I shake my head. “I don’t believe you.”
Theresa smirks again. It is a mocking, condescending smile like the one she gave me earlier today in the conference room. “I thought you might say that.” Her voice is pompous.
Her hand digs into a black leather handbag she is carrying on her shoulder. After tugging out a yellow envelope, her gleaming blue eyes lift and lock with mine. “As I said to you earlier, I'm here warning you, woman to woman. What I'm about to show you needs to stay between us. This is not an official government visit.”
After swallowing to soothe my dry throat, I nod. My hand trembles when I reach out to remove the envelope from Theresa’s tight grasp. The first thing my eyes lock onto in the photo is the date and time on the bottom right-hand corner. It is dated approximately an hour before Ophelia was involved in the traffic accident.
Isaac’s sweat-drenched body is in a dirty old boxing ring. He is in the process of fighting a gentleman of similar age, or perhaps even a few years older than Isaac.
I lift my gaze from the photo to Theresa. “The FBI is already aware Isaac was a participant in an underground fighting ring years ago,” I inform her, my pitch firm. “This doesn’t make him a terrible man. Fighting is a professional sport.” I hand the photo back to her.
“No, it doesn’t make him terrible, but what about this?” she asks, handing me a second photo.
It is a similar-looking photo to the first one, but it is zoomed out, showing the spectators surrounding the ring. Returning my eyes to Theresa, I huddle my shoulders, unable to comprehend what she is showing me.
Her long index finger points to a person in the picture. Adjusting my vision, I realize it is Ophelia standing at the side. Her face is stained with red streaks from the endless stream of tears flowing down them.
My brows scrunch as my stomach twists in knots.Why would Ophelia watch the match between Isaac and Cj?
Theresa snatches the photo from my grip and returns it to the envelope. When she places the envelope into her handbag, she snags her cell phone. Remaining quiet, her fingers move over the screen of her phone. Three heart-clutching seconds later, she turns her cell to face me.
When I push the play button on the video on the screen, the fretful screams of Ophelia sound through the phone’s speakers. “Please, Isaac, stop,” she painfully begs.
After battling against someone holding her at the side of the ring, Ophelia pulls herself onto the ropes. “Please, Isaac, please don’t do it,” she begs repeatedly.
An unexpected gasp expels from my mouth when the screen flicks to Isaac completing a gruesome roundhouse kick to Cj Petretti’s left temple. Cj crashes to the ground with an almighty thud. His eyes are closed, and he remains completely motionless. The crying screams of Ophelia as she rushes to her brother sprawled lifeless on the dirty boxing floor mat cause a sudden welling of tears to form in my eyes.
Gritting my teeth, I push Theresa’s phone out of my vision. “That doesn’t show the full version of events that happened that day,” I reply, my voice quiet and trembling.
Although the video looks horrid, and my heart is pained for what Ophelia went through, I’ve learned the past few months that you need to get both sides of a story before forming an opinion on an event.
Theresa shakes her head while glaring at me like I'm an imbecile. “I may not know the full story, Isabelle, but neither do you. You may like to think you know the real Isaac Holt, but you don’t really know him at all,” she snaps.
“No one will ever fully understand an enigma,” I murmur while closing the door of my apartment in Theresa’s face.
Isaac
My breaths are jagged, my body is slicked with a dense layer of sweat, and my heart is fitfully pounding against my chest. The sweating and panted breaths are from the intense workout I’m undertaking at an old, derelict warehouse I own on the outskirts of town. The last statement, my pounding heart, is from seeing Isabelle again.
Today is the first time I’ve laid my eyes on Isabelle since my less-than-stellar reaction to her arriving at my house Friday night, but she is the sole reason I’m working out in below freezing temperatures in only a pair of running shorts. I’m aimlessly trying to replace the sexual energy coursing through my body with adrenaline. Because even with knowing Isabelle’s secret, I can’t dampen the fire raging inside of me when I see her.It’s irrepressible.
My hands itched to fondle, probe, and explore her seductive body when I saw her standing in the foyer of Destiny Records. Her beautiful chocolate eyes were burning through to my soul, begging for forgiveness. It took all my strength to walk away from her. Every step I took was done with trepidation.
With all the women I’ve bedded the last six years, the chase grew weary, and my interests would wane within days, if not hours, but that never happened with Isabelle. It never became old. The more I had her, the more I wanted her. Her beautiful cupid’s bow lips on mine, her hands touching and exploring me with just as much interest as I was studying her. I couldn’t get enough.I never yearned for anything or anyone when Isabelle was in my arms.Now, I have to find a way to move on. To live without her.
Just knowing I’ll never taste Isabelle again has me swinging my fists even harder at the old boxing bag hanging precariously from a steel beam by a large chain. Blisters started forming on my knuckles over an hour ago, but my robust swings haven’t dampened.
When I first entered the warehouse, I threw on a new pair of gloves. I could have forgone the hassle and worn my old run down pair that are hanging over the fraying ropes of the boxing ring, but I needed a distraction, I wanted to feel the pain that comes from breaking in a pair of brand new gloves. If I feel pain on the outside, it may help to lessen the ache weighing down my chest from the inside.
Another thirty minutes passes before my unyielding focus on punishing the bag shifts. My distraction is caused by the shrill sound of a cell phone echoing through the abandoned warehouse. It isn’t my sleek black modern phone that causes me to stop swinging my fists. It is the untraceable one that only rings during an emergency.
Grabbing a white towel dangling from the chain above the sagging bag, I swipe it over my head to absorb some of the sweat running down my face. I head for the black gym bag lying unzipped on the dirty concrete floor.
That phone hasn’t rung since the morning I got arrested. The last call I took on that phone was in Isabelle’s apartment. She was sitting straddled on my lap, nibbling playfully on my earlobe. I was so immersed in her, I didn’t even consider the repercussions of continuing with my private conversation in front of her. Call me a fool, but even only knowing Isabelle for six months, and being in a relationship for a month, I trusted her. I trusted her from the moment I saw her.I was a fucking idiot.
“Yes,” I bark into the phone. My gloomy mood is heard in my voice.
“The price has gone up to one point five million dollars.”
