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Chapter Eighteen
Jaxson
Whatever Ariella wanted to tell me, it couldn’t be that big of a deal. I knew she was former C.I.A., and not even her husband at the time had known about her job.
She had told me once that while he may not have been guilty of the financial crimes that he’d been convicted of, he certainly wasn’t innocent either.
I hadn’t known what she’d meant until she’d been drugged and dragged by the monster into his van and held captive. Thankfully, we’d found her before he could have instilled any further damage or harm to her, but she was different.
Every time I reached out to touch her, embrace her, show her that I was there for her, I could feel her hesitate.
Maybe she didn’t even realize that she was doing it, but I noticed.
“How about we have this conversation somewhere a little more private?” I suggested. “You want to take a walk?” If she was ready to talk about Ben, her ex-husband, then I was ready to listen.
Whether I could remain calm was another obstacle that I’d have to face.
Her hand slid into mine as we walked alongside one another, away from the set toward the edge of the forest in the distance.
“I just—I don’t want you to hate me when you hear the truth.”
I could never hate her. I may be disappointed, but hate was a strong word.
“Let me guess. You married Benjamin because the C.I.A advised you to do so?” I wasn’t sure that was what she had intended to tell me, but it was a stab in the dark.
How far off was I?
“Not quite,” Ariella said. Her hand fell from mine, and she folded her arms across her chest.
I stayed close, our bodies almost touching at our hips as we walked alongside one another.
I waited for her to elaborate, to tell me what had her so tied up in a knot that even Ben had managed to get to her.
“My ex-husband, Ben,” she reiterated, “I didn’t meet him by chance or by accident.”
“You were staking him out,” I said.
Her brow furrowed. “It wasn’t like I was a field agent and was meant to go undercover. I was out having drinks with my team from the C.I.A., and while we were investigating Benjamin Ryan at the office, we ran into him at the bar. He kept staring at me and eventually came over and asked me to dance. It was obvious he liked me and wanted to get to know me.”
“Bold.” I shouldn’t have been surprised by his move, considering what he’d done just yesterday.
“Yeah, I was hesitant, but turning him down, I was more afraid of what it might mean to the investigation. So, I danced with him, had a drink, and then he gave me his number. He told me the next move was mine.”
That surprised me. I hadn’t thought she’d have been the type to have willingly thrown herself into a burning building.
“I know what you’re thinking, I did this to myself, but my boss insisted I call Ben.”
My hands bunched into fists. I’d kill whoever her boss had been if I ran into him. “I never thought that, Freckles.”
This wasn’t in any way her fault. Even if she had made a poor choice in dating him, clearly, there had been something worth searching out.
She’d married him. It hadn’t all been because of her boss. She must have loved him at one time.
Ariella started walking again, this time along the edge of the forest, as we reached the end of the open field. “Ben had been a gentleman, and the investigation hadn’t turned up anything, so when he asked me out again, part of me wanted to see him again.”
“But?” I had the sneaking suspicion that someone, namely her boss, pushed her toward Ben.
“But my boss insisted that if Benjamin Ryan wasn’t involved in the human trafficking ring, then it had to be one of his colleagues or his friends, and they were shuttling women through the building where he lived.”