Still breathless from the effort it had taken to free the young woman from her captor, Matias took the moment that it took her to assure him of her wellbeing to take a few deep breaths and quiet the rapid beating of his chest. He murmured a quick acknowledgment of her gratitude before quickly moving on to address her question, not being much for gratitude. In his line of work, he’d been thanked a million times, and it didn’t mean much to him. Not when there was so much more on the line.

“If more come back? Did he say something to you that indicated that he wasn’t acting alone?” The tall figure drew in a deep breath, ushering the young woman toward the front of the building where they were more purposefully in the eye of the public. It was there that a vague sense of familiarity washed over him as it came to her face and her voice, although he could not place it exactly. He’d met a million and one strangers in this city over the last week alone, and not one had he cared enough about to commit their face to memory.

“Did you come to this event alone? With a date? With a friend?” Having not exactly been inside yet to determine what kind of an event it was, Matias could only guess from the way they were both dressed that it was formal enough to require a date. Of course, he had not brought one, but he was not the kind of person to go anywhere with a partner.

Allowing his gaze to shift from her face to the nefarious nightscape behind them, then back to her, he said, “why don’t you sit down, and tell me what exactly it was that happened. Start from the beginning?” Then, sounding a bit too much like the agent that he was rather than the undercover individual he was pretending to be, he added, “I can’t help you if I don’t have all of the details.”