Tess’s apartment reveals just how hastily she left. There are clothes in the closet, dishes in the sink, and an open milk carton on the counter. It still smells of the fig candle she had burning in the living room.
I make my way into the bedroom, wanting to see where she slept. It’s sparse but there’s traces of her passage left behind. On a small desk, I find a notebook. A third of the pages are filled with words written in a neat handwriting I recognize from the note she left in her office. Skimming through the first few pages, it seems like she wrote the tales of her travels so far; of the things she did and the people she met along the way.
It’s as I’m closing it that I spot a doodle on the back page. ‘El Diablo’ written in block letters. It matches the tattoo I have engraved along the side of my head. A crude chain and collar hang off the letter ‘o’, just like the tattoo on my hand.
Dark satisfaction slips into my veins and heats me from the inside. She’s not as aloof and unaffected as she likes to pretend to be.
I close the notebook and slip it into my jacket pocket to read later. I’m distracted, wondering what else I’m going to find between those pages. It burns a hole in my pocket; I’m itching to read it so I can get a sliver of understanding into what’s going on in that pretty little head of hers.
The bed is neatly made. On the side table there’s a book titled The Alchemy of Finance by George Soros. I’m not surprised that she’d consider that type of material light reading. Based on what I know of her, she’s brilliant, as sharp-minded as she is sharp-tongued.
Next to it, there’s a cotton scarf.
Pink.
The color that’s starting to haunt my dreams and nightmares alike.
My hand closes around the material until it’s bunched in my fist. I bring it up to my face and bury my nose in it. My eyes flutter close as I inhale deeply, that heady scent of star anise hitting my olfactory receptors with a punch. I shove the scarf closer against my face, trying to permanently imprint her scent in my nose.
The lack of outlet I have for the powerful lust that hits me makes me dizzy. She smells so fucking good I can only imagine what she’s going to taste like when I finally bury my face between her thighs.
“Thiago.”
I shove the scarf into my pocket and turn, finding Arturo standing in the doorway of the bedroom, face managing to be both blank and disapproving.
“The men went through her trash. There’s nothing to indicate where she’s going next.”
I nod, clenching my jaw.
“I’ll have the plane readied to take us back to London,” he declares.
He’s halfway through the doorway when I stop him.
“No.”
Arturo doesn’t immediately turn back around, his entire body tensing instead.
Finally, he looks over his shoulder at me, the rest of him soon turning as well.
“I’m not going back until I find her.”
He doesn’t say anything and the strained silence speaks volumes.
“What is it?” I ask.
He chooses not to mince his words.
“Some would question your focus.”
I prowl towards him, my movements as lithe and dangerous as a panther’s. I stand a mere foot away from him, towering over him.
“What?”
My tone dares him to repeat what he just said.
“You’re preoccupied–”
I grab him by the collar and jerk him violently towards me. He drops his gaze when he’s inches from my face, the only sane decision he’s made since stepping into this room.
“Never question my dedication to the family,” I snarl quietly, baring my teeth. “You won’t live long enough to feel your death if you do.”
“I’m not and I wouldn’t,” Turo answers, angrily holding my gaze now. “My job is to keep you alive and to keep you safe. To keep you in power. I’m not questioning your dedication to the family, but rather how vulnerable your distracted state leaves you. How vulnerable it leaves the rest of us who follow you. You can’t deny that you’re not one hundred percent focused on the cartel.”
I shove him back.
“Leave,” I order, not wanting to hear this.
“How long?” he asks, refusing to be dismissed. “How long are you going to be away from London?”
Pain lances through my jaw from how tightly I’m clenching it. “However long it takes,” I grit out.
It’s only because Arturo is like a second father to me that he hasn’t gotten a bullet in the head for his insubordination.
“You’re risking it all for her and she doesn’t even realize it. She’s not worth it.”
Never mind.
I whip my gun out and have it pressed against his forehead in the next breath. “Watch it,” I hiss.
He laughs humorlessly, unphased by the metal digging into his skin. “I’m your consejero for a reason, Thiago. It’s my job to give you advice, even when I know you’ll put a bullet in my head for hearing it. You don’t have unlimited time to waste here.” He shakes his head. “You’re so blinded by your obsession, you can’t even see it. You would never have let a woman interfere in running the business the way you are now. All I’m asking is that you understand what you’re risking by staying here. If word gets out that you’re gone, the Armenians, the Italians, hell, the fucking English will come for us, weakened as we are by your absence. They’ll smell blood in the water and they’ll attack. With everything that’s been going on, you know they’re looking for any opportunity to take us down right now.”
He’s speaking to me like I’m still the untrained teenager I was before he helped turn me into a ruthless killer, but that kid is long dead. I know exactly what’s at stake if I extend my trip. I know exactly how much I’m risking for a woman who’d rather run from her life than face being in mine.
What he doesn’t understand – what, frankly, I don’t even understand – is that I am willing to put it all on the line.
This obsession has burrowed its way deep into my system, spreading roots that have grown until they’ve tentacled around every part of me. There’s no excising it, there’s only feeding it.
And that means chasing after her until I find her.
“What option do I have?”
“Let her go, Thiago. Find someone else.”
If only it was that easy. Fuck knows, I would if I could.
I lower my gun and holster it, my face as uncompromising as ever when I look at him.
“I can’t.”
It’s the truth.
My only hope is believing that it’s the chase keeping me interested. That once she’s locked away in my home, she’ll fade to the fringes of my mind, getting progressively less and less invasive until she takes no place at all.
But until then, I have no recourse.
He nods, lips falling into a flat line. He understands there will be no convincing me away from this path. “Then we better find her quickly.”
“Go back to London,” I order. “I trust you more than anyone. You can be my boots on the ground presence while I run things from here. If things start going tits up, I promise I’ll go back.”
Arturo steps up to me, clapping me on the shoulder. The tension between us has gone, as quick to dissipate as it was to appear.
“With all due respect, no. I’m not leaving you here,” he says, before adding with a hint of a smile. “Someone needs to keep you in check so you don’t start shooting into crowds if we don’t find her soon. Have Marco go back and forth.”
I clap him on the shoulder in silent thanks and he pulls me into a paternal hug.
“Jefe,” Joaquín, calls as he walks into the bedroom. “Julio just called. Apparently there’s a record of a Caroline Mason getting on a flight to Rome an hour ago.”
I look at Arturo and he nods.
“I’ll get the plane ready, destination: Italy.”
✽✽✽
One week later, exactly one hour before a full seven days have passed and her window to hold up her end of our deal has elapsed, Tess calls again.
It’s from an unknown number, but I know it’s her.
“You’re cutting it close,” I rumble, picking up.
“Were you waiting anxiously by the phone?” she snarks in return, her breathy voice doing absolute numbers inside me.
“Something like that,” I say with a smirk that she can’t see. “Turn on your camera.”
“No,” she answers firmly. “I know that’s how you found me last time, I pieced it together after you hung up. I’m not falling for it again.”
“Clever girl,” I purr, the praise ringing clearly in my voice. “Put yourself against a blank wall indoors if you’re afraid then. If there’s no information in your background, there’s nothing for me to trace you with.”
“Then why do you want me to turn on my camera?”
“I want to see you. Don’t you want to see me?”
“No.”
I chuckle, the sound deep. “Liar.”
A video request comes through and then she’s on my screen, as close to in the flesh as I’ve seen her in weeks.
Her hair is up in a ponytail, her makeup is light but shiny, making her look young and innocent. Pink bowtie earrings adorn both her ears.
“I’m not a liar,” she exclaims, immediately hissing in a breath when she lays eyes on me. “Why–why are you…?”
“Shirtless?”
She nods, eyes fixed on my chest, her throat working overtime to swallow. “Yes.”
I lean backwards into the high-backed desk chair of this office so she can get a good view of my bare torso. Her eyes trace slowly down the expanse of my chest, examining the tattoos and scars with obvious interest. They flare sharply when her gaze falls on the defined muscles of my abdomen and the fine trail of hair that disappears down into the waistband of my trousers.
“I wanted you to see what’s yours,” I answer throatily, my voice like velvet.
“By default,” she mutters bitterly.
I frown. “What do you mean?”
“Nothing,” she adds quickly, dismissing me with a wave.
Her gaze moves back to my bare torso like she can’t seem to look away. Her eyes glaze over and she absentmindedly licks her lips, her expression turning almost ravenous.
I groan, adjusting myself in my trousers and enjoying the way her eyes widen in response. I grab her pink scarf from where it’s laying on my desk and hang it loosely around my neck.
“I’d say based on the look on your face, amor, you did want to see me.”
She ignores my comment, focusing on the ends of the pink material resting on my chest.
“That’s my scarf,” she calls out, confused. “You…how do you have my scarf?”
“I found it in your apartment. Along with a few other very interesting items.”
A hand comes up to her mouth as shock paints her features. She looks so pretty, fine and breakable like a china doll, and I want her. I want to put her on my shelf. I want to brush her hair and run my fingers across her pink lips and I want to break her. I vacillate between possessiveness and an extreme, dangerously uncontrollable blinding need to own her in every way. It’s dark and primitive and might lead to her accidental destruction in the process.
It’s like the excitement of trying to catch a bubble — so hard to capture, so easy to break if overzealous.
“Why did you keep it?”
She doesn’t even question the fact that I found her apartment.
I bunch the scarf against my nose and inhale, looking exactly like the sicko I know I am. When I open my eyes it’s to find hers visibly dilated, a captivated look on her face.
“It smells like you,” I growl.
She tries to hide her reaction, but I see the way she shivers in response.
“You look…” she trails off.
“Go on.”
“Unhinged,” she finishes.
I take another hit of her scent like an addict puffing on a pipe. “And how does that make you feel?”
“Scared,” she answers.
“That’s not all,” I prompt.
“Yes, it is,” she says stubbornly.
“Not according to this,” I retort, holding up something to the camera so she can see it.
She frowns before realization slackens her features.
“Is that…”
“Your journal?” I say, finishing her sentence. “Yes.”
“You can’t read that, that’s private! Don’t you have any manners?”
“None,” I quip, opening up the notebook and fluttering the pages tauntingly. An arrogant smile stretches my lips as I look back up at her. “You wrote about me.”
The satisfaction I felt discovering my name on those pages rivals what I felt during the greatest accomplishments of my life.
“I said that you were a criminal,” she says with a sniff.
“You wrote about me,” I repeat smugly. “And you’re right, there’s a lot of your usual references to me being a ‘criminal’, ‘murderer’, ‘psychopath’,” I say. “But then there’s this one little entrance. My personal favorite from mid-December.”
“Oh my god, did you read the whole thing?” she wails.
“I can’t believe what I dreamed of last night. I’m so embarrassed, I can barely write the words,” I vocalize, reading her confession. “I woke up trying to make sense of what happened in my dream; all I know is my hand was in my panties and I was touching myself.”
“Stop!” Tess cries, red exploding across her cheeks.
“‘Touching myself’ is putting it mildly. I was almost violent with my clit, with giving myself pleasure,” I continue, ignoring her plea. “But it wasn’t really me. My hand was just a physical manifestation of what Thiago was doing to me in my dream. Naked. Sweaty. Dominant. His massive body crushing mine as he took what he wanted.”
“I’m not listening to this,” she exclaims, but she doesn’t make a move to end the call.
“He was so rough, his huge cock punishing me, his hands greedy and demanding, his words vulgar and indecent. He pressed his mouth hotly against my ear, praising me for being his good little whore as he thrust inside me. And I loved every second of it. I came so hard on my fingers, that’s what woke me. What’s wrong with me? Why can’t I stop thinking about it?” I pause when I finish reading, then close the book, caressing the cover almost reverently. “Sounds like you don’t hate me at all,” I say smugly. “You can’t hide from your own words, amor. You’ve got dark wants and desires, just like I thought. I think you’re hiding from them more than you are me. And you were right,” I chant, my voice thickening with lust. “I do have a big cock. I’d show you now, but he’s really only available for in-person introductions.”
“Shut up,” she says, burying her head in her hands and refusing to look at me.
I hiss in a breath and slam forwards until I’m inches from the phone. There’s a very large, very familiar diamond on her fourth finger.
“You’re still wearing my ring.”
I’m usually better at hiding the emotion in my voice, but even I can hear how shocked I sound.
Her face snaps out of her hands and she pulls them quickly offscreen, as if I could unsee what I just saw.
She bites her plump lower lip and looks away, her cheeks still pink and her chest heaving like she just ran a marathon.
“You’re horny for my dick and you haven’t taken off the proof that you’re mine,” I growl, voice so low it’s barely audible. “Come to me tonight and I’ll make those dreams a reality.”
