Page 58 of Devil Mine

I blink. “Oh.” I wasn’t expecting that response. “Well, you need to give it back.”

“Okay,” he says, lips stretching into a grin. “Come and get it.” He outright laughs at the expression on my face. “I didn’t think so.” He places the notebook on his chest and it stays there as he bounces barely noticeably back and forth on his chair. “I will give it back once I have you. Until then, this is the best I can get of you so I’m keeping it.”

He remains unchanged in his fervent pursuit of me. I thought he’d give up long ago. Find a distraction elsewhere, find someone else. But he’s still here, seeking me out, chasing me.

Fighting for me.

No one’s ever fought for me before.

“Ahem,” I say, clearing the thick mass in my throat. “I’m going to go, otherwise I’ll be late. I’m trusting you to keep your promise,” I say, pointing at him.

I don’t know why I do. He called me foolish once and this is a foolish move, but something tells me to believe him.

“I will.”

“Bye then.”

He sits up abruptly.

“You’ll call again,” he orders. I open my mouth but before I can get a word out he says. “I can threaten you to get you to comply if you’d like.”

“Fine, I’ll call. You suck, you know that right?”

He chuckles, the muscles of his stomach moving hypnotically as the laughter leaves his lips. “So you keep telling me.”

“Bye, Thiago.”

“Bye,amor. Have sweet dreams of us tonight, I certainly will.”

Chapter Twenty-ONE

Thiago

Caroline Mason flies to Paris the next morning, and I follow. Like in Rome, she manages to evade us in the city. We’ve been here for a week and I still haven’t found her.

No one’s ever run from me before, certainly not for this long or this successfully. The part of me that’s intrigued and almost proud of my fiancée’s cunning gets smaller and smaller by the day. This has gone on for far too long now.

I need her back.

I’m agitated, unable to focus. Partially worried about being away from London for so long and also not giving a flying fuck about the business so long as she continues to evade me.

My thoughts are consumed by her. By whether or not she enjoyed her dance class. By visions of another man clasping her waist and pulling her close as she crossed a wish off her bucket list.

Poisonous bile burns my throat just thinking about it.

And now she’s in the most romantic city in the world, beautiful and smart and no doubt wearing pink, and my eyelid twitches almost incessantly the longer I go without finding her. When I do, I’ll tie her up and inflict the same torment on her as she has on me these past weeks.

My phone rings, pulling me from my thoughts. I groan when I see the name flashing on the screen. I knew this call was coming, it was only a matter of time.

“Jefe,” I say, answering.

To the cartel, that’s my title. But there’s one man who outranks me, one man who’s earned the respect of being addressed as such for far longer than I have.

My father.

“Hijo,” he answers, voice warm. “How are you?”

Tomás da Silva is ruthless, a coldblooded murderer who’d hang his own flesh and blood by their entrails if they betrayed him. He’s someone who’s feared globally except in remote parts of the world where internet access is still limited and thus his name hasn’t circulated, but when it comes to his children, he’s as close to a big softie as a cartel king can be.

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