes. Father wanted a daughter he could show the world. Educated. Polished. Obedient when it suited him and ruthless when he needed something done. Isabeast became that woman for him.”
It fit everything Nik had uncovered about Isabeast—the credentials, the legal access, and the city position that put her exactly where Ciro and Hayes needed her.
“He gave her his last name, let her use my identity, and sent her into the world as Isabella Delgado, all while no one outside these walls was allowed to know I existed.”
There was no self-pity in the answer. Just the story. One I still didn’t know whether to believe. Even so, I wanted her to be telling me the truth. Wanted Mouse to be exactly what she seemed.
“She didn’t only steal your name,” I said. “She stole your place in the world.”
“Yes.”
The thought turned my stomach.
“Whatever she did while pretending to be you is on her. Not you.”
Her arms loosened a fraction.
“I suppose. It doesn’t matter much when no one outside these walls even knows I’m alive.” She hesitated. “But thank you. For understanding at least part of it.”
I meant it. Isabeast’s crimes belonged to Isabeast, no matter whose name she’d used to commit them.
But Mouse’s story still left too much unanswered. Had she helped me because she was kind, because she needed a weapon, or because Ciro had given her another role in this fucked-up family game?
And it didn’t answer the most important question.
Was escape really all she wanted from me?
The fear on her face looked genuine, but I wasn’t betting my life on it.
I shifted as far as the restraints allowed. Pain pulled across my ribs and sent another cramp through my shoulders.
Good.
Pain was simple.
Mouse wasn’t.
“There’s something I need to ask you,” she said.
“Ask.”
“The man I told you I trusted shared some of what Father had learned about you. He said you’re an Irish mafia captain and a member of a new, powerful syndicate. That you and your brother run a club in Manhattan with an illegal casino beneath it.”
“All true.”
“He also said you’re connected to a Russian bratva pakhan, Nikolai Volkov, and an old-world mafia boss, Luca Genovese. He said you attack Father’s routes and intercept his weapons.” She hesitated. “And from everything I’ve heard, you kill people.”
“When necessary.”
She waited for an excuse.
I didn’t give her one.
“I never said I was a saint, Isabella. I run Xyst. I collect debts. I use violence when talking won’t get the job done.”
Hearing her name from me caught her off guard. Her breath stalled, and her lips parted slightly before she closed them again, straightening her expression.
“Then why should I believe I’ll be safe with you?”
“You shouldn’t—not yet. You don’t know me, and I don’t know you.”
She blinked.
“At least you’re honest.”
“Lying would be stupid. You’ve already heard enough to know what I am.”
“You told me your people would take me with them. Is that really true?”
“I told you that because I needed you to come back.”
The words hurt her. She looked down at the water bottle. When she faced me again, the tentative trust I’d seen there had taken a hit.
“I said what I needed to get you back in this room,” I said. “That was strategy. The promise wasn’t.”
“That isn’t reassuring.”
“It wasn’t meant to be. We’re just starting to get to know each other.
Trust goes both ways, and it has to be earned.
I won’t risk my people for a story I haven’t verified, but I gave you my word that you’d leave with us and I won’t break it.
I’m not the kind of man who’ll take advantage of you. You help me, I’ll help you.”
She studied me for another moment. “You see, I don’t know what kind of man you are. I don’t know if you and your men are just like my father or if you have any lines you won’t cross. I don’t want to escape one cartel only to end up trapped by another with a different name.”
“We don’t traffic women or sell children. We don’t hurt civilians for sport. And we don’t hand a woman back to the monster who caged her.”
Her eyes searched mine, weighing every word.
“I’m dangerous, Mouse. I’m simply not dangerous to you unless you give me a reason.”
“What counts as a reason?”
“Handing me back to Isabeast.”
The corner of her mouth lifted. “That seems fair.”
She offered me more water. I took a few swallows before pulling away.
“I know your people are already searching for you,” she said.
“How do you know that?”