“Yes they do.” Cass stood and walked over to her husband. They shared a tight hug, and Marie became aware that all the men were standing nearby their women.
A hand landed on her shoulder, and she glanced up to find Isaac standing behind her, looking just as intense as Irish had. “Okay?”
She smiled up at him and laid her hand over his. “Never better.”
“Food’s ready,” Growler told them, and they madetheir way over to the table that was laden down with delicious looking dishes.
Everyone filled their plates, and laughter rang around the group. People who’d been strangers to her a couple of hours ago were now friends, and Marie began to understand what her mom was talking about when she said that Alliez Security was family. That they would drop everything should someone need it. Marie had seen it for herself firsthand.
What she hoped was that she wouldn’t need them again.
Chapter Twenty-One
“It’s too quiet,”Isaac said to the men seated around the table in the Alliez conference room. “I don’t like it.”
Fox nodded. “I agree. They’ve gone to ground, but I want to know why. We assumed that trying to take Marie out the front of the building was a one-off thing, then they put a tracker on your car and followed you to work. But nothing since makes sense.”
“None of the intel I’ve gathered suggests that Alfredo Vargas is interested in Marie. He’s been active in and around San Carlion, moving his drugs using the locals. Who have no choice, but to do what he wants if they want to live.” Isaac couldn’t keep the disgust out of his voice. Men like Alfredo didn’t give a shit about anyone so long as they got what they wanted.
“Asshole,” Hound ground out. “I still don’t thinkwe can discount him though. From what you told us about his interaction with Marie, he made it clear he was pissed at her.”
Isaac ran a hand through his hair. The last place he wanted to be was in the office, he’d rather be at the hospital where, even though he couldn’t see her, he knew Marie was safe. Irish was watching the building, he wouldn’t let anything happen to her, of that Isaac was sure. “If that was the case, why wait until months later when she’s back in California? Why not take her out while she was still in San Carlion. In a place where he could control the outcome and get away with it. No one would bat an eyelid if a woman disappeared.”
“Which is why we may have to look outside of Alfredo as a reason why Marie was targeted. Or maybe everything really is coincidental.” Jag leaned forward, as though warming to his train of thought. “Listen, what if we look at everything separately. Marie’s attempted abduction wasn’t an abduction, but an attempted robbery. I’ve been doing some research and found that the service she used has been targeted before, only people have been robbed. The assailants get what they want and then drive off.”
Isaac hadn’t considered that perhaps this was a normal thing, all he’d been able to focus on was that it was Marie who’d been involved. “Go on,” he said.
“Her apartment hasn’t been touched. We knowfrom past experience that invading personal spaces and leaving evidence of their presence, is a way of letting us know who the target is.” Jag tapped his pen on the table. “What if it isn’t Marie they’re after, butyou,Isaac? It was your car that was tracked, not Marie’s.”
Jag’s words were like a knife to his chest. Considering his past and involvement with various nefarious people and what he’d done, there was every chance that someone could be after him. He’d spent so many months hiding away to let everyone in the drug world know that Javier Cortez died with Gomez Ramirez, that he’d betrayed his leader and had paid the price. As far as he knew no one in that cartel was interested in him.
But there’d been that moment with Alfredo where he’d looked as if he knew who Isaac was.
Was being around Marie putting her in danger? Would she be safer without him near her?
The very idea that he couldn’t see her hung around his neck like a dead weight. Did he have to start all over again in a new place with a different identity?
He looked around at the men in the room, ones he’d become close to in the short time he’d been with Alliez in an official capacity. There wasn’t any sign of sympathy in their eyes. If anything there was a hint of determination, as though the idea that he was in danger didn’t sit well with them.
If any one of them were in his position, he’d want to do everything he could to keep them safe and fix the problem.
“There’s a real possibility that you’re right. That me being here is putting all of you in danger. I sh?—”
“No, you’re not going anywhere,” Deal interrupted him. “I know I’m not the team leader here, that’s Fox, but there’s no way we’re going to let you disappear again. You may have only been with us a short time, but you’re part of the family now, and we look after our own.”
“I get what you’re saying, but there’s too much at risk here. Too many innocent lives that could be harmed by me being around.” Isaac hated what he had to say next, but he also knew that it was the only way. “I need to leave. Go underground again. Maybe I need to get out of the USA altogether. Go somewhere where my past and I aren’t known.”
“Not happening.” Fox crossed his arms over his chest. “Jag has made a valid point, but we still don’t know ifyouare the target. You know what we do. Anyone of us could’ve made an enemy, and this is all an attempt to put us off balance. You are not making any rash decisions. Ones that you are likely to regret.”
His flight instinct had well and truly kicked in, and Isaac was battling with himself to remain seated and not haul ass out the door and away from everyone. Thethought of leaving Marie and not seeing her hollowed out his stomach, but he would if it meant that she could live safely in her apartment. Go to work without the need to look over her shoulder. Or worry that a patient had faked an injury and was going to attack her.
“I know what you want to do,” Hound said. “It’s what any of us would do, but you have to remember you’re not alone now. You’re not working for a department that would wash their hands of you if what you did would bring a pile of dirt to their front door. We need to analyze everything, including Jag’s theory and our initial one that Marie was in danger.”
“Hound’s right. We’ll get Cass to do her magic on the dark web and see if there is any chatter about Javier Cortez or Samuel Rodrigo. I’m sure she may have already been searching for those names, but maybe not, seeing as we’ve been focused on Marie being the target.” Deal tapped at his tablet.
“We will need to get everyone informed of this latest scenario,” Isaac said, knowing that he was staying because of the men at the table. Even if he did disappear it didn’t mean that everyone associated with Alliez wouldn’t be used in an attempt to force him out of his hiding place.
“It would be better if I act like nothing has changed,” he mused, finally using hismind instead of reacting purely on emotion. “What better way to draw out whoever could be after me than by being the bait.”
