Her gaze flits over my shoulder to the door again, but I don’t comment. If she wants to run, I’ll allow it, but she won’t get past me. Maybe she needs to learn that for herself. And the feel of her pressed against me moments ago, her slight weight in my arms? Well, I am a man. And we’re all beasts, aren’t we? Men and women alike? Animals. For all our refinement, money, and polite conversation, underneath it all, we are all just animals ruled by our baser needs. Our wants and desires.

“Are you going to put me in that cellar?” she spits, lips tight, arms hugging closer as she takes another step away until her back hits the wall. “Huh? String me up like you did her?”

Her. Ivy. She can’t even say her name.

I close the space between us so I’m standing inches from her.

She tilts her head back to look up at me. At five-foot-ten, she’s tall, taller when she’s wearing her usual heels, but I still have about six inches on her. And even though her throat works to swallow and the pulse at her neck thrums in double time, she steels herself, gritting her jaw. Dark eyes like lasers burn into mine.

I raise my hand, and she winces.

I pause, eyebrow rising.

She presses her back to the wall and blinks.

Hair sticks to the gash on her cheek. I brush the strands away, feeling her shudder at my touch. My gaze falls to her lips. Her mouth is open, breathing shallow. And when I inhale, I smell shampoo and beneath it that acrid scent of fear.

She’s afraid.

She’s afraid of me.

It’s how it should be. How it needs to be.

“Are you going to put me in that cellar or not? Answer me!” Lines crease the perfect skin of her forehead in her ill-fated attempt to take control of the situation.

Patience, I tell myself.

“Are you afraid of that?” I ask.

She presses her lips together and exhales through her nose. “I’m not afraid of anything.”

“Not even me?”

Her eyes search mine, and she shakes her head. The little liar.

“Hm.” I let the moment hang, listening to her short, trembling breaths. “No, Mercedes. You don’t belong in that cellar.”

She exhales with relief and closes her eyes, pressing the heels of her hands into them.

Did she really think I’d string her up like I did Ivy? Although perhaps I should. When Ivy was in my care, it was for this same reason. She was accused of being the woman who poisoned Santiago. An act Mercedes was at least partially responsible for. An act Mercedes had set her up to take the fall for.