AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She seems to shake herself out of whatever thought just tortured her before standing and adding, “He would be so disappointed in me right now.” Amelia crosses the room and places her hand on the door.
I catch a slight tremor betraying the false bravado she’s trying to present. “I really do appreciate you letting me know, Sam. Thank you. Now, could you please leave? I have to pack.”
“You don’t have to leave.” Christ. Why do I want her to stay? This woman is going to be a pain in the ass. “Tell me what has you scared. I can help.”
She runs her now-shaking hand through her dark hair, pushing it away from her face. It hangs down past her shoulders. A beautiful shiny black strand falls right back in front of her eye. “Yeah, Sam? You can help me?” Sarcasm drips bitterly from each clipped word. “You don’t even know what you could be up against.” She laughs quietly at first, before full-blown, hysterical laughter begins reverberating around the room.
“Amelia...”
“You want to know what I did?” Her shrill scream echoes throughout the room, and her wild eyes lock on mine. “My mom died. And instead of comforting me, my stepfather tried to hurt me. There I was. Twenty years old. I’d just lost my mom, and my stepfather—whom I’d never particularly liked, but up till that point, I had no reason to distrust—decided the best way to comfort me was to have sex... with me.”
“What the fuck?” Those damn protective instincts come roaring back to the surface, and I want to kill her stepfather.
“It didn’t happen. I said no. I tried to stop him, but he wouldn’t stop, so... I shot him. But I aimed for center mass, and he moved. I didn’t make that mistake today.” Tears well in those dark eyes, and I want to fix it all... for her.
That fact alone should make me back up.
I should walk away.
I did my good deed.
I checked on her.
I warned her.
Now, I should leave.
But something has me asking for more. “That’s why you left? That’s what has you so afraid?”
She looks away for a beat, wiping the tears that have begun to fall onto her cheeks. “That horrible excuse for a man lived but went to jail. I buried my mom. Cleaned out her house and found a bag full of money. So I took it and went to the only person I could trust to get a new identity. I wanted to leave everything behind. I wanted to be untraceable. Good thing too because that person I could trust told me that my mom and stepdad had been muling drugs for the Canadian cartel. See, stepdaddy dearest was a pilot, and Mom was a flight attendant. So that bag of money I stole to start my new life... That was the cartel’s.”
Amelia shifts from foot to foot.
Uncomfortable.
She absently chews on her thumbnail, looking up at me through impossibly long, black lashes. “I don’t have any idea why I’m telling you all of this.”
“Because you need to talk to someone. Because you know I can keep you safe. So what happened next?”
“At that point... the point when I chose to leave and take the money... I’d been told. Warned. At that point, I knew who the money belonged to, and I still took it.” Her eyes never leave mine as she gets angrier. Her pale skin burns a fiery red, and her tears stream down her face, unchecked. “But here’s where it gets even more complicated. A few months before my mom died, she told me something, something she’d never told me before. My mother was pregnant with me when she moved to Washington. And she moved because she saw something she shouldn’t have and agreed to help the FBI. Apparently, we were in witness protection, and I never knew it because I never knew a different life.”
She angrily wipes away the tears that are falling unchecked. “I had to leave. My stepfather was the only person who ever knew the truth, and I’d just put him in jail. What could he have done with that kind of information? What could he have done to me?” She looks at me like I have an answer. And suddenly, I wish I did.
When I don’t offer anything, she continues, “I wasn’t giving him that chance. I left. And I never looked back. I thought I was safe here. I was completely across the country. I left Anastasia behind, and Amelia was born.” She carefully runs her thumb over the pearl inlay of her gun. “I’ve been so fucking careful. Damnit. I touched the damn water bottle. So fucking stupid.” She stomps her foot down in a rage, and the guttural sound that rips from her throat sounds more like it came from a wounded animal than this tiny woman.
Fueled by agony and regret.
For reasons I may never understand, I want to make this better for her. “Amelia, I’m going to touch you. Do not shoot me.”
Her eyes trace the trail of my hands as they slowly reach for her shoulders.
I need to ground her.
To keep her here instead of in the past.
“I need you to understand that my family owns this city. You are not going to be hurt as long as you’re in Philadelphia. Your fingerprints have been wiped. No one will ever know. I can keep you safe.”
Suspicious eyes look up at mine. “Why? Why would you do that for me? I have nothing to give you in return. And I’m not going to sleep with you. I don’t use my body to pay my debts.”
I force myself to laugh off the last comment. “Lucky for you, I don’t take unwilling women to my bed, Snow White.”
Amelia shakes herself out of my hold. “Why, Sam? Why help me?”
“Because I want to. Because I can.” I think about it for a moment, having no other real answer. Meeting her untrusting eyes, I add, “You didn’t hesitate earlier, and I’m not hesitating now. Stay, Amelia.”
