Eric sat down on one of the benches outside the Miami Dade building and took a deep breath. He felt completely numb. The last couple of weeks had really been a roller coaster ride.
First Marisol's wedding, which he had openly opposed, hurting his favourite sister's feelings more than he would ever know.
His "friend" Natalia had luckily talked him into going and now that Mari was dead, he was eternally grateful for Natalia talking some sense into him.
Which was why he just could not understand how she had been able to betray him like this. She was the MOLE.
And not only him, but the others as well. But he considered himself more betrayed than the others, because she'd been his girl for months and months.
His girl. To be truthful he hadn't exactly treated her well, he knew very well that she hadn't had anyone else while they were dating, and he'd gone out with a really hot blond from the beach a couple of times…..
And he had messed it up, he admitted that. He had NO IDEA where on earth that God - awful "free for landing" comment had come from, but before he knew it, Ryan had managed to bug him into saying something stupid like that. Just to show he was on the top of his game. And in the process he'd made someone he really cared for locker room talk. He felt a sting of guilt in his chest.
He had never ever imagined Natalia would say yes to Ryan. But when she confronted him about "dumping her locker room style" he'd seen the hurt and anger in her eyes. Instead of grabbing the moment and apologize, he'd messed up even more. And Natalia had gone to dinner with Ryan. Why hadn't he taken her out to dinner? He had no idea. She was a drop dead gorgeous woman, and he so enjoyed her company.
And he knew for a fact that she enjoyed his company, otherwise she wouldn't have gone out with him all that time. The first couple of dates had been increasingly steamy make out sessions, but nothing more. Then she had reluctantly agreed to take it further, but the first time together had not been easy. Eric was mostly used to fun mindless sex, but Natalia seemed to have some issues. Now of course he knew about those issues, but in the beginning, he'd been wondering. Then of course with the baby scare he'd gotten cold feet.
Suddenly he just felt like crying. It was just too much. But then Eric had been brought up to believe that manly men don't cry, so he just sat there and swallowed hard a couple of times and continued blinking until the tears just flowed internally. He would NOT cry.
Today with the fed, he'd done in there still steaming from Natalia's confession. He'd felt betrayed and adding to the humiliation of being interrogated by some bureaucratic ass from the FBI he'd said things he didn't mean. He'd called Natalia the office-go-around and said he'd repeat it in court. He secretly knew that her date with Ryan had been just dinner. After all it had taken him ages to get her to loosen up, and Ryan wasn't even close to being as skillfull as he was. He wished he could make those particular words undone, but there was no way of doing that.
Oh well. It didn't matter now, because she was the mole and he'd probably never see her again. She'd probably pack her stuff quietly that evening and never be seen or heard off again.
Now why did that make him even sadder?
Suddenly he saw some huge movements down the street, police cars and feds and bluelights, and Calleigh stepping out of one of the cars with Monica West in handcuffs.
Monica West in handcuffs??
What was going on? He quickly got up and ran over to one of the uniformed police officers:
"Hey, Mauricio? What's up?"
"You have like no idea! Calleigh just arrested Monica West with the help of her fiancé! Monica West is the reason for all of our troubles! And Ms Duquesne has it all on tape!"
Eric knew Mauricio had a soft spot for Natalia ever since she'd helped his sister with some business a while ago. The man was virtually glowing with happiness.
"Ms West said Natalia was a total waste of time, because she wouldn't say anything bad about the lab, and it was Ms West who stole the money!"
Mauricio had a huge smile on his face, but saw that Eric wasn't equally thrilled.
"Yeah, well, she still betrayed us!"
Mauricio rolled his eyes at Eric. Ah well. He for one was happy Natalia wasn't the bad girl she had been made out to be.
Eric felt totally drained. This newest development was a bit too much.
He was so tired he could just fall into bed right now, and sleep for a week. He decided to go home, curl up in bed and turn the phone off.
He waved at Mauricio and jogged back to the garage to get his car. He didn't want to see anyone right then, and made sure no one saw him.
Suddenly he stopped dead in his tracks. What he saw before him, he had never imagined seeing.
Horatio was accompanying Natalia to her car. And Eric sure wasn't the only one staring. A couple of uniformed officers standing on the stairs were decisively not very content with seeing Natalia and were giving her some hard looks.
Horatio put his hand on her back and said:
"Gentlemen, if you would excuse us!"
The officers moved immediately. Eric was stunned. If Horatio was not only talking to Natalia but making sure she was getting to her car all right, he must have missed something important in all of this.
Eric decided to go to the boxing ring to get rid of some of the anger inside him instead of going straight home, and then call Horatio tonight before going to see what this was all about.
Maybe there was some way he and Natalia could still be friends after all.