“You live here? Do you own the studio?”
“No, I’m just an instructor.”
A glint of amusement shone in her eyes as if she were scoffing at my statement. Perceptive. “You’re probably not on the clock then, so I don’t need to bother you.”
“If you’re uncomfortable training alone with me, I understand.”
Her spine stiffened. “I didn’t say that. If you have nowhere else to be, I’m up for a lesson.”
“Go set your things down, and we’ll get started.” I moved toward the practice area, eyeing her form in the mirror. Her curves were perfectly proportioned. I’d made certain not to stare during class, but it was impossible not to notice. Women’s workout clothing left little to the imagination.
Women in America often sought a lean and toned physique. I had grown up with a far different standard of women’s beauty. Soft and curvy was more alluring to me than cut, lean muscle. I couldn’t have imagined a more perfect female form than Emily’s tempting body. The contours of her rounded breasts and hips contrasted with her slim waist were enough to make a man insane with need. I had to lecture myself at least once during every class to keep my eyes from straying.
She came every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday without exception and added extra classes on occasion. She was consistent, dedicated, and always put in the maximum effort—all of which were qualities I appreciated in a person.
Even without the shadow of intrigue that surrounded her, I would have taken notice of her curvy physique and relentless drive. My interest would have stopped there, but at the very least, I would have taken note. It was that intangible sense of irregularity that piqued my interest to an irresistible degree. Beautiful women were everywhere, but this one had secrets. Dark secrets.
I would bet my life on it.
Most people paid their monthly fee with a credit card or auto draft from their bank account, but Emily paid cash each month. As someone who also used cash almost exclusively and faced the associated obstacles regularly, I knew how rare it was for someone to rely on cash when credit cards were so common.
Of course, I could have been wrong. Perhaps she had a credit card and used it only for emergencies or some other setup to which I wasn’t privy. Perhaps. But something told me she didn’t. Just like something told me the fear I’d seen in her eyes at our last class had been real. Substantive. A fear that was driving her to show up at every opportunity and learn self-defense as best she could.
I had no desire to be her champion—her problems weren’t my concern—but that didn’t mean I wasn’t curious. I had an unhealthy desire to strip down her walls and lay witness to all her ugly truths.
Everyone kept parts of themselves hidden. A myriad of possibilities existed—unpaid bills, arrest records, abusive spouses—and everyone had at least one of those nasty skeletons collecting dust in the back of their closet. Most people pretended those black stains didn’t exist. Some of us had secrets so ugly, there was no hiding from them. That part of her spoke to me. Captured my interest and wouldn’t let go.
Emily occupied far more of my thoughts than she should have. It wasn’t healthy for either of us.
Neither was training one-on-one, but that didn’t seem to stop me.
Except for Maria, who I sparred with most afternoons, I didn’t train anyone privately. I’d been in a somewhat similar situation when she’d first been thrust into my life. I had already told her father that I didn’t do private sessions, but he brought her to the studio against my wishes. Once I saw the turmoil that churned in those arctic eyes of hers, I knew I had to do it. Something had told me the knowledge I would give her might be the difference between life and death in her young life. I’d been right.
But there was a big difference between Maria and Emily. Maria had only been fifteen when we started training, so there’d never been a sexual nature to our relationship. Our friendship was purely platonic and one I could easily manage.
Despite the mask Emily showed to the world, I could see that same unrest in her gaze. Everything about training with her would be different. She was a good ten years older than Maria had been. Emily was a woman—young, but still a grown woman—and an electric charge buzzed between us already. Training privately would only make that worse. However, just like Maria, Emily wasn’t there for recreational purposes, regardless of what she claimed. Her expressive brown eyes told a far more complicated, harrowing story than her words had admitted.
I was incapable of ignoring that fact.
I was no saint—I hardly expected that training her would wash my hands of all my sins. We all had a story, and mine kept me from turning my back on her. Her luscious body certainly didn’t make it any easier to turn her away. In that one regard, I was a man like any other.
It wasn’t like I had agreed to be her personal trainer.
One hour. That was it.
“I think we’ll work on defending a chokehold attack from behind.” I could have picked any number of techniques to work on—ones that would be far less … intimate—but I wanted to see how she responded in an uncomfortable situation. Something about her reaction to me holding her at gunpoint made me want to test her limits. To see if she’d react similarly in other stressful simulations or if the incident had been a fluke. My curiosity had gotten the better of me, which didn’t happen often.
I motioned her to the mirrored wall and placed a folded mat next to us. “We’re going to practice what to do when an attacker places you in a rear chokehold. The best way to show you, since I don’t have anyone else here to help me demonstrate, is to reverse our roles.” I positioned myself with my heels against the mat, facing the mirror. “Stand on the mat behind me and bring your arm around my neck.”
She bit down on her lip, but it was her only tell at any uncertainty she might have felt. The mat gave her another eight inches of height, which was just enough to line up our shoulders. Her arm snaked across my upper chest, pressing gently against my neck.
“Bend your elbow more,” I instructed, using my hands to help position her correctly as I attempted to ignore the press of her breasts against my back. “You want to use the crook of your elbow to pinch at the throat from both sides. Good. Now, the way to get out of this hold is to reach up and back toward the attacker’s face with the hand opposite of where his face is. If his face is over your left shoulder, you reach with your right hand. Scrape down his face to surprise him, then grasp for his thumb. People’s thumbs are rather weak. When you wrench down with the thumb, the wrist will follow and open space between his forearm and your neck. Tuck your chin and twist your head down through that space with all your strength.” I demonstrated the motion, easily pulling free of her grasp. “The second you’re able, swing that outer arm toward his gut in a series of punches, followed by a solid side kick to give you time to run. You see?”
She nodded with a growing eagerness, wiping at a bead of sweat that had formed over her brow. Oddly enough, she didn’t use the sweatband on her wrist. It wasn’t the first time I’d noticed the inconsistency. In fact, I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen her use the red sweatband she always wore to class. Just one of the many idiosyncrasies that could mean absolutely nothing, but still activated my inner alarms, telling me something wasn’t right.
I pushed the mat aside and reversed our positions, standing behind her as we both faced the mirror. Time ground to a halt as our eyes met in the reflection. It wasn’t uncommon for female students to look at me with trust and sometimes, desire. Emily’s eyes held quite the opposite—there was caution but also challenge.
Did she see through my façade the same way I saw through hers? Surely not, but just the thought had me instantly on edge.
My eyes hardened as I wrapped my arm around her throat. “Do you remember what to do?”
“I think so.”
She swung back with her hand and feigned scraping down my face before attempting to grab my thumb. Her hand lost its grip before she could free herself, and her eyes flew back to m
ine in the mirror.
“Again. You can’t give up trying,” I scolded her more harshly than I should have. “In this hold, you will only have a matter of seconds until loss of oxygen will start to inhibit your brain function. If an attacker grabs you like this, you can’t stop fighting, even for a moment.”
She practiced the movement again. This time, I allowed her to grasp my thumb and free herself from my hold. Going through the motions was an important part of understanding the defense before it could be practiced at full speed and force. When I returned to my place behind her, her features were etched with fixed determination.
We practiced the technique a couple of dozen times, her confidence growing with each attempt. After we finished, we ran through some standard defensive techniques for frontal assaults, each of which she excelled at performing. I encouraged her to use seventy percent of her strength in each attack. In class, when students were training with each other, it was hard to put force into practicing the movements for fear of hurting someone, but there was no way she would hurt me. It was an ideal opportunity to feel the movements at close to actual speed. To see what it would feel like to truly strike someone.
I hoped she would never have the need to experience a real-life application of her training, but something told me she might. If that was the case, I wanted her to be ready. If she were ever to face a man like myself, she’d need all the skills she could get.
“That’s enough for today,” I said when it came to my attention we’d worked past our allotted hour.
“I hope I haven’t kept you from anything. I didn’t realize how late it was.”
“I have no reason to go out in this weather.” I gestured to the door. The edges of the glass window were ringed with a crown of snow.
She gave me a sheepish smile before turning to retrieve her coat and bag. “Guess I underestimated how bad it was going to get.”
As if pulled by some invisible force, I followed her, ambling slowly so as not to make my compulsion noticeable. “You haven’t been in town long, have you?”
“Is it that obvious?” she asked as she put her boots back on.
“No, but I’m pretty good at reading people. I’d say you arrived in the past six months.”
I hadn’t asked a question, and she didn’t volunteer an answer. Instead, she simply gave me a vague smile and continued with her task.
“I take it you’re not a native either?” she asked, changing the focus of our conversation.
“No.”
“When did you move to the city?”
“About ten years ago.”
“I’ve tried to figure out where you’re from, but your accent is hard to place.” She peered up at me with her gloves in one hand and her coat folded over her arm.
“I’m from Israel, but my father was from Spain, so my looks can be deceiving.”
Her head drifted back. “Of course, I should have known. Krav Maga originated in Israel. For some reason, I didn’t put the two together. There’s a rabbi who lives right by me, but he doesn’t sound anything like you.”
“He probably speaks Yiddish, not Hebrew. The two are very different.” I took two steps closer, bringing us to within a few feet of one another. “I take it you did some research before you started classes?”
Her coffee-colored eyes took on a serious glint that she tried to hide with a smirk. “There was no point wasting my time with crap training—blowing a rape whistle or some other inane strategy that would fail if I ever actually needed it. This is a big city. It’s best to be prepared.”
“You seem to think the worst of the city for someone who chose to move here.”
“It has nothing to do with the city and everything to do with people—in the city, there are just more of them. I shouldn’t think I’d have to explain that to you, since you’re the fighting expert. I doubt your skills were acquired as a part of your membership in the Boy Scouts. Israeli military—that would be my first guess, considering that’s where Krav Maga started.”
I smiled at her, a bit more teeth visible than would be considered friendly. “I was Israeli Special Forces before I moved to America.”
“It makes a girl wonder why you left.”
“A girl would just have to keep wondering.”
“Fair enough.” Her lips hinted at a smirk, and her eyes glittered with an intrigue to match my own. As the seconds ticked by in silence, the air in the room grew heavy with insinuation and challenge. Neither of us was willing to be the first to shy away, but we were also unable to ignore the dangers and tempt fate by making a move.
Eventually, Emily averted her eyes and glanced toward the door. “I better get going. I appreciate you training with me.” She slipped on her gloves and began to struggle with her coat.
“Allow me.” I took the heavy black bundle, holding it open to help her slip her arms inside. The action brought us even closer, and when she turned around to face me, we were only a breath apart. A breath that she sucked into her lungs when her eyes lifted to mine—multifaceted eyes that hinted at acute intelligence, all hidden behind a cloying veil.
I envisioned grasping her ponytail and slamming my mouth down on hers, demanding she pull back that shroud and show me each of her precious secrets. I had a feeling they wouldn’t be pretty, and it only made me want her more. She would be every kind of trouble, and I was the greatest kind of fool for wanting anything to do with her.
She must have seen the kiss play out in my eyes because her lips parted on a shuddered breath. “I need to go.” Her words were no more than a whisper.
I didn’t argue with her to stay or encourage her to leave, locked in my own internal battle. Fortunately, she found the discipline I seemed to lack. After a handful of agonizing seconds, she pulled away and hurried toward the door.
“Be careful out there,” I called to her in a gravelly voice, heavily affected by the intense lust that had compromised all my faculties.
She glanced over her shoulder, her eyes glinting with understanding at my double meaning. “See you on Friday, and thanks again.” She dropped her gaze and slipped out onto the snowy sidewalk.
I was enormously relieved when she did, unsure I could trust my own actions around her. Proving my self-doubt was justified, I went to the computer and looked up her account. Emily Ramirez. What exactly was the young Ms. Ramirez hiding? And more importantly, why the fuck did it matter to me?
It didn’t. I wouldn’t let it.
Instead, I shoved aside all thoughts of Emily and made my way to my apartment upstairs. I pulled out my laptop and initiated my encryption software that obscured my location before navigating to a site on the dark web. My destination wasn’t a simple pornography site any idiot could find when they tiptoed into the racing current of the underworld. The unassuming site purporting to be a conspiracy theory chatroom had a back door that could only be accessed by certain individuals granted entry after a rigorous background check. Like the evil twin of law enforcement, the founders of this site were selective about who they allowed in, but with criteria rather opposite than the police or government intelligence.
As the system checked my credentials, my encrypted email server dinged with an incoming message. I opened the program and scanned the email.
To: Caracal
From: Omega
RE: Time sensitive package.
Package arriving in New York for twenty-four-hour layover. No retrieval required. Valued at $100, receipt required. Immediate response requested.
Omega was a service, rather than a person. One I contracted with when the terms were agreeable. The email was a job offer. Omega knew my particular employment stipulations and only sent me offers that they deemed compliant with my requirements, but I still had to decline on occasion. I took every job seriously, only accepting when I was absolutely certain of the risks and implications.
I downloaded the email attachment and unzipped its contents to reveal an array of photographs. The first was a shot of a lean man in his mid-fifties tak
en with a telephoto lens. He was dressed in an expensive suit, hair perfectly styled with a broad smile on his face as he engaged in conversation with another man, who was not fully in the frame.
The second photo gave his pertinent information—name, occupation, vital statistics, and location. The remaining ten photographs provided the background information I required before considering a job. Sometimes the documentation was less than thorough, and I performed my own research before moving forward. Today’s offer came with enough nauseating detail that a secondary investigation wouldn’t be necessary.
Accepted.
With one word, I had agreed to hunt down a man, kill him, and send back proof of his death in order to obtain a $100,000 payoff.
I was no longer in the military, but I’d been trained well and now made a good living for myself with my particular skill set. Most jobs came to me directly, but on occasion, I sought out work. That was what I’d been doing when the email came through. I switched back over to the site I’d opened up and began to scroll through the photographs. Now that I had a new job to work on, I wouldn’t be taking on any extra work, but I had nothing better to do but scroll through the listing of individuals who had bounties on their heads. I didn’t engage in bounty hunts often—too many variables involved—but I liked to keep apprised of the scene.
Every now and then, a familiar face would pop up. Rarely was it surprising. Most of the individuals who ended up on this list deserved their fate. As for me, I found it beneficial to keep tabs on who wanted who dead. Not that I got into the middle of those squabbles, but it was good in my line of work to stay informed about the power dynamic in the criminal underworld.
I scrolled until I came across a photo that sent an uncharacteristic chill through my veins. There was no questioning the face of the woman I’d been with minutes before, and above her photo, the caption: Wanted, alive.
Where Loyalties Lie: A Standalone Romantic Suspense Page 3