Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
Isaac knew he should let go of Marie, but adrenaline still pumped through his body preventing him from loosening his fingers. He needed to keep this connection with her. To confirm that she was safe with him and hadn’t been taken by whoever had blocked the vehicle she’d been sitting in.
Nothing could contain his shock when he’d been heading into Alliez’s building and saw Marie talking to Yolanda, the firm’s receptionist. He hadn’t been able to move, something he wasn’t used to feeling.
Even after she walked toward the car waiting at the curb, he still hadn’t lifted a foot to follow her.
What could he say to her?
Would she even recognize him? He wasn’t Samuel Rodrigo anymore. He was back to being himself, Isaac Warner, well the current version of him. He was still learning how to be himself.
Too many times he’d thought he’d seen her only to be wrong. He hadn’t been sure he could believe his eyes this time, that this woman was actually Marie. But his eyes hadn’t deceived him—it was her.
The second the two cars had blocked hers, preventing her exit, a sense of disaster had loomed over him.
There had been something very wrong with the situation.
Without thinking he’d raced over to her, getting her to safety was the only thing on his mind.
His suspicions had been confirmed, and fortunately, he’d been able to delay them long enough for him and Marie to escape into the building.
There was no way they’d try and follow, of that, Isaac was sure.
Not with the crowd of people that had seen what had happened and were creating a scene.
If they had any sense they’d be long gone.
Part of him hoped they weren’t smart and were still lingering close to the building.
It would make it far easier for him to talk to them once he got Marie to safety.
Why did they want her? That was the biggest unanswered question. One he needed the answer to now.
“Who were those men?” he demanded, even though he suspected she wouldn’t know.
“Why are you here?” she countered, and his lips twitched at the sparks flying from her eyes. He’d seen that look before, when she’d faced down Alfredo Vargas back in San Carlion.
The elevator doors whispered apart, and he led them toward Alliez’s office, opening the door to Yolanda’s surprised expression. “Isaac? Marie? What's going on? Why are you back here?”
Obviously having enough of being manhandled, Marie shook her arm and he immediately let her go. “Mom, do you know this man who yanked me from a car and brought me here? And Isaac? Who’s Isaac? You’re Samuel, aren’t you?” She faced him, her brow furrowed in confusion.
“I saved you. Did you miss the part where men had guns pointed at you?” Isaac bit back, digesting the information that Yolanda was Marie’s mom.
“Guns?” Yolanda’s gasp filled the room.
“What’s going on?” Ox strode into the reception area, his gaze bouncing between the three of them.
It was beginning to look like a scene out of an over-acted cop drama, but it was real life, and Isaac was glad Ox had arrived.
“I need Cass to check the cameras out the front of the building. Marie was the subject of an attempted abduction.” He kept his voice crisp and calm, even though his heart still hadn’t calmed down.
“Abduction? You can’t be serious?” Marie protested, while all color drained from Yolanda’s face.
“How about we take this to the conference room and we can all discuss this rationally,” Ox suggested.
“Sounds good to me,” Isaac responded and headed toward the room. As he went past the open office area, he caught the eye of Fox and the others. “Conference room, I need eyes on a situation.”
Without questioning him, the men stood and followed. Behind him he could hear Yolanda and Marie talking while Ox called out to Cass that she was needed.
He knew he should’ve made sure Yolanda and Marie were okay after he dropped the bombshell of his suspicions, but he needed a few moments to get his own emotions under control.
He wasn’t used to feeling this discombobulated when it came to a woman, but from the first moment he’d walked into the dusty hospital in San Carlion, Marie had put him off-balance.
Had him wishing for things he shouldn’t even consider—not after all he’d done in his life.
A few seconds later introductions were made and they were all seated around the large table. Everything in Isaac wanted to ask Yolanda to move so that he could sit next to her daughter, but he swallowed the words.
“Before any of you start doing whatever it is you do, I have one question,” Marie stated and stared at him. “Who the hell are you? And how the hell do you work at the same place my mother does?”
Isaac shouldn’t be surprised that Marie was able to keep it together in a pressure situation like the one they were currently in. He’d seen all she was capable of in San Carlion. The way she handled the injured while aftershocks from the earthquake had shaken the land around them.
It wasn’t a matter of if it was right or wrong, he owed it to her to tell her why her mom was calling him Isaac and not Samuel—the name she knew him by.
He faced Marie, looking directly at her so that she’d know she was the center of his attention.
That the other people in the room didn’t matter.
All that mattered was her. She met his gaze without flinching.
If anything, her spine straightened and her chin lifted as if to say, “do your worst because I can take it”.
He firmly believed she could take anything that was handed to her.
“My name is Isaac Warner. I work for Alliez Security as a specialist consultant. I’m a former DEA Agent. When you first met me, I was keeping a low profile until it was safe to return to Los Angeles after the dust settled on an undercover assignment I’d spent eight years working on.”
She didn’t need to know the ins and outs of his time with the Ramirez Cartel. He could explain that to her another time. If she gave him a chance to talk to him after today. Which, considering her gaze never wavered from his, he believed could be possible.
Isaac was also aware that everyone in the room was watching the exchange, no doubt coming up with their own conclusions on what the real relationship between him and Marie was. He could guarantee that whatever they were thinking, it was the opposite of what really happened between them.
Marie still hadn’t responded to what he’d told her. Did she believe him? It wasn’t anything he’d lie about. Then again, it was highly probable that she was having trouble believing him, considering he’d given her a false name when they’d first met and then he’d left without any explanation.
“Are you ready to explain what happened for you to bring Marie here?” Ox asked when the silence stretched beyond polite between them.
With more effort than it should take, Isaac dragged his attention away from Marie and looked at the man who’d given him a chance to reclaim his life, when he didn’t have to.
“I was coming back from lunch when I saw Marie and Yolanda outside the building.” There was no way he was going to tell people gathered in the room that he’d been unable to move because he’d been dumbstruck at the sight of seeing Marie again.
“Marie walked toward a car parked at the curb. I now think it was one of those rideshare driverless cars. Two beige sedans blocked it. One at the front, one at the rear. I raced over and got Marie out of the car, and that’s when we were confronted by a gunman.
I disabled him as much as I could with one hand and then got us up here. ”
“I’ve got the footage,” Cass said, and the screen behind them lit up. Watching the replay of what happened didn’t make Isaac feel any better. Opposite him, Yolanda grasped her daughter’s hand, her other one covering her mouth in shock as she watched it all unfold.
“They were going to take you,” she whispered. “Why?”
“That’s the question isn’t it?” Isaac commented lightly. “Why do they want you, Marie? Do you know who they are?”
As he questioned her, Isaac watched her closely to see if there was any change in her facial features.
Body language. Anything to suggest that she was acquainted with, or recognized, the people who tried to take her.
She’d been too calm about the whole situation and, while he didn’t think she had any part in it, he couldn’t rule it out.
Although it went against everything he knew about her, and he wasn’t sure why he was having these thoughts.
Why would she have anything to do with it? Or know them? It was preposterous really.
“Of course I don’t, and I don’t like what you’re insinuating either,” Marie snapped at him.
In spite of himself, a smile tugged at the corners of his mouth, and he let it happen. “I didn’t think you were, but I just wanted to make sure.”
Yolanda stared daggers at him, and he suspected he would have to make amends with the company’s receptionist, but he wouldn’t apologize for his tactics. It was what anyone else would’ve used. What he’d used on many occasions to get information out of people.
But you’re not DEA anymore, and this is Marie the woman who worked tirelessly to save lives with minimal help, equipment, and supplies.
Perhaps he’d been too harsh in thinking that she had been involved in her attempted kidnapping.
He blew out a breath and rested his elbows on the conference table, leaning forward so that he was a little bit closer to Marie. “I’m sorry. What I did wasn’t necessary in these circumstances.”
As apologies went, it wasn’t the best, but it wasn’t the worst either. Isaac was also aware of every one of his colleagues watching the exchange. He’d be interrogated by them after.
Marie nodded, and Yolanda lost some of her ‘mother’ glare she’d directed at him. “You were an ass, but I accept your apology.” She paused, and he waited, because he knew she was going to say something else. “This time.”
He chuckled, he couldn’t help it. “I deserve that.”
“Yes you do,” she said primly.
Isaac wanted to reach across the table and kiss her. The urge to feel her lips against his for longer than a second was strong, especially as she took what he did and handed it back to him.
“Right, well now that’s sorted, how about we look at the footage again to see if we can find anything that might give us a hint as to who these men are?” Ox said before he looked directly at Isaac. “Any reason to think this could be your past catching up with you?”
The thought hadn’t crossed Isaac’s mind, and now that Ox had mentioned it, he couldn’t seem to let it go.
There was no way anyone from the Ramirez Cartel would connect him with Marie, except Alfredo Vargas had seen them together in San Carlion.
Still, it didn’t mean that he was the target of Marie’s attempted abduction, but he couldn’t discount it either.
“No, the Ramirez Cartel, or Martinez Cartel as it’s known now, are too busy still working their shit out to care about Javier Cortez. Besides, they all think he's dead. However, Alfredo Vargas might think differently.”
Marie gasped at the mention of the drug lord’s name. The color drained from her face, all the confirmation he needed that she recalled who he was.
“Who is he?” Fox asked before Marie could say anything.
“Alfredo Vargas, one of the biggest drug lords in Guatemala. Formerly based out of La Ceibita. Now located in–” Cass lifted her head from the computer and looked directly at Isaac. No doubt the penny was dropping with her.
“San Carlion,” he finished for her.
“That’s where you were working,” Yolanda exclaimed. She was being hit with shock after shock, and Isaac wished it didn’t have to be that way.
“Yes. I … umm,” Marie shifted in her chair. “I guess you could call it a situation with him. He wanted me to save his son who’d been shot, but there was nothing I could do. He got to me too late.”
“Did he see you?” Ox directed his query to Isaac.
“He did.” There was no point in denying it, it wouldn’t achieve anything.
Ox cursed quietly while Deal leaned forward. “Did he recognize you? Did you have any dealings with him while you were Javier Cortez?”
As the questions were asked, Isaac’s attention didn’t stray from Marie. With every word his colleagues spoke, her brow furrowed as if she was trying to string all the pieces of the puzzle together and figure it all out.
What he wanted to do was take Marie away from all of this, but he couldn’t.
The reason his past was coming up was because of what happened to her a short while ago.
“I don’t believe he knew who I was. I had different colored hair and contacts in.
It was also dark.” Isaac didn’t mention the way Alfredo looked at him as if he did know him.
“All I needed was a chance to study you fully to recognize you. It may have been dark, but Alfredo was watching everything going on around him,” Marie interjected. “There’s every chance he was able to put two and two together and come up with four.”
“Then why were you the subject of an attempted kidnapping and not him?” Hound asked.
“How should I know,” Marie threw up her arms. “You tell me. You guys are the security experts. Perhaps it wasn’t a kidnapping attempt. Maybe they wanted to rob me.”
Isaac had enough of the distance between them, he pushed his chair back and strode around the table.
Once he reached her side, he pulled her into his arms and held her tight like he had in the field when she’d let all the emotions she’d bottled up, out.
“I’ve got you,” he whispered against her ear, the vanilla scent of her hair teasing his nostrils.
He didn’t give a fuck that everyone in the room was watching them. All that mattered was giving Marie the assurance she needed.
Could she be right that they were just trying to rob her? He’d like to give her that, but his gut was screaming that it wasn’t a robbery. That it was something far more sinister and that Alfredo Vargas was behind it.
The question was why? Why would Alfredo want her? All she’d done was try her best to save his son who was unsavable.
He couldn’t forget Alfredo’s threat, though. Nor, the way he’d looked at Marie as he scooped up his dead child.
Whatever the outcome, he wouldn’t let Marie out of his sight.