Never in my life had I been spoken to this brazenly, let alone by a human.

I raised my brows. “No.”

Uriah made a low whistle, and Snow peered at Isabella curiously—as if she were searching for Scarlett. I’d done the same.

We wouldn’t find her.

“I am sorry for what you’ve endured,” I said. “We’ve come to ask you about Evangeline Naya.”

Though she fought to conceal it, not a single one of us missed her flinch. She swallowed, crossing her arms and holding tight to indignation.

“Who are you?” she snapped at Snow.

Snow glanced at me, and I shook my head slightly.

“We’ll get to that,” I said. “Help us bring your born captors to justice.”

Isabella shrugged, putting on a look of boredom to pair with her contempt. “Justice,” she scoffed with a roll of her eyes.

I had a feeling being helpful wouldn’t be much of a motivator. “You could also frame it as revenge, if that helps.” My veins hummed with power, but Isabella only reacted with more vitriol. “I assure you the born will suffer.”

She was unmoving, waiting for more. I’d read her diary, so I already predicted this reaction. It was clear that Snow had naively hoped for better, as she stared at Isabella in shock.

“Don’t you want to avenge the humans who were with you? Don’t you want to help those who are still enslaved?” Snow asked incredulously.

“No. She wants money,” I answered for Isabella.

Isabella shrugged a shoulder, defensiveness creeping into her vulture-like features. “You wealthy city folk don’t know what it’s like to have to fight to survive,” she spat. “Don’t you look down on me for ensuring I live to see tomorrow.”

Snow took a step forward, raising her finger. She laughed bitterly. “You don’t know what it means to survive. You’re the parasite, you?—”

Uriah moved to face Snow, cutting her off. He wrapped his hand around her forearm and softly brought it back down to her side. I’d never seen him work to calm someone down from a fight before. It was… eerie.

Isabella displayed confusion first before it quickly transformed back into spitting anger.

“You’ll be paid handsomely for your cooperation,” I said.

Snow made a soft noise of derision.

“Easy, Blondie,” Uriah said, his voice laced with amusement as she glared at him and yanked her arm away. He only smiled, cautiously moving back to her side.

“And how can I trust?—”

“A bloodsucking demon?” I finished for Isabella. “Can we skip ahead in the script, please? I’m growing impatient. Either you want more money than you’ve ever seen before, or you don’t.”

This was the first thing to make her lips twitch, her eyes glow. “I don’t know much.”

“How long were you kept with Evangeline?”

Again, a slight flinch. “Two weeks, I think. Time moved differently there.”

“You’re an intelligent girl. Far more than the others, I bet,” I started, using the oldest trick in the narcissist handbook. On cue, her facial muscles relaxed, and she blew out a huff of air. “What did you overhear? What was your read on Evangeline and the other traffickers? What connections did you put together?”

As she went inward, I could clearly see the struggle on her face to remember any part of the last few months. I could also observe her fight against her own pain, using brute force to squash it back down and out of sight.

“Evangeline was a stone-cold bitch,” she said.

“Yes. With a creepy-as-all-hell voice. Ugly as shit, too. Which I thought was an impossible feat for born vampires, but alas,” Uriah said with a nod.