Page 52 of Devil Mine

He shakes his head. “Cash.” He hands me a set of keys. “The address is on the keychain.”

My fingers close around them until I’m clenching the keys in my fist. Satisfaction curls inside me, following the movement of my fingers.

“Well done,” I say. It’s rare praise and it’s deserved.

???

Chapter Nineteen

Thiago

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 titledThe Alchemy of Financeby 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.

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