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“You found a way into a room Ciro believes no one can enter without his permission,” he continued. “Then you came back after hearing what happened in here with food and medicine Ciro had ordered everyone to keep from me. I’d say the predators in this place have underestimated you.”

Father and his men had spent my entire life mistaking silence for helplessness. They never saw how closely I watched them, how carefully I measured every risk, or how well I remembered the lessons my mother taught me. I hadn’t lacked courage or intelligence. I’d lacked an opportunity to use either without getting myself killed.

Now I finally had a chance, dangerous as it was, and I was taking it.

And somehow Lachlan understood that. To him, I wasn’t a helpless woman hiding inside secret passages. I was someone clever enough to use them.

“They’ve underestimated me my entire life.”

“Good. Let them keep doing it, and maybe we’ll both have a chance to get the hell out of here.”

The corner of my mouth lifted before I could stop it.

“I suppose Mouse will do for now.”

“For now?” One of his brows lifted. “Now you’ve got me curious. What’s your real name?”

My fingers went still around the bread.

I should’ve expected the question. Giving someone something as basic as a name was what normal people did. But answering frightened me more than opening the hidden door.

My first instinct was to give him Eliana. Or Bella. Something close enough to answer to without handing him the name Marcela had poisoned.

But that would be another half-truth.

Isabeast had used my first name to deceive and betray him before handing him over to my father. She’d demanded that he say it while she tortured him. The sound of Isabella now belonged to restraints and every filthy thing she’d forced on him.

What if my name turned his warm curiosity about me into disgust?

Worse, what if I refused to say it and allowed her to keep what she’d stolen?

The key beneath my bodice pressed against my skin.

Rafael had told me to test Lachlan before trusting him enough to undo his restraints. Telling him who I really was—and seeing whether the truth changed the way he treated me—would be a good place to start.

Before I put freedom within his reach, I needed to know what he would do with mine.

I set the bread in the basket beside his chair, then straightened and met his eyes.

“My name is Isabella Eliana Delgado.”

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.