The Assassin’s Billionaire Bodyguard
Chapter 27

She was hungover, Isabella admitted as she glared at the computer screen on Tuesday morning. She was hungover and her head was pounding. She had come home to multiple text messages from Evgeni demanding to know where she was, who she was with and why she was ignoring him. She had asked Clara to intervene yet again. She looked at her ringing desk phone and wondered if she'd dredged up her sister-in-law by just thinking of her as she recognized the extension. "Hey Clara - " "Get your a*s up here now."

The phone line went dead, and Isabella was admittedly surprised. It was a rare occasion for Clara to be so angry with her.

She immediately made her way to the top floor and noted Clara's admin assistant was nowhere to be seen. She knocked once on the door and then went in at Clara's command.

She stood there impatiently as Clara typed furiously into her computer mumbling about privacy and teaching someone a lesson.

"You talk to Torres since you've been back?" Clara didn't even look up from where she was working furiously.

"He called me last night when he got in. I didn't talk long because I needed sleep. He just wanted to know I was home safe."

"He didn't say anything else?"

"Nope, just asked if I was safe. Said he had a bunch of work to get caught up on and he would call and arrange a date later this week. What is going on?"

Clara continued to type furiously.

Isabella slapped the desk," Clara what the hell is going on?"

"Your boyfriend pinged all our backgrounds."

"What?"

"We expected him to ping yours. We made sure he only was able to access what we wanted him to see. We did not expect the a*****e to ping mine, Naomi, Cat, Jesse, Sabine, Arwen, Josephine or Corry." "No." she sat down in her chair. "Are you kidding?"

"Nope. It was all our planted info, nothing he could ever do anything with but he's digging. I want to know why."

Isabella felt her rage simmering, "how dare he?"

"My feelings exactly. It's one thing to check you out, it's another thing to check every person you've ever encountered." She spared her a glance, "you mentioned you were going to tell him. Tell him. Give him the golden egg so he backs the f**k off." Isabella visibly bristled at the suggestion and glared at Clara. "It's none of his business."

"Make it his business." Clara looked up and stared at her furiously, "If he keeps digging like this I'm going to have to intervene and then I'll be in a pissing match with another security team, and I don't need it. Use our cover but give him the truth." She turned back to her computer, "and do it now. Get your a*s to his offices."

"How do you know he's there?"

"Because I'm looking at his schedule right now," Clara didn't look up.

Isabella stomped furiously out of Clara's office and then made her way to her office. Calvin stuck his head out of his office and then made a face at Isabella's countenance and closed his door again. She grabbed her purse and her coat and pounded the button of the elevator furiously.

By the time she had marched the thirty minutes from Draxton Enterprises to the office building of Juggernaut, her rage was palpable. She wanted to pound the hell out of him. She slammed her purse on the counter startling the receptionist. "Tell Camden Torres Isabella Ruiz is here to see him." She looked directly up at the security camera behind the desk, "and tell him I'm f*****g furious."

She didn't wait and marched over to the elevators. Out of the corner of her eye she noted two security guards walking towards her.

"Ms Ruiz, Mr. Torres asked us to relay he is busy in a meeting with a client right now. He said he would call you this evening at your home."

"No, I'm going to see him now." She kicked the elevator frustratedly, her toe hurting in her boot.

As one of the guys went to reach for her arm, she reacted and spun him, smashing his face into the steel doors, and holding his wriggling body. When the other man reacted, she kicked sideways with boot and slammed it into the mans chest sending him backwards. She spoke against the man's ear, "tell your boss, I want to see him now. I don't care who the f**k he's meeting with."

She didn't release the man and noted Gideon emerging from another elevator down the hall and she shoved the struggling man to the floor. She pointed at him, "you take me to him now."

"Isabella, Cam is busy."

"Is he? You have two minutes to get him to meet with me or I'm going to rain hellfire on his lobby."

Gideon nodded and then motioned for her to precede him in the direction he just emerged. "Let's take the executive elevator. More private."

As they got into the elevator, he looked at his phone, "Cam says he can meet with you for a quick moment."

"It's all it's going to take." She glared at Gideon, "you're on my s**t list too, jerkoff. You're lucky I know you're just doing your boss' bidding."

He didn't respond to her accusation but then said, "my guy thinks you broke his ribs."

"He's lucky it's just his ribs. He tried to touch me."

"You're being hostile. It's literally his job to remove you from the premises."

"You haven't seen hostile yet."

The elevator doors pinged open with a whoosh, and she followed Gideon to a large boardroom opened to the corridor with glass. He made a face as he looked at his phone. "I'm going to leave you here Isabella. Cam will be here in a moment. I have something I need to take care of."

"I bet you do," she thought with a twisted smile as she leaned over the long mahogany desk, flipping her purse and coat on the back of a chair. She was so angry she could barely breathe. This was not one of those situations where with time you calmed down. The longer she ruminated on the intrusive behaviour of Camden Torres, she was becoming increasingly irate.

She tried one of her meditation techniques as she desperately tried to reign in her temper. The sound of the door opening had her closing her eyes and inhaling sharply.

"Isabella, this is a lovely surprise."

Her head snapped up to look at him, "try again, Torres."

"It's not a lovely surprise?"

"You weren't expecting me to show up?"

"No, we talked last night, and I said I'd call you to set up a date later this week."

"It never occurred to you once you attempted to dig out the backgrounds of my friends and family, I might replace out about it and be, oh, I don't know, f*****g furious!" she yelled at him from the end of the table. She watched with narrowed eyes as he took a defensive stance, widening his feet and folding his arms.

"You flew to Rio on a whim. I was worried."

"Worried or acting like a possessive jealous boyfriend? I take it you saw the video of me doing body shots with the bartender?" When he didn't look away or didn't deny her allegation she wondered if steam was visible from her burning ears. "You didn't like I went out and partied with my friends, so you decided to just investigate them all?"

"No." He tried to interrupt her, but she swore at him, and he paused in surprise. "Look, Isabella, it's an eclectic bunch of women you were with. A shrink, a billionaire, a nurse, an actuary," he waved at her, "none of you have anything in common. Worse, Clara Draxton has hidden all your backgrounds. What nefarious things does she have you embroiled in?"

"Did it not occur to you maybe, just maybe, the things you can't replace were hidden for good reasons? Maybe it's not something nefarious she's exposing us to but something sinister she's protecting us from?" At his surprised glance she knew he had not. "Clara did hide only my background. She's hidden many people's backgrounds."

He swallowed and took a deep breath but before she could speak, she waved her hand at him.

"You want to know, fine. I was going to tell you anyway," she gave an angry snort, "I told the girls yesterday I thought maybe you were someone who could know my secret and not use it against me and now I don't even have the choice. It's the only way to make you back off, isn't it?" He said nothing and she glared, her eyes watering with frustrated tears.

"When I was nineteen, I was walking home from a bar, and I was kidnapped. As a result, I have PTSD. I'm not some rich billionaire who can buy her way through life and Clara knows it. If I have PTSD, I can't work on department of defense contracts. Clara keeps my past buried to ensure my career isn't impacted by a well-controlled and treated medical condition." She waved her hands around the air frustratedly. "It happened right around the time Elian met Clara. It's no secret Clara was kidnapped as a teenager. She helped me. She taught me self-defence. She took me to the women's center where she volunteers a lot of her time and introduced me to a variety of women she has helped and who have helped her. In doing so, I've been exposed to many strong independent resilient women."

She took a breath. "Clara is my mentor and my friend and my sister. We share a similar trauma but more than this, we share a similar healing. Clara isn't some sinister evil person dragging people to do something bad. She protects us and helps us. There are people at the women's center I know, she has provided a brand-new identity to keep them safe from abusive ex partners."

"In digging through our histories and our pasts, you could potentially expose people to situations you have no idea about. You put everyone at risk. You put my career at risk, you put my friends at risk, and you betrayed my trust." "It wasn't my intention."

"I don't give a f**k what your intention was Cam. I would have told you." She shook her head, "all you needed was some patience but instead, like the big bad bodyguard you are, you traipsed all over everything with zero finesse."

She watched his fingers clench and unclenched on his biceps where his arms crossed and knew he was keeping himself from reaching for her. "The worst part Cam, you very nearly made an enemy of an enormously powerful woman. Instead of considering all the good she does in the world, you immediately went to dark mode."

"Isabella, I'm sorry."

"Not as sorry as you're going to be," she laughed bitterly.

"What do you mean?"

"Do you think there are no ramifications?"

"I know you think I betrayed you but if you would listen."

"Listen to what? Do you think I didn't anticipate you searching my background?" At his surprised glance she laughed, "Torres, you already told me you did. I knew you were looking. But you went after my friends and my family. Clara Draxton had a ping on her personal background history from your company. Clara Draxton. One of the most powerful businesswomen on the planet. Do you believe she's going to give you a pass because we've had s*x?" "She's angry."

"Angry?" her laugh was barely audible. "Clara Draxton doesn't get angry. She gets even."

She let a small smile rise to her lips as she saw Gideon through the glass storming towards the conference room. She lifted her purse and coat knowing what was coming.

Gideon flung the door open. "Get her out of her my computer system Isabella."

"No, I don't think I will. You violated not just mine, but hers and all my friend's privacy. You attempted to hack into a company more tightly secured than the Pentagon. I know because she provides their security programming." "What is going on?" Cam looked at Gideon who was storming around the table towards Isabella. "Gideon!"

Isabella threw her head back and laughed. She couldn't help it. "You're an i***t. Even if I wanted to, there is nothing I can do to fix anything. You've met her. She is her own person. She does what she wants when she wants. You went for the bull and now you're getting the horns."

"What the hell is going on?" The sound of people talking loudly in the corridor caught his ear and he stepped towards the door. "Why is everyone in a panic?"

"Clara Draxton hacked our systems, and she is in our servers. She has barred us having any access to any of our system. There is nothing. Even if I went downstairs and unplugged our servers, if I turned them back on, it's too late." He pointed at Isabella. "You were a distraction. Keep us occupied while she did what she wanted to do."

"Nope. If this were the case, you would have been in this room with me. Fairly sure Clara is confident enough in her skills, she doesn't need me as a distraction. You pissed off a hacker who has been wanted by the CIA and FBI since she was a child." She saw Gideon's face grow pale. "Good luck assholes."

She rounded the table and made her way to the door and stepped past a confused Cam. She couldn't stop smiling as she reached the elevators and punched the button. The increasing sounds of chaos erupting all around her was music to her ears. "Take that Torres," she thought grimly. She might have had to spill her dark secret but at least he was going to pay for it.