“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 youdo, I have one question,” Marie stated and stared at him. “Who the hellareyou? 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 histime 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 beendumbstruck 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.
