Best Friends

Chapter 2

Isabella, much to her surprise, found her car had been detailed while she was out with Emily  but where she found herself a few hours later was even more unexpected. With an aching head, her legs pulled up under her chin, she sat staring at Nestor as he lay unconscious, his face battered and bruised, after a harrowing incident after leaving the restaurant. An incident, much to everyone's dismay, she could not remember very much of.

The sun had risen hours ago and, finally, as she looked up from her cup of peppermint tea, Isabella saw Nestor blinking his eyes open, his hand shooting up to pull the small oxygen mask off his face in a moment of panic.

"Hey," she said softly, as not to startle him further."You're okay, you're in the hospital, we were carjacked, or something," Isabella said by way of explanation, the only explanation she really had.

Nestor's first thought was that she looked as bad as he felt and that was on him.  His face screwed up in confusion when she tried to explain, a groan leaving his lips when he felt the throbbing pain from the action.

"Car jacked?" He asked, more confused than before. How the hell would he let that happen? How the hell would he, Nestor Oceteva, end up in this state from a goddamn car jacking?

"Yeah, I don't remember, like, anything," she admitted. "Um, someone you work with, Devin or," she squinted her eyes as she thought back to the conversation.

"Devante?"

"Yeah," she said quickly, "Devante, he said they saw the traffic camera footage. You were quite the hero he said," her lips curled into a small, sweet smile at the thought of him protecting her. "Miguel was just here checking in on you, he seems really concerned," slowly, her body sore, she stretched out her legs and got to her feet. "Let me check for them, see if they're still here."

Isabella slipped out, jumping back when she saw a man outside the door, in a black suit with an ear piece.

"Is he awake?" The man asked.

"I, uh, yeah," she drew her head back, glancing into the room again. "He just woke up."

"I'll let Mr Galindo know."

"Uh, okay. Thank you," she said timidly.

Stepping back into the room, Isabella nodded and gestured to the door. This time, instead of settling in the visitor's chair, she perched herself on the edge of the bed down by his feet.

"Someone was already out there, said they'll tell Miguel you're up."

Her surprise was evident on her face and in her voice but Nestor was too focused on what had happened, something he had little memory of as well, and the ache that stretched from the top of his head to his damn toes.

"Good, I need some more information."

"Sorry," she said quickly. "It's just," she made a small exploding motion with her fingers, "Poof. Out of my mind."

He could see her confusion and he nudged her with his foot. "It's okay, we'll piece it together."

There was already one thing he was sure of, whatever had happened to their memories it was not simply a blow to the head. Nestor had suffered many of those and this was not that. There was that awful feeling of failure filling him, not only had he clearly not whatever plan had been enacted against them but he'd let an innocent woman get tangled up in it as well.

"I'm sorry this happened." The responsibility fell on them, he accepted that already. This was a cartel problem, he would have bet anything on it. In Nestor's mind, there was no way this was a move against Isabella. "I should have done more."