4

Ryan Barrett wished the earth would split open and swallow him the moment he opened the door. He thought it was the pizza delivery guy. But instead, he saw the chilling gaze of this woman standing before him.

"Surprised to see me?" she asked pushing the door to enter.

His apartment was a complete mess, there were clothes everywhere interspersed with shoes. Nothing to do with the apartment he had in San Francisco. There he was able to afford a cleaning company once a week. And sometimes when Jenna was around, she would do a little tidying up here and there. He missed that life.

He watched Isabella scan the apartment with a look of disgust, anyway this woman always looked disgusted he thought.

He had first seen him five years ago, he had just entered college. He had used his mother's life insurance, who had just died of breast cancer, to pay for his first semester. Even if it wasn't enough, he told himself that he would look for work and that he was going to apply for scholarships. This is where a man called Sean approched him for the first time, he said that a very nice woman had offered to give him a full scholarship. It was for him the chance of his life, except that the lady in question was not that nice, and the scholarship was not free. He had to do something for her.

She had showed Jenna's pictures, he had to get closer to her and become her friend, then make her trust him, then he had to report all the details of his life to Isabella. He needed this scholarship so badly so he accepted thinking that there was nothing wrong with that. Except he hadn't planned to fall in love with her. When he realized he was beginning to have feelings for Jenna, he wanted to stop everything, but Isabella had come with threats. So he'd had no choice but to keep feeding her information. After three years of relationship, Isabella had come to see him with a ring. The situation was beginning to get out of hand. He hadn't planned to get married so soon, but he was trying to convince himself that Jenna was a great girl and that anyway he would end up marrying her.

He adored Jenna, and he never intended to cheat on her, but when she left college and went back to work at her father's company, and was given a job, their relationship changed. They were engaged but only saw each other regularly. That's when he started seeing Lexie, his assistant. For him, it was just sex. But then Jenna got pregnant, it was not planned but he had always dreamed of becoming a father. So many times he had tried to end the thing with Lexie, but he always found himself going back to see her to "decompress" it allowed him to forget that the relationship he had with Jenna was strained.

When Jenna caught him red-handed, that's when he realized his huge mistake, and when he saw him on the floor unconscious he felt his whole world tear apart. He remembers John's bruised look in the hospital when they were told Jenna had lost the baby, he turned to him and told him to run far away, somewhere he wasn't going to find him because if he did, he was capable of the worst.

On the way back to New York, the magnitude of his mistake had hit him in the face, he had just lost an exceptional woman, a good job and his future which was assured. But what freaked him out the most was Isabella's reaction. So he told himself that he was going to make himself small and that he was going to wait for him to find her. And nine months later, there she was, she had found him.

"So you thought that by hiding in this rat hole you were going to escape me?! That's how you thank me for having paid for your studies, for having ensured that your future is secure, all you had to do was to stay calm and do your part of the job, but no, sir couldn't control his sexual urges."

Ryan didn't say anything.

"Listen, I don't have all the time, so I'd like to know why you never told me that Jenna Herms was planning on becoming an FBI agent?!"

"Because she had no intention of it, she told me that she had always dreamed of it but when we were together she seemed to have given up on the idea. Why? She did it?"

"Yes, she's at Quantico, although I don't really care what she does with her life I would have like to be informed."

"Why do you care so much, it's clear that it's not love that drives you to have her watched, so what do you have against her."

Isabelle sighed then Ryan understood that he had just asked the question that should not be asked.

"I want you to go back to San Fransisco."

"That's no way, find someone else to do your dirty work."

With a bitter smile Isabella replied, "It was not a suggestion young man, but an order."

"And what makes you think you have the right to order me around? If it's the scholarship then I'll make sure to pay you back every penny."

"And how? Without a job, you can barely afford this pigsty which serves as your apartment."

"It's not your problem, what concerns you is that I pay you what I owe you, isn't it?"

"Look, I didn't come here to squabble with you, it just comes down to this, either you do what I tell you to do or when Jenna Herms gets back from Quantico she'll know that in addition to cheating on her, you were nothing more than an impostor who watched her to report all the details of her life to people she doesn't know. Be reassured when John Herms will be made aware in turn, the debt you owe me will be your last concern so think about it. Sean will contact you soon."

Then she passed him, opened the door and left the apartment. Ryan enraged, punched the wall.

He couldn't allow that Jenna get to know about this . He had hurt her enough after all he had done to her, so if she were to find out that the whole time they were together he was serving as a spy for a totally crazy woman who had a grudge against her father. And he was afraid of the reaction Jenna would have when she will see him, suddenly he found himself thinking about the possibility of her forgiving him. He laughed at himself, it was nearly impossible. That's when he realized that despite the months that had passed he still loved her, if not more now.

During the months that followed his departure from San Fransisco, he had been depressed and he could only blame himself. If only their relationship had been that simple, without Isabella. Maybe he wouldn't have had to cheat on her. But all his thoughts only served to frustrate him even more.

His return to San Fransisco does not bode well, on the one hand he was afraid to approach her, he did not know what her reaction would be, on the other hand there was his father, he had always scared of him, but now that he resented him for what he had done. He knew he was capable of making his life difficult.