Chapter 19
Chapter Nineteen
“Here you go.” Isaac tossed Marie a fortune cookie, and she caught it with one hand.
“Thanks. Now what is this going to say.” She cracked the cookie shell and pulled out the slip of paper. Isaac had yet to open his, wanting to see what Marie’s said. “Okay, it says, ‘Trust that things happen for a reason’. Hmm, what sort of fortune is that.”
“No idea, let’s see what mine says.” He never believed that the messages were prophetic, it was all a bit of fun. “Right, prepare to be dazzled by my amazing fortune. ‘The future is yours to take’.”
“That’s better than mine.” Marie crunched the cookie.
Isaac leaned back in his chair, studying the piece of paper. “I don’t know; put them both together and the message is a pretty good one.”
“How so?”
He picked up her discarded fortune and placed it next to his on the table. “Trust that things happen for a reason. The future is yours to take.” He looked up and met her gaze. “See, when they’re read together it’s a pretty good fortune.”
“I suppose, but still, wouldn’t it be nice if one of them said, the bad guys are going to get caught. Or you will come into money, go buy a lottery ticket.”
He chuckled, and scooped up the remnants of his broken cookie and placed them on his plate.
“Can’t deny they would be good ones, but you know they really don’t tell you your future.
” No sooner had he uttered the words, he didn’t believe them.
He really liked what the two fortunes said when combined.
After so many years of having to always look over his shoulder, watch what he had to say, make sure he didn’t anger the wrong people, he wanted to believe that something good was waiting for him, even if he’d done so many bad things during his life.
So much about his reconnection with Marie could be put down to things happening for a reason.
He’d been at the right place at the right time to stop her from being taken.
That action had triggered a whole list of other things which was leading them to this moment.
Where she was now sitting at his table in his house.
Sleeping in a room two doors down from him.
Not once did he believe that he deserved a future with someone as good as Marie.
He’d seen the nasty side of life. Had participated in it.
His soul wasn’t pure. It was stained, but he also knew that under all that stain he was good.
He’d always fought for the good people, he’d just had to be part of the bad to ensure the good succeeded.
“You seem to be thinking awfully hard. Is everything okay?”
Isaac shook off the thoughts. “Yeah, everything’s good. You want a hot chocolate or tea or something?”
“I’m good for the moment, but a refill of my water won’t go astray.”
“I can do that. Why don’t you go sit in the living room? I’ll bring it there and then we can talk.”
“Sure, but what about this?” She pointed to the array of takeout containers on the table.
“I’ll have it cleaned up in no time. Now go sit, put your feet up, you deserve it after working hard.”
He pierced her with a don’t argue look when it looked like she was going to do just that.
“Fine,” she held up her hands in surrender and stood. “I know when to take a hint.”
Her smile was sweet, and desire flamed to life and he couldn’t resist it.
“Before you go,” he reached out and took hold of her hand, tugging her flush against him. “I need to do this.”
He closed the distance between them and kissed her. His mouth caressing hers, letting her know that she was damn special to him. He broke the kiss before it became impossible to stop and he’d be dragging her to his bedroom where he’d show her how much he wanted her.
But it was too soon for that—no matter how much his body craved to be naked against hers.
He’d promised her he would tell her about him and Cass and their past, and that was what he would do. No way could he take their relationship to the next level without her knowing exactly who he was and what he’d done.
“I’ll be in shortly.”
“Okay,” she said and gave him a quick peck on the cheek before she disappeared out of the kitchen.
How could a simple kiss on the cheek, a gesture that so many people did, fill him with such joy?
Was it because it was something he wasn’t used to experiencing?
In the grand scheme of things the whys and wherefores didn’t matter. All that mattered was that Marie felt comfortable enough with him to show affection freely.
Isaac packed up the remains of their dinner, putting the boxes into the fridge and wiping down the table.
He filled her glass and grabbed a bottle of beer for himself.
He wasn’t a big drinker, and he didn’t really feel like the beverage, he just wanted something in his hand, and the bitterness of the ale would remind him that life wasn’t all sweetness and light, that it could be stale and dark.
“Here you go.” He placed her glass on the coffee table, liking the way she was curled up in the corner of the couch, looking as if she’d spent hours in that place.
“Thanks.”
He sat in the opposite corner to her, knowing that if he put himself next to her, he’d haul her close and continue what he’d started in the kitchen. Which wasn’t the purpose of the evening.
“You don’t have to do this, Isaac.”
God, this woman always seemed to give him an out. He wouldn’t take it though. “No, I said I would and I will, it’s just.” He picked at the label on the bottle. “It’s not pretty and there are some things I can’t go into.”
“I understand, and I’ve told you that nothing you say will make me change how I feel about you.”
Isaac sincerely hoped that was true, and the fact she’d said it a couple of times, he had to believe that she wasn’t saying empty words to make him feel better.
The risk that once he’d told her everything she’d go back on it, was one he had to take, and if she did, well then she wasn’t the person he thought she was.
“I first met Cass when she was six years old. I was a young DEA Agent who didn’t question anything and followed orders.
We kidnapped Cass in a misguided attempt to destabilize the drug cartels in Mexico.
” He ignored her gasp of surprise at his confession.
“We were always going to give her back. It was a misguided plan that went balls up and ended up with her father being killed, and instead of leaving her in the middle of a gun fight, I bundled her back into the helicopter and brought her back to America. From the intel we had on the Ramirez family and their cartel, it was just her and her father, Manuel. Manuel had a brother, Gomez, but from what we knew, Gomez wasn’t his brother’s favorite person.
I made a split decision thinking that she would be safer here than in a place where what we’d done had caused a bloody war between members of the cartel to seize control. ”
Even all these years later, explaining what he’d done left him feeling dirty, as if he was caked with the blood of the agents and cartel members killed.
He hadn’t been in the leadership group, but he’d been part of the whole sordid mess.
A mess the DEA and other government agencies had tried to bury.
“From what I saw of Cass she looks happy, something she may not have gotten if you had left her behind.”
“Yes, she is now, but what we did, what our government did to her, it’s amazing that she’s as grounded as she is.”
“Tell me all of it. Don’t leave anything out, even if you think you should. I’m not going anywhere.” Marie scooted across the couch until her legs brushed his. He stopped himself from wrapping her close, he needed a little distance so that he could tell her everything.
“I tried to keep tabs on Cass over the years, but the CIA closed ranks and the information I got about her was sporadic at best. I didn’t physically see her again until years later when she was working for the CIA and came into a briefing meeting with intel for one of our assignments.
She was only in there for a few seconds to hand off a file, but I could see how stressed and tired she was.
I wanted to check on her after, but I didn’t get the opportunity.
” He had never mentioned that meeting to Cass after he reconnected with her.
He hadn’t thought it necessary. “After that, I tried to keep a better eye on her, but it was difficult with my job and the fact we worked for different agencies. I had a contact in the CIA who gave me dribbles of information. I didn’t want to let on why I wanted to know about her, or how I knew Cass, which was why I didn’t bother pushing for more. ”
“But you cared about her, that's all that matters.”
“Yeah, I tried. The Ramirez Cartel was never off the DEA’s radar, and when it became obvious that Gomez Ramirez was becoming one of the major manufacturers and distributors of drugs, we needed to do something.
We’re aware that we can’t stop drugs being sold in the USA or being smuggled all over the world, but we can try and reduce it by getting rid of one of the major players.
I was sent to infiltrate the cartel. Get information back to the DEA on when shipments were coming in and stopping them.
I worked my way up the organization, doing things, that…
” He stopped and shook his head as if that would dispel the memories of the things he’d done.
“Let’s just say, to be part of the cartel I had to act in a way that went against everything within me. ”
“You did what you had to do to survive and do your job. I understand that.”