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Chapter 555
Chapter 555:
The fear that moved through the tourist was immediate and total. She was in a foreign country, facing a gang member with a weapon, with no one willing to step in. Survival won out over everything else.
She grabbed June’s arm and pulled her back.
“No, no — I’m sorry,” the tourist said in broken English, her voice shaking and thick with tears. “I made a mistake. I think I left my wallet at the hotel. He didn’t steal anything p>
June turned and stared at her in stunned disbelief.
The tattooed man threw his head back and laughed. He spread his hands wide for the remaining onlookers, performing his innocence. The tourist bowed repeatedly in his direction, apologizing in a rapid, frightened murmur, then turned and pushed her way through the crowd and fled.
о𝗋𝗀аn𝗂𝘻𝗲 у𝗈𝘶𝘳 𝗹𝗶𝗯𝗿𝘢ry о𝘯 𝗴𝗮𝘭ո𝗼𝗏e𝗹s.с𝗈m
The dynamic of the scene shifted in an instant.
The whispers around June changed in tone. The looks that had been curious and briefly admiring became cold and suspicious — directed at her now, for causing a scene over nothing. The crowd dispersed quickly, wanting to be elsewhere.
The tattooed man stepped directly up to June. He positioned himself close enough that she could smell the stale beer and cheap tobacco on his breath.
He leaned his head down until his mouth was inches from her ear.
“You messed with the wrong person,” he said softly, his voice a low, rasping threat. “You just cost me a day’s work. You’re going to pay back what you owe me. In Carmel, sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong gets you killed p>
He drove his shoulder hard into hers as he passed, nearly knocking her off balance, and swaggered away into the thinning crowd without looking back.
June left the farmers market immediately.
The peaceful calm she had managed to find over the past hour had evaporated entirely, replaced by a sharp, burning anger and a cold, creeping unease she couldn’t shake. She didn’t want to return to the inn yet. She needed to walk the adrenaline off first.
The residual tension in her chest drove her away from the crowds and toward the coastline, where a rugged cliffside trail wound along the edge of the Pacific. It was the kind of choice her rational mind would ordinarily have questioned — a remote, deserted path with a sheer rock wall rising on one side and a sheer drop to the ocean on the other. But the need for silence and open air temporarily overrode her usual sharp judgment, and she followed the trail until the noise of the market was replaced by nothing but the roar of the waves far below.
She had been walking for about ten minutes when her senses caught something beneath the sound of the ocean.
Gravel, crunching. Footsteps, deliberately lightened.
Her stomach dropped. She snapped her head around.
Twenty meters back, the tattooed pickpocket from the market was following her down the trail, a slow, predatory smile spread across his face.
June turned forward and quickened her pace, aiming for the open observation deck a mile ahead. The thief saw her speed up and dropped all pretense, breaking into a sprint across the uneven dirt path.