Page 123 of Devil Mine

“But I don’t want to hurt you.”

A pleased rumble rolls up my chest and against her back. “Don’t worry,preciosa. I’ll move. I want to see you do it.”

She takes a deep breath and then throws her head violently back.

“Well done,” I say, releasing her.

Instead of stepping away, she spins and crouches down to the ground in one agile move. Her hand shoots out and she jabs the back of my knee with the side of her hand. I’m completely unprepared for a counter attack; my leg buckles and I fall to the ground. She’s crawling over me in an instant, straddling my chest and smiling smugly down at me as my hands come up to grip her waist.

“Andthat,” she taunts, “is what I like to call the ‘Tristan Special’. He’s been pulling that move on me for over fifteen years and always at the worst times. Typical little brother stuff. I’m happy to have gotten some use out of it finally.” Leaning closer, she grins. “What happened to ‘always being ready’, Thiago?”

I laugh loudly, delighted by her fire. More of my crew spill into the garden, intrigued by the sight of my wife kicking my ass. She pumps her arms up and down in celebration as they cheer. Money exchanges hands between the cartel as they place bets on the outcome of our self-defense session.

This isn’t doing anything to maintain my hardened reputation, but I can’t bring myself to care. My hands move possessively down to her hips where they meet her thighs.

“Counter attacking is always an option, but I’d rather you defend yourself, then get out at the first opportunity. Don’t stay back and try to fight. Men will most likely overpower you with their size and strength.” She nods, a shadow passing through her gaze. I know she’s thinking about that one-handed fucker. I’ve dreamed of tracking him down and finishing him off every night. It’s only because she asked me not to that I haven’t gone through with it. “While you’re down here, next lesson. Like I said, the hardest parts of you are your weapons. Use them to hurt the softest parts of your assailant. That means thecojones— I’m not going to have you demonstrate that one,” The men laugh in the background, bantering loudly in Spanish. With a grin, I take her hands and bring them up to my face instead. “— and the eyes.”

“Fifteen hundred on her accidentally castrating the boss during this exercise,” Joaquín calls out.

“I’ll take that bet,” Luisa answers, slapping her hand in Joaquín’s to seal the bet.

“I’ll double it,” Marco adds.

Tess ignores them, looking at me instead.

“What do you mean, the eyes?”

“One of the most effective defenses, other than going after the family jewels, is gouging out the eyes. You take your hand and you press your fingers as hard as you can into your assailant’s eye sockets.” As I speak, I move her hands over my eyes, demonstrating as best I can. “The goal is to blind them, or at the very least disorient them. The eyes are soft tissue and have very little defenses, making them an easy area to target.”

Tess recoils. “I don’t think I could do that.”

Moving her hands back down to my chest and holding them tightly there, I open my eyes and look up at her.

“I need you to. If anything happens to you—” My breath catches imperceptibly between my lips. “If anything happens to you, I need you to try everything. To kick, bite, slap, claw, whatever you can think of, whatever it takes. To fight dirty. To fight like fucking hell. I need you to fight for your life and I need you towinso that whatever happens ends with you coming back to me. I didn’t chase you around Europe for months just to become a widower.”

She leans forward and pecks me chastely on the lips before patting my chest once, reassuringly. “This is purely theoretical. None of this is real.”

“It is until it isn’t.” My voice is roughened. Coarse. “And if my nightmare ever becomes a reality, I promise there’snothingI won’t do. I’ll move Heaven, Earth, and the seven circles of Hell myself to find you and bring you back home. But I need to know that while I do that, you’ll be fighting every minute to survive and come back to me. Promise me you will.”

Tess takes a deep, shuddering breath in response and smiles softly down at me. “I promise.”

???

Chapter Forty-Eight

Tess

Ifly down the hospital hallway, nearly colliding with a nurse who rounds a corner and steps in front of me.

“Careful!” she calls.

My brain is so engulfed by the swell of emotions crashing through me that I’m not even sure I call out an apology. I’m running frantically, uncaring of who or what I run into, arms pumping as I careen towards the information area.

I’m unable to stop my momentum as I approach; I slam into the reception desk ribs first, my hands loudly slapping the counter as I catch myself. That’ll leave a large, painful bruise tomorrow, but I don’t even feel it right now.

The nurse behind the desk raises a startled look at me, waiting patiently for me to rip in a breath so I can finally speak. “Yes, hi. Sorry…,” I gasp. “I’m looking for Bettina Noble. She was admitted a couple hours ago apparently. I just received the notification. I’m her daughter, Tess.”

Oh god, I can feel the tears gathering behind my eyes, threatening to make an appearance. Guilt eats at me. I’ve been so caught up in my own life since coming home that I’ve only seen my mother once, over a brief lunch. We ate in my office, as I periodically checked my emails. I didn’t even take her somewhere nice. And now she’s in the hospital and I don’t know what state she’s in or the extent of her injuries.

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