Page 120

As I went under, she’d leaned close and whispered that I was finally learning.

Stupid bitch.

Pain had never been an effective method of coercion for me. Lucian had nearly beaten me senseless at sixteen after I stole his first motorbike and buried it in a ditch. Hurt like hell. Still didn’t make me sorry.

By the time I blacked out, Isabeast had learned the same lesson Lucian had years ago.

Hurt me, and I only became harder to handle.

She’d dragged sounds out of my throat that one day I’d kill her for. Not one of them was what she’d demanded.

Not one fucking syllable.

My thigh seized once more before the muscle finally released.

I closed both hands, flexed my fingers, and moved each foot inside the cuffs. My left leg answered more slowly than the right, but it answered. A full breath sent a sharp stab through my ribs, but nothing felt broken.

Nothing that would keep me in this chair once Isabella turned the key.

She had to have heard me.

There was no chance those screams hadn’t been heard across the compound.

That wasn’t a problem for my pride. It was a problem for our escape.

Isabella had already risked her life twice to sneak in and help me. After hearing Isabeast push me past anything I could hide, she might have decided waiting was no longer an option and done something stupid.

I’d told her to come back.

She’d promised she would.

Now I needed her to wait a little longer.

Stay upstairs, Mouse.

A key scraped inside the lock of the door, and I expected Isabeast to walk through.

Shit.

If she’d already come back for another lesson, I was about to discover another circle of hell beneath this fucking dungeon.

The door swung open.

Not Isabeast.

Two guards entered first. One carried a folded table under his arm, while the other lugged two hard black cases. A thin man in dark clothes followed with a tripod over one shoulder and a laptop case in his hand.

Well, this was new.

They spread out without saying much. The thin man opened the tripod in the middle of the room while one guard unfolded the table behind it and the other popped the latches on the cases.

A camera came out first.

Then cables, a compact transmitter, and enough electronic shit to answer the obvious question.

Ciro was finally ready for his proof-of-life show.

While the operator mounted the camera and started connecting everything to the laptop, one of the guards walked over to me.