The Assassin’s Billionaire Bodyguard
Chapter 50

Isabella paced around the room where she'd been escorted in a mansion in Rio. She had no idea where they were. All she knew was Cam and Gideon had put the eight team members on the flight to Rio immediately following extraction. It had been just after seven when they'd left the site. Now, in a house on the outskirts of the city and according to the other seven guys, this was typical, they'd had a quick meal and then retreated to their own rooms to shower and change. She was still in her room, and it was midnight, but she couldn't sleep.

Isabella found the isolation stifling. She was used to a debrief immediately following a mission, sometimes they had a shrink right on the flight home. She'd left her phone back home. She had no contact with her family or her friends and the longer she sat in the room, the more she was curious to know what was happening with Evgeni. It had been forty-eight hours since she'd left New York. She missed her family, her friends, her support system, and her dog. She was also missing Cam.

It had taken every ounce of her willpower not to throw herself at him when he'd gotten close to the chopper. None of the five men who had gone underground were visibly hurt but Isabella could tell Cam was angry by the way the mission had gone. His intel had been faulty. Intel had said the drug lord went there to be alone with one or two guys at most. Instead, he'd been there with a small army and had machine guns. It wasn't unlikely a drug lord would surround himself like this. In fact, it made way more sense to Isabella he would. However, it hadn't been the information Cam had been provided.

Cam and Gideon would have delivered their acquisition to their contact with the DEA already and she was tiring of not knowing where she was, when she was going home or where her fiancé was.

A single knock on her door made her pull her door open in a huff. Erik stood on the side with Sly and Sam behind him. "What?"

"We have questions Iliza, or Isabella," Erik folded his arms over his chest. "We heard the boss call you Isabella when we were in the field."

"Iliza is my passport name." She didn't elaborate.

"You're a wicked shot. You got the target's eye from a hell of a distance."

"I missed. I was going for his forehead."

"I know you from somewhere. You look familiar to me."

"I have one of those faces."

They stood staring at each other in a standoff until finally Erik shrugged when Sam nudged him.

"You know, we don't care. We really don't. You were a hell of an asset out there. You were calm, collected and I'd have you watch my six anytime." He held out his hand in a handshake, "we're cracking some cold ones down in the games room. Are you coming?" "f**k yes," she grasped his hand and got pulled into a half hug. "Where are we exactly?"

"The boss' house just outside Rio. He has family here and this place was his grandfather's. We always come here after a mission while boss does the paperwork and drop off. He'll let us sleep, wake us up at the damn crack of dawn to get back on the flight home and then tell us off on the plane." Erik explained as he walked her down the hall towards the stairs.

He kept his hand over her shoulder and Isabella didn't bother to shake it off. She didn't feel remotely threatened by it, especially when his other arm was over Sly's shoulder. "Until he gets back, his liquor cabinet is open, and the party is on."

"And the beer is cold?" she questioned as they walked down the stairs.

"Ice cold. Also, there's foosball and the guys have a hockey game on."

"Sweet," she walked into the room to find the other four guys already waiting. "Party started without me?"

"We just got here," Marvin passed her a beer as he stepped past her. "We did consider letting you just rest but then figured you're likely as wound up as the rest of us."

She gratefully accepted the beer and cracked the top, clinking the glass against a bottle of a guy named Deke who motioned for her to take the seat next to him. She wasn't sure what the nickname meant, and she didn't care, if she were honest. The guys were relaxed, the beer was indeed cold, and her mood was improving.

An hour later she had her feet kicked up on a coffee table, they had a hockey game on the biggest television she'd ever laid eyes on and at some point, the housekeeper of this place had brought in snacks. She and Deke were throwing popcorn up in the air and catching it in their mouths.

She was so into the game she didn't immediately notice the presence of the two men who had quietly slipped into the room. She looked up at the same time Deke did and fought everything in her not to run at them.

"Hey boss," Deke called out, "Iliza here is the best addition to our team since you added me. We like her. Can we keep her?"

Isabella grinned up at him as she slowly lifted her bottle of beer to her lips taking in the exhausted countenance of the green-eyed man who was studying her intently. "I keep telling them I'm just covering Mickey's a*s this one time, but they really like me." Cam walked further into the room and caught the beer Gideon threw at him from the bar fridge behind him. He twisted the top off and took a long drink. He flopped into an oversized chair and closed his eyes for a half second.

When he opened his eyes he looked directly at Isabella, "you were covering Mickey's a*s one time but if your boss doesn't mind, I may borrow you from time to time. You did good out there, except for the whole, talking too much and you don't listen to sweet f**k all."

"I listened," she grinned. "You told me to go to the house, I went to the house."

"I said to, not in."

"You weren't specific and, if it weren't for me being in the house, you wouldn't have known where the target went. His secret hidey-hole was well hidden." She felt Deke's silent laugh as he shook beside her.

"She also shot the guy in the face before he could even lift his piece," Erik said from where he stood at the foosball table. "I repeat, damn good shot."

"It was a good shot," Gideon agreed and pulled her hair as he walked behind her. "You good, kiddo?"

"I'm good Gideon," she smiled over her shoulder as he moved to his.

She watched as Cam downed his beer in a long drink. "Someone's thirsty. Rough day?" her eyes were mocking him.

He set the bottle on the table next to the chair, covering his mouth as he belched and then shook his head. "The target was handed off."

"Barely," Gideon grimaced as he sat on the edge of the sofa and stared at the hockey game on the screen. "Boss man almost got arrested for punching a DEA agent and the target was so annoying Cam almost threw him out of the airplane." "You punched a DEA agent?" Sam asked incredulously

"He thought it was funny we got bad intel. I simply expressed my disagreement."

Isabella lifted an eyebrow in his direction. "Seriously? I mean you know we'd rescue you from Guantanamo, if necessary but damn, Torres."

He chuckled, "you and I need a chat in private. I got a call about the situation going on back home. Did you leave your phone in New York? Someone is pissed you haven't called in."

"Yup. I didn't bring anything with me to link me to anyone back home"

"Well, I have an update. You want it?" "Yes."

He stood up, "let's go." He kept his distance as she walked first out of the room and then stood to one side to let him pass. He led her down the hall towards a large set of double solid wood doors. "My office is through here." He pushed the doors open and let her step through the doors. He closed the doors behind him and then reached out and grabbed her arm, spinning her back to him.

Before she could even speak his mouth was on hers and she was pressed hard against the doors behind her. His lips were hard and unyielding as they moved back and forth over hers, demanding as much as they took. Isabella's fingers dug into his scalp as her leg hooked over his hip. He smelled of sweat and aircraft fuel and he tasted of the beer he'd just guzzled. She couldn't get enough as his tongue slipped deep past her lips twining with hers.

She wasn't sure how long they stood pressed against the door, but it wasn't near long enough. When he gently pulled his lips away from hers, she didn't want to let him go and wrapped her arms tight around his neck. As if sensing she didn't want to let him go, he swept her up in his arms and carried her to his chair behind an oversized desk and sat her across his lap.

"You scared the hell out of me today, Torres," she whispered against his neck. "I did not like you going down the bunker."

"I didn't like going down there but I had a job to do."

"Yup, it's why I didn't act like a whiney b***h about it but then you were late, and then I really didn't like it."

He placed small kisses all over her face. "I apologize. I know you don't like it when I give you a timeframe I can't keep. The i***t actually tried to hide under a car, and we spent more than a minute trying to drag him out of it."

"Did Clara call you?" she changed the subject

"Yes," he rubbed his face. "We need to talk." He looked away for a moment, "this is me telling you s**t I shouldn't, but I'm going to because you're you and we're us."

"Okay," she drew the word out long as she contemplated what he was going to say.

"We provide security services for some of Mikhail's men. Sometimes though," he ran his tongue over his teeth as if tasting something bitter, "sometimes we, as in I or Gideon, provide specific services related to a specific area of expertise for Mikhail in relation to his business." "He contracts you," she said quietly.

"Sometimes for interrogations. Other times its interrogations and a bit more."

"That's why Evgeni said you're dangerous." She fiddled with her fingers on his chest not meeting his eyes. "He knows what you do for Mikhail. You're his hitman."

"Evgeni has told his father he feels your life is at risk because of the work we do and the potential link to the mob." He took a breath, "he reached out to Portia to ask if she knew your whereabouts and she took a lot of pleasure in telling him we are engaged. Mikhail thinks he went and put the bounty out with the instruction to kidnap and take you out of country for this reason." He stroked her arm, "Evgeni's solution was to have one of his i***t friends get you on a plane to Russia to one of his apartments and keep you there until he was well enough to travel. He believes you love him because he was your first lover. He believes you belong to him. He believes it is his duty as the only man you could possibly ever love to protect you from someone like me. He has made it clear he will stop at nothing until he gets you away from me."

She rubbed her forehead still not speaking.

"Isabella," he tilted her face, so she looked at him, "say something."

"When you do a hit for Mikhail, do you get paid well?" she held his eyes, "like its good money or just something you do because you like it?"

"This is what you're asking me?"

"Well, truthfully, Evgeni's excuses are bullshit. He started acting like a nutjob before he even knew we were dating. If Mikhail buys this load of horseshit, it's on him for being stupid. I have the text messages and the d**k picks to prove he was harassing me four days before you and I started dating. And if anyone could say there's a mob connection, it's the fact he is Mikhail Andropov's son. He is the youngest child of a Russian mob boss. Mikhail's being a fool and he's looking for excuses for raising an a*****e." Cam chuckled at her bluntness. "Funny you should say this because your sister-in-law said the exact same thing. She told Mikhail she'd end decades of friendship if this didn't stop."

"Okay, now answer my question please."

"Both." He shrugged, "Gideon is a master interrogator. He gets results."

"And you?"

He looked away, "I am very skilled in t*****e. Very skilled. I exact precision and control in brutal ways. Where Gideon has a way of trapping someone in their own words, sometimes prompting is needed and I provide the prompting." He took a breath, "we don't kill women or children if it's what you're concerned about." She made a face at him, "it actually never crossed my mind and I'm not concerned either. It's curiosity."

"Evgeni is correct Isabella. I am an extremely dangerous man. Juggernaut has provided a great way to legalize my business but at the end of the day, I'm a hitman. It is what I do." He motioned with his head in the direction of the door, "in fact, all eight men out there are hitmen on my payroll. My company acts," he made a face as he thought of the correct word, "as a broker if you will. We occasionally do jobs like the one we just completed to keep the government off our backs. We scratch their backs, and they leave mine alone." "I see," she pushed away from him and stood up and went to look outside the window into the darkness of the night.

"I know you're probably upset," he spoke quietly, "and it's a lot to take in."

She shook her head, "I'm not upset." She tapped her fingers against the glass, "I'm just wondering why you're telling me. I was content knowing you were mercenaries doing jobs for the government and providing security for the rich and stupid. It never crossed my mind you torture and kill people for the mob."

"Not just the mob." He shrugged as he rose to stand behind her. He lifted a hand to put on her shoulders to drop back to his side. "Isabella, I'm telling you because you told me your secrets. I never thought I could fall in love with someone, and this is new to me and I'm trying to navigate. I'm trying to do what is right by you. I don't want to keep secrets from you."

"You're going to kill him, aren't you?" she whispered not looking at him.