The Assassin’s Billionaire Bodyguard
Chapter 59

Isabella crawled between the sheets and groaned. Her back was killing her from walking the entire afternoon and early evening shopping with the girls. In the end, they'd had a group of six and Portia had even had time to have a cup of coffee at a quiet table at

Isabella and Sabine's favorite coffee place, with five women watching on of course.

Corry, Jesse, and Amelia had all joined them for the shopping spree. Isabella had put a hefty dent into her credit card and Portia had gotten some exceptionally good retail therapy in, and as an added bonus, was surrounded by strong females who propped her up instead of tearing her down.

Isabella was certain Portia had gone to bed and cried herself to sleep once she'd been alone, but crying was part of healing, and she knew she had to let her heal on her own. It wasn't Portia's fault her heart had fallen hard for a useless piece of humanity. However, Isabella was also content to know Portia would heal and would come out of everything much stronger than she was.

The light from the hall shone into the room as Cam came in and Isabella rolled to her side to see him slap the wall in frustration and hit the lights. She blinked as he turned them on.

"You ditched your security and took off for the day?" his eyes were cold and angry, glittering like sharp emeralds. "With my daughter?"

"She was with me, Sabine, Corry, Jesse and Amelia. I'm fairly sure four of us in the group are just as capable if not more capable than any of your muscle." She propped up on her elbows and watched him. "Didn't have a good day?"

"I had a great day!" he wasn't lying, "other than worrying whether the pair of you were safe. Gideon by the way, reminded me multiple times you were as good of muscle as Erik and Sly."

"Gideon is smart. I'm not sure how it is you run the operation when he's clearly the brains." She laughed when he threw his t-shirt at her covering her face. She held it up and smelled it. "It stinks and not of a good sweaty Torres stink either." She threw it back at him and he tossed it in the hamper in one shot.

"It smells of musty old warehouses," he said over his shoulder as he headed to the bathroom for his shower.

"I don't want to know what you were doing in musty old warehouses."

"Do you know what I want to know?" he said as he removed his pants standing in the door between bedroom and bath. At her shrug, he stared furiously at her, "why my fiancé and my daughter and her friends went to a specific boutique in Manhattan and got a woman fired from her job."

"She called me fat."

"Artemis told you to let me handle it. Instead, I got a bunch of screaming text messages and voice mails."

"Did you? Maybe you should have dealt with the situation."

"In case you missed it, I was at a Broadway performance last night and then covered in olive oil after. Today I was helping an old friend clean up his son's mess. I haven't exactly had time to deal with Jasmine."

"Jasmine needed to know she can't go around putting dead animals in customer's parcels. Also, Jesse really took an aversion to her and her mouth. I mean, the woman is beautiful with all the blonde hair and blue eyes, so I get why you banged her, but she's ugly inside. I mean really ugly. How did you miss it? Jesse broke her nose by the way."

Cam had been starting to walk into the bathroom when he turned back around, "come again?"

"Well, she made a comment about Jesse's Doc Martin's being butch wear and asked where Jesse's pride flag was. Jesse is not gay and at no time would be insulted to be called gay. Some of our greatest friends and allies are gay. Jesse told her she needed to shut her prejudiced homophobic mouth before she ended up with a busted face. She then turned her attentions to Portia and made some comments about Portia being her mother's dirty little secret. Told her it was why she shipped her to another continent. Told Portia the only reason she was in New York was because you felt sorry for her, and nobody wanted her." Cam swore and Isabella lifted one shoulder unapologetically, "Jesse broke her nose on Portia's behalf."

He grunted as if he no longer objected. "And how did she lose her job?"

"I got her fired by telling the owner of the boutique she had put a rat in her customer's order. The owner watched the video surveillance and asked Portia if she wanted her to call the cops to press charges. We all declined, of course, but I did secure a legal copy of the video in the event we change our mind. Also, Jesse's brother is a cop and she does some translation work for a law firm and she made sure to explain in great detail to Jasmine what the minimum sentencing is for death threats." She paused for breath, "also Portia has a hell of a credit with the store now in compensation and she managed to convince the woman to give her some clothes for her social media thing."

Without saying another word Cam turned on his heel and disappeared. Isabella grinned as she heard the shower come on and then looked over to Casper who was curled up on a pillow on the bed. "Someone is really cranky tonight. Also, he left the lights on." She looked with annoyance at the overhead light and debated getting up to turn it off or waiting for him to finish showering so he could. Impatiently she threw her sheets off and padded from the bed and turned the lights off again and then reached to turn on the bedside lamp. She paused as she noted the new lamps. He'd replaced his lamps in the bedroom with the ones Casper could activate with his paw.

She made her way to the bathroom and leaned against the oversized shower wall, away from the spray and watched her fiancé soap his body up. "You bought new lamps for Casper?"

"For someone who is supposed to have amazing observational skills, I bought them yesterday." He opened one eye in his soap covered face and looked at her, "I was worried you were losing your touch."

"No, just really distracted by all of this," she waved her hand in his naked direction, "I mean you are pretty damn distracting."

He rinsed his body off and reached for shampoo. "I'm distracting? Do you know how many times I had to hear the guys today ask me how you're doing? Also, Erik wants Corry's number. Seems they hooked up last night, but she refused to give him her digits."

"Sorry, no can do. I saw her today and she gave me express instructions to not give him her number. She did get his though. If she wants to call him, she will. She usually doesn't though." She let her eyes watch the shampoo suds slice a path down the bronzed body in front of her. "Damn Torres, you look good. Watching you shower might be my new favorite pastime."

He winked at her and crooked a finger in her direction, "why don't you come show me how much you're enjoying yourself."

"No," she shook her head and pushed away from the wall, "that," she motioned to the shower, "is not the kind of wet I want to be. Come replace me in bed when you're done."

She made her way back to the bedroom and immediately started pulling off her sweatpants and hoodie and then folded them neatly onto a chair in the corner of the room. She'd likely need them later and wanted them in close proximity. As she turned from the chair, she noted Cam watching her movements, his eyes narrowed and cat-like as he observed her.

"Have I told you how much I love your body?" his eyes raked her from head to toe.

She shivered under his scrutiny, "yes, but it feeds my ego so keep telling me." She noted the towel around his hips. "You have too many clothes on." She climbed into the bed and held the blanket up, inviting him in.

He chuckled and dropped the towel to the floor with a twist of his fingers. She opened her mouth and he laughed, "are you going to really tell me to pick up the towel?"

"What if I trip on it in the middle of the night when I go to the bathroom? Artemis will have your a*s if I tell her the reason for my broken femur keeping me out of work for two months is because of a poorly laid towel." "You won't break your leg - "

"Statistically speaking, the probability of it occurring is - "

"No," he held his hand up as he moved to pick up the towel. He'd already heard an in-depth analysis of how most household injuries occur in the bathroom, resulting from slips, trips and falls. He did not need the replay. "I'm picking up the towel." "Thank you," she grinned broadly at him. "Now come to bed and tell me about your day. I missed you."

"You didn't miss me. You had a great day with the girls. Portia told me all about it when I checked in on her. She mentioned trying a bacon ranch pizza at Elian's new joint."

She shuddered with the memory, "oh Cam, it was so bad."

"Portia liked it!"

"She's being polite. It was awful. Instead of pizza sauce or marinara, they used some kind of sweet barbeque sauce and then put chicken and bacon drizzled with creamy ranch dressing. It was an abomination. Did Portia tell you I had to get a hotdog from a street vendor because I was still so hungry?"

"No," he laughed as he got into bed, "she told me the food was good, the shopping was better, but the best part was feeling like she belonged somewhere and was wanted. The girls today made her feel like she was worthy of their friendship and more than the food or the shopping, it made a huge impact on her."

"She was fun today. She's hilarious. She has a wicked sense of humour and I wish you could have seen the way she negotiated free clothing at the boutique. Corry suggested she take a business class at the community college." "She failed out of classes."

"Her boyfriend was railing her best friend."

"What?" Cam's eyebrows arched, "what are you talking about?"

"Portia told me the reason she met Evgeni was because she caught her best friend and her boyfriend. They were using her. I think she was throwing around Daddy's wealth a bit and she got used." "Why do you think this?"

"It's more I dug into it and found out," she shrugged.

"You like my daughter," he teased her with a grin. "You've developed a soft spot for the little a*****e."

"I have," she groaned and flopped against the pillows. "She's had a rough go and I know she's such a good person under all the glitz and glam she hides behind. She's smart, funny, and soft-hearted." "You are not recruiting her," Cam said seriously.

"Jesus Christ no," she made a face at him, "she'd get us all killed in ten seconds. She is not Bellona material."

"Thank God."

He leaned over her and put one leg between hers, resting his elbow alongside her face on the pillow. "I love you, Isabella."

"I love you too. I did miss you today. I wasn't lying. We've been spending so much time together it seemed odd you weren't around."

"You can come next time," he laughed at her wrinkled nose. "Not even considering it huh?"

"No way. I get my kicks dealing with s****l deviants. Playing mob enforcer isn't something I want or need to add to my repertoire." Something Sabine asked her popped into her head, "do you have a mob name?" "A what?" he played dumb

"Don't be obtuse. A mob name."

"That's a movie thing."

"No, it's not."

"Maybe I do."

"What's Gideon's mob name?"

"We're not doing this."

"Please? I want to know."

"You don't need to know."

"But I want to."

"What's in it for me?"

She leaned forward and whispered in his ear and grinned when his eyes rounded.

"You'd let me do it to you?"

"Yes. But there's a cost. I need both your mob names."

He weighed the thoughts in his head, and she threw him a curveball

"Lubricants in the top drawer of the nightstand."

"F**k."

"Odd for a mob name."

He shook his head at her, his eyes betraying how much he did not want to reveal what she was asking.

"First of all, we don't give ourselves mob names. The names usually start as a joke. Nobody, knows our affiliation with the Bratva." He said seriously, "nobody would ever expect a Columbian and a Jewish-Mexican to be part of the Russian Mob." "You're stalling." She ran her hand over his hip. "Torres, spill it."

"Fine, Gideon's name is Gravedigger."

"Really?" She made a face. "Boring."

"He's made more than one guy dig their own grave."

"f**k off, no he hasn't."

Cam chuckled at her language, "yes, he has. Gideon can be ruthless."

"I can see him being ruthless but wow, I don't even know what to say. It's cold."

"We don't do it for the warm and fuzzies, Isabella. It's for cold hard cash and to help my friend."

"Okay, do you next. What's your name?"

He groaned, "this is not ever going to go away, is it?"

"What?"

"The minute I tell you my nickname, you're never going to let it go. It's bad enough you hardly call me by my first name. I'm never going to hear my name on your lips again."

"I promise when we have s*x, the only name I call will be 'Cam" she promised holding up her pinky for him to grab.

He laughed at her antics. "Isabella, you will be the death of me."

"Or I'll make you live more than you ever knew you could."

"We should honeymoon on the yacht."

"Stalling Torres. Let's go."

"Fine."

"Still waiting," her brown eyes begged. "Come on!"

"The Extractor." He almost seemed embarrassed.

"Why?"

"What? What do you mean why?"

"Where did the name come from?"

"I have a piece of equipment I built, and I named it the extractor because I'm able to get information from just about anyone with it. Somehow, one of Mikhail's agents asked him to send me to use the extractor on someone and it ended up Mikhail calling me the extractor. It stuck."

"You created a piece of t*****e equipment?"

"It's a hobby." He shrugged. "Some people tinker with cars, others tinker with torture devices. I have a garage on the property I'll show you."

She made a face, "it's not as exciting as I thought it would be. I was really hopeful for something really dark and sinister. Instead, you sound like a dentist."

He shrugged at her, "I don't care if you like it or not. I didn't give myself the name. You on the other hand made a promise. Time to pay up."

She squealed as he tackled her.