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I didn’t fight when he yanked it across my eyes. The knot pulled tight behind my head, pressing the material against my skin until every beat of my heart throbbed beneath it.

“Pain works better when he can’t see it coming,” she sneered. “Leave him exactly as he is. No shirt. Leave his pants open. No food and no water.”

Her fingers hooked into my wet hair and gave it a sharp tug.

“That Irish steel will either kill you or make you worth a fortune once it bends. Sit here in your own filth for a while, mutt. Hunger, thirst, and shame will teach you what pride costs.”

I turned my face toward her voice.

“Get the other side stitched while you’re at it. Your mouth’s still leaking bullshit.”

She made a furious sound. Boots rushed closer, and her hand was ripped from my hair. A brief struggle followed, then footsteps crossed the room. The heavy door opened and slammed shut behind them.

Silence returned.

My head fell forward.

I shook hard enough to rattle the cuffs. My lungs still ached from the bucket and the choking. My ribs protested every breath, and humiliation clung to my skin more stubbornly than the cellar’s dank air.

But I hadn’t thanked her.

I hadn’t looked at her when she ordered me to.

I hadn’t fucking come down that man’s throat.

And Isabeast had left bleeding badly enough that she would remember my teeth every time she saw the scar at the corner of her mouth.

Darkness crept over me with my shirt lying in pieces on the floor, my pants undone, and my cock exposed to the cool air. I held on to the taste of her blood until the dungeon disappeared.

Chapter fourteen

The key to Lachlan’s restraints pressed against the skin beneath the bodice of my dress as Doña Teresa escorted me toward my bedroom.

Every instinct screamed at me to run—to get behind my locked door, open the hidden passage, and see what Isabeast had left of him. Instead, I matched Doña Teresa’s pace and plastered the same pleasant smile across my face that I’d worn through dinner with Father, Isabeast, and a table full of cartel killers. One nervous glance or slip of the tongue could expose everything and put both Lachlan and me at my father’s mercy.

Father and his senior men were still drinking on the veranda behind us, their voices rising over clinking glasses while cigar smoke and the aroma of coffee and rum drifted through the open arches.

I’d hoped the heavy meal and alcohol would send them all to bed early, but judging by the noise, I wasn’t going to get that lucky.

The entire dinner replayed in my mind as we made our way through the long corridors.

Keeping my composure had nearly become impossible when Isabeast entered the dining room.

She’d arrived late, just as dinner was being served around the crowded table. Her black hair pulled away from her face left no way to hide the damage to her mouth. Stitches pinched the corner of her lower lip together, and the swelling around them distorted that side of her mouth, making her look less like the polished New York attorney who’d strutted into the compound before dawn this morning and more like someone who’d lost a fight with an angry dog.

Conversation had stopped the moment she sat down.

One of the women serving dinner had gasped before lowering her eyes. Several of Father’s men had stared openly, unable to hide their disgust. Mateo had stood near the far end of the table with his hands clasped behind his back, his jaw set and his gaze cold.

I’d pressed my lips together until they hurt to keep from laughing at the woman for getting what she deserved.

Isabeast.

The perfect name, roughened by Lachlan’s gravelly Irish accent, had replayed in my mind every time I looked at those stitches.

Lachlan had called her what no one else ever had: exactly what she was.

I could still see Father lowering his wineglass and hear the contempt in his voice.