She pads farther into the room and sits down on the bed, squeezing her hands together in her lap. "I will. But I need you to promise you won’t hate me. No matter what. I need to hear that from you."

"I can't promise you anything." I glower at her, angry she’s put us in this position. We shouldn’t even be having this conversation. None of this should have ever happened.

She chokes up again, and I give her a moment to collect herself, but only a moment.

"Now, Mercedes. If you don't tell me now, you will decide for both of us. You will never hear from me again."

She peers up at me as gut-wrenching agony twists her features. "No. You can't do that."

"You aren't in a position to argue anymore." I walk to the window and pull back the curtain just slightly, glancing down into the courtyard. The compound is mostly empty right now, apart from the few other guests utilizing similar lodgings on this level. These rooms are reserved for out-of-town members or those who imbibed too much at the club. It isn't somewhere I would have ever considered bringing my sister. But now, I can't imagine taking her home.

"It wasn't supposed to happen this way," she blurts out. "I never meant for any of this to happen. I was just so irritated with you, Santi. To see the way you looked at that Moreno girl. You were falling for her right before my eyes. I could see it, and it felt like such a betrayal."

I release the curtain and turn to look at her. There is no mistaking the misdirected anger in her features. She's envious of Ivy. A confirmation that she’s too dangerous to have around my wife.

"She was going to take you away from me," she says. "I had to do something. I just wanted to make her hate you. So, I hired that courtesan who used to work for IVI to lure you away at the gala and seduce you. All that was supposed to happen was that Ivy would come out of the bathroom and see you together. That was it. Nobody was ever supposed to get hurt."

I pace a few steps across the room, and Mercedes rushes to cry out the rest of her confession.