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The concern was real. So was the calculation behind it. The safer she felt with me, the more willing she’d be to help.

“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.”