21. Chapter 21 #2
Eyes never lie, and Isabella’s were fucking full of guilt.
It wasn’t the guilt of someone caught doing what Marcela accused her of. This was older and deeper, the kind that had been sitting inside Isabella long enough to become part of how she saw herself.
Isabeast had found a wound Isabella already carried and shoved her fingers straight into it.
“She had no problem living with all that murderous cruelty,” Isabeast continued. “She never tried to help a single one of them. That’s what she does, Lachlan. She stays quiet. She hides. She survives while somebody else pays the price.”
“Shut up,” Isabella whispered.
The satisfaction on Isabeast’s face turned ugly. Her chin came up, and she shifted her weight onto one hip, studying Isabella with the focused interest of someone who had finally figured out where to apply pressure.
Then she turned her attention back to me.
“Was that how she got you?” she asked. “Did she creep down into that dungeon with those big innocent eyes and that soft little voice? Hands shaking just enough to make every step toward you look brave?”
Isabella’s attention snapped back to her.
“Did she make herself seem frightened of you at first? Give you just enough trust to make you feel special when she finally came closer—a little kindness, a little touch—until the big, dangerous mafia man believed the helpless girl had decided he was the one person in that place she could trust?”
I scrutinized Isabeast as she talked.
Every few words, her attention flicked toward Isabella before coming back to me. She threw something out, waited for Isabella’s reaction, then built the next accusation around whatever she learned.
She didn’t know what had happened between us.
She was constructing it in real time.
“You’re embarrassingly easy when a frightened woman looks at you like you’re her last hope,” she said. “I proved that in New Jersey. She only had to recognize the same weakness.”
My jaw tightened.
“She didn’t go down there because she cared about you. She went because Ciro finally put something useful beneath her bedroom. A Syndicate captain. A man valuable enough to have Nikolai Volkov and half the criminal world tearing El Salvador apart looking for him.”
Her voice hardened.
“She needed you alive because dead men don’t rescue anyone. She needed you strong enough to walk out of that dungeon, strong enough to kill whatever stood between her and the gate, and sentimental enough to drag her along once your people found you.”
Isabella’s breath hitched.
“And if she gave you something while she was keeping her investment alive, so what? A little food. Water. Maybe she let you touch her or made you believe she wanted you. Whatever kept the honorable Irishman cooperative.” Isabeast gave Isabella a contemptuous once-over.
“She didn’t save you, Lachlan. She selected you. ”
I turned my attention to Isabella.
Fear had joined the guilt now, but not fear of Marcela or the guns pointed in our direction.
She was afraid of what I thought—of her.
I hated that Isabeast had managed to make Isabella look at me like I might turn on her.
Some of the ugly bitch’s story contained truth. Isabella had needed a way out, and the arrival of a Syndicate captain with powerful men searching for him must have looked like the first real opportunity she’d seen in years.
So fucking what?
I’d been doing exactly the same thing from the other side.
The first time she came through that wall, I’d lowered my voice because I needed her to stay.
I controlled how much water I drank when every part of me wanted to rip the bottle from her hand because I needed her to believe I wasn’t going to hurt her.
I promised I’d take her with me before I knew her name, because a frightened woman who knew the compound and wanted out was the best chance I had of getting free.
If I condemned Isabella for seeing an escape route through me, I’d have to condemn myself for seeing one through her.
We had both started with strategy.
That didn’t make every decent thing that happened afterward bullshit.
But Isabeast wasn’t done spewing her poison, because her attention dropped to Rafael’s body.
Before she opened her mouth, I knew whatever came next was going to be worse.
“He protected you for twenty-five years, didn’t he?” she asked Isabella.
Isabella’s face crumpled.
“He lied for you. Watched over you. Gave up any chance of calling you his daughter because keeping you alive mattered more.” Isabeast looked down at Rafael as if the dead man were nothing more than another useful prop.
“He managed to survive all those years while you stayed quiet and did what you were told.”
“Don’t,” Isabella said.
“Then you decided surviving wasn’t enough anymore, and you dragged him into your escape.” Isabeast’s voice went colder. “And now look at him.”
Isabella’s breathing turned rough.
My hand curled into a fist against my thigh.
“He gave you everything he had. And you’re already reaching for another man to protect you.”
Isabella’s right hand began moving toward the knife.
Mateo was watching Isabeast now. The rifleman’s attention kept shifting between Isabella and me, waiting for either of us to give him a reason to fire.
Neither of them had noticed Isabella’s hand yet.
I intended to keep it that way.
I leaned forward, drawing Mateo’s attention immediately back to me.
Isabeast glanced over at me.
“How long before she gets you killed too?” she sneered.
“Longer than you’re going to live if you keep pushing me.”
Isabeast gave a quiet laugh and stepped around Mateo.
“Marcela,” he warned.
“It’s fine.”
He clearly didn’t like it, but he didn’t pull her back.
Why would he?
As far as Mateo was concerned, they still controlled everything. My guns were on the ground. He had me covered. The rifleman had a clean shot at Isabella.
And Isabeast had apparently decided grief had turned Mouse helpless.
Stupid fucking mistake.
She crouched in front of Isabella.
“Look at me,” Isabeast ordered.
Isabella didn’t.
So Isabeast reached out and grabbed a fistful of her hair near the back of her head.
Every muscle in my body went rigid.
“Take your hand off her.”
Isabeast pulled Isabella’s head back instead.
That was it.
“She’s mine to protect. Touch her again, and you die.”
Isabella’s head turned as far toward me as Marcela’s grip allowed.
For a second, even Isabeast went quiet.
Then disbelief twisted her face.
“You really don’t learn.”
“I learn just fine. You’re the one who keeps making the same mistake.”
She tightened her fist in Isabella’s hair.
“Look at him,” she told her. “He knows what you are now.”
Isabella said nothing.
Her right hand closed around the handle of the knife.
I made damn sure my eyes didn’t drop far enough to tell anyone else where her hand was.
Isabeast leaned closer to her.
“I wore your name better than you ever could. I took Isabella Delgado into courtrooms you’ll never see and rooms full of people who would never have known you existed.
I gave your name an education, a career, influence.
” She gave Isabella’s hair another vicious pull.
“I gave it a face people remembered while you stayed hidden in the compound like the pathetic little secret you always were.”
I kept my attention on Isabeast.
“You heard me.”
She looked toward me, still holding Isabella by the hair.
That was when Mouse moved.
No warning.
No hesitation.
Isabella surged off the ground and drove the point of the kitchen knife into the flesh beside the outer corner of Marcela’s left eye.
Then she ripped it down.
The blade carved across Marcela’s cheekbone and tore through the left side of her face toward her chin, barely missing the eye.
Marcela’s scream ripped through the courtyard.
She released Isabella and staggered backward, both hands flying to her face. Blood poured between her fingers immediately, spilling down her cheek, neck, and the front of that once-pristine white blouse.
“You stole my name,” Isabella shouted, still gripping the bloody knife. “You stole my life. You don’t get to steal my face too.”
Marcela reeled backward into her men.
Mateo’s attention snapped toward Marcela.
The rifleman swung his weapon after Isabella.
There was my opening.
I dropped.
Pain tore through my ribs as I scooped up both pistols. Ciro’s came up first.
I fired once.
The rifleman was still trying to bring his sights onto Isabella when I put a bullet through his eye.
His head snapped backward, and the rifle dropped with him before his finger could finish tightening on the trigger.
Rafael’s pistol was already coming up in my other hand.
I fired.
The round tore through Mateo’s right upper arm near the shoulder and spun him sideways into Marcela. His pistol hit the concrete as his arm went useless.
Marcela crashed against him, shrieking behind the hands pressed to her face. Mateo caught her with his good arm and dragged her back, blood running freely from his own wound.
I had a clear shot at Marcela.
After everything that cunt had done to me, I could finally put a bullet through her and end it.
Then Isabella bolted for the service door.
Fuck vengeance.
Marcela could wait.
Isabella couldn’t.
I shoved Rafael’s pistol into the back of my waistband, kept Ciro’s raised, and snatched the leather strap with the key from beside Rafael’s body.
Isabella reached the door and yanked uselessly at the handle.
A gunshot cracked from somewhere across the courtyard, and the round slammed into the box truck behind us.
I caught up, jammed the key into the lock, and turned it. The mechanism gave with a heavy clunk.
I ripped the door open.
“Let’s go.”
Isabella went through first.
I followed immediately, hauled the steel door shut behind us, and turned the lock.
Marcela’s screams dropped from a full-throated shriek to a muffled howl on the other side.
Best sound I’d heard all fucking day.