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“He’ll survive.”

“I didn’t ask whether he’ll survive,” he barked. “I gave you limits.”

“And I stayed within them.”

Ciro gave a humorless laugh. “Look at him.”

“He needed correction.”

“He is leverage, not one of your toys. Volkov already has men searching this country. If this location becomes compromised, I need to move Byrnes fast. I’m not wasting six men carrying him out because you had to prove something.”

His gaze returned to me.

“When I say he needs to walk, I mean he walks.”

Ciro took another drag from his cigar and blew the smoke aside.

“This prisoner is worth more than whatever sick little obsession you’ve developed with him. Remember that.”

For the first time since she had entered, Isabeast had no quick answer.

Last night, Isabella had told me Mateo and several guards were answering to Isabeast now, not just Ciro. I hadn’t known how far that loyalty went.

When Ciro humiliated her, Mateo shifted half a step closer to her.

Not Ciro.

Her.

Big fucking difference.

Ciro still thought every armed man in the compound belonged to him. Mateo had just shown me otherwise.

I was beginning to think he was the only one in the room who hadn’t noticed otherwise.

The camera operator touched the keyboard and leaned toward the laptop. A status bar crawled across the screen, then turned green as a red light blinked on above the camera lens.

He glanced at Ciro.

“We’re live.”

Ciro moved beside the camera and adjusted one cuff of his shirt as though he were about to address a boardroom instead of dictate terms with a hostage chained in a cellar.

“Your brother and Nikolai Volkov are watching,” he told me. “They can see and hear everything that happens in this room. You will not hear them.”

Nik would be trying to tear through the signal from the second it reached him.

Ciro knew it too. He’d have the feed buried beneath relays, false locations, and enough digital shit to keep Nik chasing ghosts.

The tracker in my arm wasn’t magic either. It only helped if it could get a usable signal out, and concrete, stone, and a compound hidden God knew how far into the hills weren’t doing it any favors. If DarkMatter had a clean location, Nik and Lucian would already be here.

Seeing me alive was one thing.

Finding me was another.

If I wanted any real chance of getting out of this nightmare alive, I still had to get beyond these walls.

Then a faint scrape came from behind my right shoulder.