Where Loyalties Lie: A Standalone Romantic Suspense

by Jill Ramsower

  His words were a knife straight into my gut, stirring up a wave of self-loathing that pressed against my chest and squeezed my throat. I could do nothing but gulp down the tears that burned at the back of my eyes.

  “Sometimes, the pain we cause is circumstantial and unintentional, but that doesn’t erase the guilt.” I maneuvered past him and walked out the door, slamming it behind me. I needed space from Tamir and his presumptive accusations. I would have found it hard to keep my emotions in check had my liver not been swimming in alcohol. As it was, I felt swept away in a flood of remorse, fear, and anger.

  What had he been trying to accomplish by prodding me like he had? Did he think I was going to confess some great crime I’d committed? I wasn’t sure how our sensual exploration had devolved so quickly, but after our exchange, I desperately needed space from him.

  Thank God he didn’t come after me. I didn’t know what I’d have said if he did. I took the time he’d given me to sober up and clear my muddled thoughts as I walked the streets of downtown Columbus. Maybe by the time I was ready to go back, I’d have the tiniest clue about how I was going to get away.

  Chapter 13

  Tamir

  I had to admit, Emily could hold her own when it came to tequila, but there was no way she could go drink for drink with a man almost twice her weight. I wasn’t sure she was even aware, but Spanish words began to infiltrate her sentences, giving her speech a seductive cadence.

  She wasn’t the only one who had been overly ambitious. I never stood a chance against the tipsy version of the Latin siren. She was alluring on a normal day, but after we had downed the better part of a bottle of tequila, she was a fucking goddess. She owned her sexuality and basked in it without even trying. Her confidence was unusual because it was so natural. She didn’t flaunt herself. She didn’t have to, just like a diamond would easily outshine a mountain of glitter.

  She was refreshing. More than that, she was intoxicating, and it had nothing to do with the tequila.

  I respected her, or what I knew of her so far, which was why I’d pushed her like I had. She hadn’t taken the pressure well, but that was often the case. People got angry and defensive when faced with a truth they were reticent to admit. Once the emotion had processed through her system, along with the alcohol, maybe we’d have a real chance to get some answers.

  She took more time than I had expected, but I never doubted her return. Everything she owned was here in the room. It gave me the perfect opportunity to go through her things and see what I could learn.

  Everything about our meetup earlier had felt off. She was lying about something, and I was done with waiting patiently for her to be forthright. Whether it was the tequila or the way her body softened against mine, something had allowed me to realize how frustrated I was at her reluctance to let me in.

  It was hypocritical. I knew that well enough. What gave me the right to be upset if she was keeping secrets? I had plenty of my own. In fact, there was a good reason for her not to trust me.

  It didn’t matter. Logic didn’t seem to matter where she was concerned.

  I was pissed, and it brought on a renewed sense of purpose. I still had a job to do, and she was still my mark. It was time to get back to work.

  We had the drapes pulled shut across the small front window, but a halo of light broke through around the edges, giving the room a soft glow. I had yet to go through the bag she’d brought with her, but I was more interested in the grocery sack Reggie had given Emily. I set each item on the small dining table and sat down to examine them. The book was, by far, the most illogical item to have been included, so that’s where I started. One simple flip through the pages, though, and the book instantly revealed its secrets. A professionally made driver’s license and matching birth certificate for one Emily Rogers.

  I wasn’t sure what I’d expected. Possibly a gun or a plane ticket abroad but definitely not illegal documents. How the hell was she hooked up with people who could provide her with false identification? That wasn’t something ordinary people could pull out of their back pockets.

  I was fucking sick of the games.

  Frustration and anger clawed greedily at my skin. She was either in a world of trouble, or she was even more of a professional con artist than I could have imagined. If that was the case, I was done being played.

  I stood so quickly that the metal chair legs scraped across the vinyl floor, nearly tipping it over. I paced for close to a half hour before I finally settled back into the chair facing the door and waited for my pretty little mark to return.

  By the time the lock clicked over and the door slowly swung open, I was tempered steel, cool and resolute. “Come inside. I think it’s time we talked.”

  Her eyes narrowed as they adjusted to the dim light of the room. “What’s going on?” She allowed the door to close behind her but kept her hand on the knob.

  I reached out and slid her documents forward an inch on the table. “This is what’s going on.” I tossed the photo of her and the two children on top of the documents. “You don’t want to tell me the truth, but I’m sick of the lies. Did you think I would buy your attempted cover-up and believe that Reggie had given you a bag of worthless crap?”

  “You dug through my stuff?”

  “Only because you gave me no choice. If you’d be fucking honest with me, I wouldn’t have to.”

  “I didn’t see these, okay? How was I supposed to know?” Her voice rose as she regained her bearings.

  “There was no way you could have missed those. You’re fucking lying, again.” My fingers twitched to wrap around the delicate column of her neck. It took all my control to keep my hands to myself.

  She abandoned her post at the door and came to the table, charging at me angrily. “Even if I am, don’t you think I have my reasons?”

  “What reasons? I’m the one trying to help you.” I lifted my arms in a gesture of surrender. “Do you see anyone else here doing that? How am I supposed to help you when you won’t even be honest with me?”

  “The truth changes nothing. I’m still in danger, and I’m still on the run.”

  Standing, I closed the distance between us, then traced my knuckles down her cheek and along her jawline. “The truth can be the difference between life and death.” My words were only a whisper, an admission of my own, though she’d never know it.

  This was why I’d never considered going into the security business. Other colleagues of mine had done so after leaving the service, but I hated the business. Protecting the client from themselves was just as difficult, if not more so, than from whatever outside threats existed. I wasn’t sure how I’d gone from seeing her as a mark to seeing her as someone to protect, but that was becoming more evident by the minute.

  I was starting to realize the best thing I could do for both of us was to let her go. She felt safer on her own, and I was only opening myself up to disappointment by sticking around.

  I walked away and lifted my duffel onto the bed with Emily at my back. Gathering the few items I’d left in the room, I stuffed them in the bag, totally distracted by my own dark thoughts when she began to speak. What she said stiffened my spine and reminded me why feeling anything for her was a horrible idea.

  “I’m in the witness protection program, WitSec.” She spoke in a low, sure tone, and all traces of alcohol were gone. “Stephanie isn’t my friend, not exactly. She’s my handler. She’s been helping me from a distance ever since I moved to New York. I haven’t told you because one of the conditions of the program is absolute secrecy. I’m not allowed to contact anyone from my old life, but I’m also not allowed to tell anyone from my new life about the program.”

  I lifted my gaze to find her staring at the birth certificate in her hands. “WitSec wouldn’t need to get you documents through some stoner in Ohio.” Was she still lying? Had I somehow fallen in with a pathological liar?

  “The only way I was discovered so quickly was if there was a leak in the program. Stephanie had
told me from the beginning that if the program was compromised, then I’d have to run on my own. She said it’s rare but possible. I don’t know how she knows Reggie, but I’m sure it was the only thing she could do to help me without a record on her end.”

  I walked over and pulled the document from her hands, waiting until her eyes lifted to meet mine. “WitSec is comprised of ninety-five percent criminals who have rolled over on their fellow associates. You don’t end up in the program because your boyfriend is after you.” I wanted to see her reaction to my questions to help gauge whether she was finally telling me the truth.

  “He was a biker. A part of a large motorcycle club. I provided testimony against him, and now his club is after me.”

  “Why would you turn in your boyfriend?”

  She took a deep breath and sat down on the edge of the bed. “At first, I thought it was a simple motorcycle club. There were plenty of them around, and I’d grown up around them, so I didn’t think anything of it. One day, I went looking for him and accidentally walked in on him doing some illegal business. He freaked out.” She swallowed hard, not meeting my eyes. “He threatened me—made sure I understood that I was to keep my mouth shut. But after that, I couldn’t see him the same way. I didn’t want to be any part of his club or that crowd, but I wasn’t sure how to leave. I was terrified. A few weeks later at a club party, one of the girls was joking about the feds watching them in a car outside. When it came time for me to go home, the car was still there. I scribbled my number on an old receipt and slipped it to them as I walked past. I had no idea what would come of it; I just knew I needed help. As it turned out, they were already building a case against the club, and they needed my testimony. I was able to negotiate my way into WitSec in exchange for testifying, but I’ve lived in a constant state of paranoia ever since.”

  Her story was sufficiently detailed, and I got the sense she was telling the truth, but I still wasn’t sure what to think. I’d believed she was telling me the truth before, and while it wasn’t entirely a lie, there was far more to her story than she’d divulged.

  “What about the picture of the kids?” I asked.

  She leaned forward and picked it up where it had been discarded, smiling fondly at the memory. “That’s my half brother and half sister, Isaac and Averi. My dad remarried when I was seventeen, the same year my tita passed away. It was a rough year. His new wife was a worthless sack of shit, but those kids meant everything to me. She was too lazy to bother with raising them, so I took care of them. That was by far the hardest part of walking away. I wasn’t supposed to take anything with me, but I had to take the picture. It’s all I have left of them.”

  Something grated at me. The incessant chaffing of a rock inside my shoe.

  Guilt.

  I rarely suffered from that ugly emotion. My father used to say, “Measure twice, cut once.” I liked to think I practiced that philosophy in all areas of my life, which meant I rarely regretted my actions. Emily was proving herself to be my exception in all things.

  I’d injected myself into a far bigger mess than I had expected. I certainly wasn’t interested in showing up on the federal government’s radar, but I also couldn’t leave her to deal with this on her own, not when I was partially responsible for her situation.

  I walked to where she sat and cupped her cheeks, tilting her chin up to face me. “I think what we need to do is go somewhere remote and let things settle down. I know you were thinking about going to a new city, but you’re safer where you won’t be seen. It’ll buy us some time, which we could both use to clear our heads. Maybe then, we can come up with a long-term plan.”

  Her eyes grew glassy, but she kept her composure as she nodded.

  “Why don’t you get showered, and we’ll grab some dinner. First thing in the morning, we head north.”

  Chapter 14

  Emily

  Few things are more difficult in this life than admitting aloud the ugliest parts of ourselves, especially when that admission is made to someone we respect. The words taste rancid and shameful after being swallowed back and festering down in our bellies for so long.

  Sometimes, we want to spit out the words so we can be free of the bitter aftertaste, but when the opportunity arises, we get scared. We think no one will understand, and that maybe, if it stays in the dark, it’ll be like it never happened.

  But we should know better.

  Secrets have a way of bubbling to the surface.

  It is the one epic battle almost everyone fights at some point—whether to keep a secret to protect your reputation, letting the knowledge eat at you internally, or to divulge the secret, thereby relieving the burden at the risk of ostracization. The two arguments war with one another, a bloody and corrosive battle that only intensifies as we tell further lies to protect that hideous little secret.

  When I told Tamir my story, I was relieved but still so incredibly embarrassed and ashamed. He had been so understanding and helpful, and I had done nothing but lie to him. During that brief window when we’d been drinking and kissing, it felt like those barriers between us had begun to drop. We were free to be two people exploring the attraction between them. After my confession, those barriers felt reformed and fortified, an almost physical presence.

  When he placed his hands on my face and suggested our next course of action, I was begging and screaming on the inside for him to kiss me. To show me that what I’d told him didn’t change the way he saw me. To reinforce that connection we’d shared hours before. Instead, I felt like an inmate locked behind iron bars and denied all but the most paltry scraps of affection.

  That evening, we went to dinner, but our conversation was subdued and superficial. Neither of us seemed to be interested in addressing the status of our complicated relationship or the maelstrom of questions that hung over our heads. Instead, we called it a night early, neither of us straying from our sides of the bed. We both rose at five a.m. without complaint when the alarm went off, and within a half hour, we were on the road.

  “When you say we’re going north, does that mean you have a destination in mind?” I asked as we pulled away from the motel.

  I had thought about asking during dinner, but we’d kept our conversation on anything but our situation. My mental and emotional sponges had been thoroughly saturated during the day. By the time dinner rolled around, I couldn’t take any more substantive discussions. Plus, it hadn’t made one bit of difference where we went. It was a small relief to offload that one decision onto his shoulders so that I could better carry the remaining burden of my current circumstances.

  “I have a small cabin up in Wisconsin not too far from Lake Superior. It’s about eleven hours from here, thus the early alarm. We can make the drive in one day, but it’s going to be a long one.”

  “You have a cabin? In Wisconsin?” That was probably the last thing I had expected him to say. What New Yorker kept a cabin in northern Wisconsin? Vermont or Maine, sure. But Wisconsin? Had I inadvertently teamed up with an ax murderer who was playing the long con to lure me to my death? Was I going to end up in a wood chipper like that guy in Fargo?

  Maybe my story would be sensational enough to find its way onto Netflix. Emilia Reyes: Woman on the Run. We all had to have goals—I supposed that could be mine. At least my story would live on in infamy.

  “It’s just a small hunting cabin I use when I need a break from the city. I only go about once a year, so keep your expectations reasonable. It’ll be dusty, and it’s tiny. Don’t go imagining some romantic cottage on a lake. You’ll be in for a disappointment.”

  “I don’t have anything better to suggest, so it works for me. Do you hunt when you’re there?”

  “I do but only for food. I don’t need to kill things just for sport.”

  Well, that’s good to know.

  “My family didn’t hunt much, but back where I’m from, it’s a huge pastime.”

  “Texans and their guns. Every man, woman, and child own one,” he mused.

>   An icy chill skittered down my back. Had I told him where I was from? I had gotten used to telling everyone I was from California. Had I slipped and mentioned Texas at some point? I thought I remembered everything that had happened while we’d been drinking, but maybe I’d said something and didn’t remember.

  “Yeah, actually. I don’t remember telling you that.”

  “I could have sworn you did. Probably while we were drinking.” He played it off nonchalantly, but I couldn’t escape the feeling that something was off.

  Moments like this made me wonder about myself. I knew Tamir was dangerous. I knew he had secrets and was swathed in mystery like a real-life James Bond. How unstable did a woman have to be to truly want a man like that? I’d only ever have what little of himself he was willing to give, and he probably had a different woman in every city he visited. Why was I attracted to a man who was potentially so bad for me? Considering my background, I supposed it would have been more shocking if I was drawn to a normal man. But still, I worried about myself sometimes.

  “Tell me about your life in Texas,” Tamir said after I’d been quiet for a while.

  “I did the bookkeeping and helped manage the restaurant my grandparents started when they were younger. I loved that place; it reminded me of my tita. When I moved to New York, I knew I wanted to work at a restaurant because that’s all I’d ever known. That’s about it. I worked and hung out with friends when I wasn’t taking care of my brother and sister. My life was pretty simple. What about you? Tell me about your life in Israel.”

  “I went straight into the military after school like every Israeli.”

  “Everyone?”

  “Yes, Israel has a mandatory conscription of its male and female citizens with a few limited exceptions. Currently, women only serve for two years and men for three before they can be released. The government anticipates it won’t be able to continue that practice, but for now, it’s the law.”