Page 38 of Devil Mine

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Chapter Fourteen

Tess

One month later

“Another churro and cafe con leche, señora?”

I lift my eyes from the pages of my book and look up at the young waitress. She looks in her early twenties, just a couple of years younger than I am and she’s smiling warmly down at me as she clears my cup and plate and puts them on her tray.

It’s the middle of the afternoon on a cold winter day and I’m sitting in a heated patio with a view of thePlaça de la Sagrada Familia,enjoying tapas and reading what’s turning out to be a nail biter of a crime novel. Life is good.

“Why not?” I answer with a smile. “Thank you.”

I’ve been in Spain for three days and I think I might never leave. Life is so peaceful and relaxed here. Unhurried. Every moment feels like it can be savored.

It’s so different to the hustle and bustle of LA where I first went when I left London. I enjoyed the extravagant, over the top, fast-paced way Americans lived. I went to parties and fashion shows and movie premieres. During the weekend, I went hiking or swimming in the ocean.

When I felt like I’d seen it all, I went to Jamaica. I tried cliff diving in Montego Bay and smoked a joint – excitingly, my first ever – with a ride operator at a local theme park.

From there, I took a flight to Casablanca. I camped in the desert and ate the most delicious foods I’ve ever had in my life, making my way up the country to Tangier where I took a ferry to Malaga before eventually making it to Barcelona.

To resume what I’ve been doing since I’ve been gone — I’ve beenliving.

Doing all the things I dreamed of my entire life, crossing item after item off my very long bucket list. All while staying one step ahead of the people I know are looking for me.

I know I should be further away, that Spain is a little too close to England for comfort, but that’s what I’m hopinghe’llthink. That his search will be focused on tiny remote villages in Thailand and not a major city a couple hours flight time away from him.

After what happened with Thiago at my house, I ran to Wiz in a panic and told him I needed to run. He helped me transfer a large sum of money into an account under his name and gave me unrestricted access to it. He used one of his contacts to get me a couple fake passports under different identities. He even set up an encrypted email address I could use to keep working remotely without being traced.

In short, he helped me disappear.

I didn’t tell him why I was running and, much to my relief, he never asked.

He thinks I’m hiding from my father. I know because a week after I ran, he told me he’d detected hacks on everything in my name – my old credit cards, my phone, my email, my social media – and that my father had put trackers on them which would ping him if I ever accessed them.

I didn’t correct his assumption, even though I knew who was really behind it.

Thiago and his men have been looking for me since the moment I left. It’s why I keep moving every week or so, to ensure that I never stay in a place long enough to leave a trail that could lead him right to me.

When I close my eyes at night, I can imagine those brooding eyes and the angry slash of his lips. How furious he must have been when he discovered I’d disappeared.

The way his fist probably balled up the note I left him before hurling it at the wall.

He must have hated that I vanished from right under his nose. He seems to me like a man who doesn’t appreciate his things being taken from him. And that’s exactly what he thinks of me as –- his possession.

He’ll eventually tire of looking for me and will find himself another bride. That’s when I’ll think about going back, because I can’t run forever.

So, good riddance.

And yet…

It’s frustrating, that‘yet’, because why has he been on my mind so often since leaving?

“Here you are,señora,” the waitress says as she places a plate and steaming cup on my table.

“Thank you.” I reach for the cup and pick it up, warming my fingers as I blow softly on the surface. “It’sseñoritaby the way, I’m not married.”

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