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 taken 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.
Chapter 3
Emily
I spent every waking moment of the following twenty-four hours breaking down each second of my time with Tamir. My inability to focus meant I was late showing up to work, forgot to refill customers’ drink glasses, and even put in the wrong food orders.
I grew up working in my family’s restaurant, so serving customers was as easy as breathing for me, but thoughts of Tamir had disrupted even my most basic of functions. I couldn’t think straight, and I’d slept horribly. It was any wonder I wasn’t drooling in a corner.
If my tita had been around, she would have insisted a hex had been placed on me and taken me to a curradero—a Mexican healer. It would have annoyed me to no end, but now that she was no longer alive, putting up with her antics didn’t sound so bad. Now, I had to figure out my own path. I had to decide for myself if Tamir was a much-deserved dip into refreshing waters or a hazardous whirlpool with the ability to pull me deep beneath the surface.