Chapter 52 Testing The Serpent

• (POV: Isabela)
• I kept seeing his face. That cold, satisfied smirk when he saw my jealousy at the party. It was another one of his games, another layer. A reminder that to him, I was just a toy to be controlled. And tomorrow, he would own that toy. Tomorrow. The word echoed with doom. The beautiful prison of my suite felt smaller than ever. Sleep had been a series of jolting nightmares – drowning, falling, Mateo’s dark eyes always watching.
• Lying awake long before dawn, staring at the patterns the faint city lights made on my ceiling, the pieces started to click together in my head. Not in a clear, sudden way, but like murky water slowly settling, revealing ugly shapes at the bottom.