Chapter 24 Chapter 24
"Good," I said, nodding. "Make sure it is airtight."
“Yes, Mr. Rhyland.”
I turned back to the window. The whole thing was a game of chess, and Tessa was the sacrificial pawn that won me the queen. I hated using her, but it was necessary.
I felt that sudden, deep, wrong impulse. I had to know she was okay. I had to check on her. I had to know she was okay, even if it was from a distance. The transaction might be over, but that ridiculous, annoying debt of caring wasn't. And that was an uncomfortable feeling for a man like me.
Tessa
The flight felt longer than it really was. Seven hours, maybe eight, but it stretched like a lifetime. The steady hum of the engines had settled deep in my bones, a low vibration that dulled everything else. I’d spent most of it staring out the window, watching the clouds smear across the sky like soft gray paint. I wasn’t excited, and I wasn’t scared either. I was empty, which was easier. The stewardess smiled every time she passed, offering water or coffee, but I hardly noticed. I’d learned how to fade in plain sight: polite nod, quiet thank-you, no conversation. The fewer eyes on me, the better.
The name on my ticket wasn’t mine. The woman it belonged to had brown hair, pale skin, and a faint scar near her temple. I’d studied her picture for hours before leaving, memorized every line of her passport photo, and practiced her signature until it felt natural. She didn’t exist anymore, but she would serve her purpose for a while. When the pilot’s voice came over the intercom announcing our descent, my stomach twisted. It wasn’t fear; it was the kind of ache that comes from knowing you’re about to start over again. Another name, another life, another lie to keep breathing.
Through the window, Buenos Aires glowed beneath the clouds, gold and scattered, a city that looked alive even from miles above. The woman beside me crossed herself and whispered a prayer as the wheels hit the runway. The sound was rough, a shudder through metal and air. I closed my eyes until it stopped.
The line for immigration crawled forward. My palms were slick against the fake passport, but my face stayed calm. I had practiced that too. When it was my turn, the officer glanced at the papers, at me, and back to the screen. A beep, a stamp, and a tired nod. “Pase,” he said. That was it.
No alarms, no questions. I breathed a sigh of relief when I reached the sliding doors that led outside. The warm air hit me like a wave. The smell of diesel and roasted meat filled the street. It was noisy, crowded, and alive in a way that made my chest ache. The cab driver leaned out his window, calling, “Taxi, señorita?” I showed him the address I had written down on a crumpled note: a small coastal village, hours away. He nodded once and waved me in. I had taken time to do some research before I got on the plane.
The drive felt endless, but I didn’t mind. The city faded into long stretches of flat land, green and gold under the evening sun. Billboards disappeared, then streetlights. Only open sky remained. The driver hummed to himself, some tune I didn’t recognize. I watched the horizon until it swallowed the last bit of light.
When we finally reached the village, I almost didn’t believe it was real. Small white houses lined narrow dirt roads. The air smelled of salt and bread. Stray dogs in the streets, too lazy to bark. Someone somewhere played a guitar. The driver stopped near a small inn painted pale blue, its sign crooked but cheerful.
“Casa del Mar,” the sign read. I paid him with the last of my U.S. cash, and he smiled and told me, “Bienvenida,” before driving off into the dark.
Inside, a woman with kind eyes and silver hair sat behind a wooden counter. She didn’t ask for ID when I placed money on the desk. She just handed me a key attached to a seashell and said something I half understood about breakfast and coffee. That was enough.
The room was small: one bed, one chair, and one window facing the sea. It wasn’t fancy, but it was clean, and it was mine. I dropped my bag on the floor and sat on the edge of the bed until my hands stopped shaking. For the first time in months, maybe years, I didn’t have any noise or walls that reminded me of Alex. I wasn’t being watched by my stalker at least it felt that way. That night, I couldn’t sleep. The mattress was lumpy, but it wasn’t the bed. It was the quiet; I wasn’t used to it. I sat by the window and listened to the ocean until the horizon started to lighten.
Morning came with the smell of coffee drifting through the cracks in the door. I threw on a pair of jeans and a loose shirt and went downstairs. The woman from the desk, her name was Rosa, poured me coffee before I could ask. She spoke fast, her hands moving almost as much as her mouth, but she smiled steadily so that I didn’t need to understand anything she said.
I spent the first day walking. The village wasn’t big; I could cross it in ten minutes. Kids chased a ball across the sand, fishermen mended nets near the dock, and women hung laundry between whitewashed walls. Nobody looked at me twice. That was new. Usually I could feel eyes on me, heavy and suspicious, but here people had their own lives and their own problems.
By the third day, I’d learned enough Spanish to order fruit at the market without pointing. I rented a tiny room above a bakery owned by a woman named Lucia. She talked more than anyone I’d ever met and always smelled like sugar and smoke. She didn’t ask where I was from or why I was alone. She just said, “If you help me sweep, you eat for free.” So I swept. I liked the rhythm of it: brush, turn, dustpan, repeat. Simple. No thinking required. The heat clung to my skin, and the smell of fresh bread made my stomach growl every morning. It was a small thing, but it made me feel like I was a human again.
In the nights I would sit on the small balcony and write a list. Places I might go. Things I still needed. A new passport, new papers, and a plan to reach the Bahamas. I wanted somewhere warm and quiet, a place where the water was clear and nobody cared who you used to be. Through small talk and careful questions, I learned about a man in another town two hours north who “helped people adjust.” They said he made things disappear, mostly names. No one said more than that, but they didn’t need to. I’d heard enough versions of that story to know what it meant.