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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?”