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It wasn’t the guilt of someone caught doing what Marcela accused her of. This was older and deeper, the kind that had been sitting inside Isabella long enough to become part of how she saw herself.

Isabeast had found a wound Isabella already carried and shoved her fingers straight into it.

“She had no problem living with all that murderous cruelty,” Isabeast continued. “She never tried to help a single one of them. That’s what she does, Lachlan. She stays quiet. She hides. She survives while somebody else pays the price.”

“Shut up,” Isabella whispered.

The satisfaction on Isabeast’s face turned ugly. Her chin came up, and she shifted her weight onto one hip, studying Isabella with the focused interest of someone who had finally figured out where to apply pressure.

Then she turned her attention back to me.

“Was that how she got you?” she asked. “Did she creep down into that dungeon with those big innocent eyes and that soft little voice? Hands shaking just enough to make every step toward you look brave?”

Isabella’s attention snapped back to her.

“Did she make herself seem frightened of you at first? Give you just enough trust to make you feel special when she finally came closer—a little kindness, a little touch—until the big, dangerous mafia man believed the helpless girl had decided he was the one person in that place she could trust?”

I scrutinized Isabeast as she talked.

Every few words, her attention flicked toward Isabella before coming back to me. She threw something out, waited for Isabella’s reaction, then built the next accusation around whatever she learned.

She didn’t know what had happened between us.

She was constructing it in real time.

“You’re embarrassingly easy when a frightened woman looks at you like you’re her last hope,” she said. “I proved that in New Jersey. She only had to recognize the same weakness.”

My jaw tightened.

“She didn’t go down there because she cared about you. She went because Ciro finally put something useful beneath her bedroom. A Syndicate captain. A man valuable enough to have Nikolai Volkov and half the criminal world tearing El Salvador apart looking for him.”

Her voice hardened.

“She needed you alive because dead men don’t rescue anyone. She needed you strong enough to walk out of that dungeon, strong enough to kill whatever stood between her and the gate, and sentimental enough to drag her along once your people found you.”

Isabella’s breath hitched.

“And if she gave you something while she was keeping her investment alive, so what? A little food. Water. Maybe she let you touch her or made you believe she wanted you. Whatever kept the honorable Irishman cooperative.” Isabeast gave Isabella a contemptuous once-over. “She didn’t save you, Lachlan. She selected you.”

I turned my attention to Isabella.

Fear had joined the guilt now, but not fear of Marcela or the guns pointed in our direction.

She was afraid of what I thought—of her.

I hated that Isabeast had managed to make Isabella look at me like I might turn on her.

Some of the ugly bitch’s story contained truth. Isabella had needed a way out, and the arrival of a Syndicate captain with powerful men searching for him must have looked like the first real opportunity she’d seen in years.

So fucking what?

I’d been doing exactly the same thing from the other side.

The first time she came through that wall, I’d lowered my voice because I needed her to stay. I controlled how much water I drank when every part of me wanted to rip the bottle from her hand because I needed her to believe I wasn’t going to hurt her. I promised I’d take her with me before I knew her name, because a frightened woman who knew the compound and wanted out was the best chance I had of getting free.

If I condemned Isabella for seeing an escape route through me, I’d have to condemn myself for seeing one through her.

We had both started with strategy.