He plants me roughly into a chair in front of the desk.

I immediately move to stand, but he pushes me down. “Stay.”

“You need a dog, not a wife.”

“A dog would be more loyal than my wife, that is certain.” He takes the sheet of paper on the desk, turns it so it’s facing me, and slams it back down.

I look at it, and I gasp. I lift off my seat a little to peer closer as Santiago leans back to let me.

“Wh…what is this?” My mouth has gone dry, the blood draining from my head, a sudden cold leaving me shuddering.

“Pretty, don’t you think?” He picks up the sheet.

I look up at him, mouth open, not believing my eyes.

“Just remember when you look upon yourself next week, loathing your own reflection in the mirror, you only have yourself to blame.”

“What is it?” I demand although I know. My voice rises with panic. I wrap my hands around the seat of the chair, or I’ll bolt, and I don’t know what he’ll do if I try to run.

“It’s you. Don’t you recognize yourself?” he asks with a false laugh, an ugly, unhinged sort of sound.

“Santiago—” My voice breaks, cracking on his name, my throat too dry to speak as my gaze is drawn to that thing. That hideous drawing.

Because what it is is unimaginable. A tattoo. Like his. Just like his.

He wasn’t looking at my eye earlier. He wasn’t studying the strange pupil. That’s nothing next to what he’s got planned for me. He was looking at the canvas of his next work. A skull to match his.

He must know that I understand. I wonder if this is how he’d planned to tell me or if I’d instigated it. Taunted him. Poked the devil. Either way, when I stand, he doesn’t stop me. And when I topple the chair behind me and stumble, he simply watches grinning that grin, that wicked, evil grin.

“This will be your punishment, Ivy,” he says, more sober when he speaks.

“For the poison,” I manage, my voice sounding so frail next to his.

He nods once.

“You’re a monster!” I explode at him, clawing at the drawing wanting to tear it from him, wanting to rip it to shreds as if that would stop it from happening.