“I had to go. Iakov and his friends were at the restaurant where India and I were having lunch. Iakov said that it would be in my best interest to make sure that I lose the guards and meet him at his restaurant.”
“And you went?” York asked, pulling back and running his fingers through his hair. He was pissed off. So was her brother.
“Why would you do that? Why, after what he told you he did to you?” Porter asked.
“Because he threatened your lives and India’s. I wasn’t going to get you all hurt or killed. I’ll still do whatever is necessary to protect the people I love,” she said and stood up.
Porter grabbed her arm. “Goddamn it, Aspen, these are killers. Men who would think nothing of hurting you, raping you, fucking killing you. I can’t lose you, Aspen. You’re the only family I have left.”
“You’re not going to lose me. I knew what I was doing. I had no choice when he threatened you and India. She was with me at the restaurant. If they were able to locate us and had the nerve to approach us with Storm’s security guards there, then they would come through on their threats of hurting her or you. I had to go.”
“Fuck!” York exclaimed.
Porter placed his hands on her shoulders. “What happened at the meeting with Andrei?”
She didn’t say a word. She wasn’t sure how to approach this without blowing everything her and Dmitri were working on. But she’d never lied to Porter before. She also was a different person than she was a few weeks ago. She was in love and five men broke down the walls around her heart and made her feel again. When she dealt with Andrei back in Chicago, she was hollow inside and didn’t care if she lived or died. Now things were different.
“Aspen?” York pushed.
“I can’t say.”
“What?” Porter yelled out.
“I’m sorry but none of what he said matters.”
* * * *
Iakov watched as India walked out of the building and headed down the street. He had two men on her as he watched them heading toward him. He got the order from Andrei to send a message to Aspen that he meant business and that she was working for him, not Storm and the others. Iakov would have never let Aspen leave. To this day he still wondered how they found her in that Mexican hellhole. He had covered their tracks so good. Why had Andrei called off selling her? She was a nobody. A woman who came from shit. She didn’t even have any parents and lived with relatives. Her extended family were peasants, nobodies who worked blue-collar jobs and struggled to make ends meet. Why had she been so important to keep? Because of her beauty and sexy body?
He wanted to fuck her and then ship her off. No one would have known a thing. She was ripe for the taking. He issued the order, got out of the place, and then got the call ten minutes later that they had been invaded by soldiers dressed in black.
He should have known it wasn’t a federal military operation. Then came the additional order to keep her alive and to stay clear. Something happened to make Andrei pull back and remain away for all these years.
His boss was weak. Iakov knew that. He didn’t have it in him to slit a throat here and there to send a message. No, he wanted things operated in a more diplomatic, calm fashion. But that was what destroyed empires. Iakov could do a better job of leading and working the black market businesses than Andrei Renoke. Instead he was Andrei’s main guard. Well, he gave him the job of sending a message to Aspen about loyalty to her boss, the man that now owned her as far as Andrei was concerned.
He would send a clear message. No other bitch was safe. Aspen’s brother and team weren’t either and definitely not Storm and those other Russian weaklings.
He made eye contact with his men and they grabbed India just as she waved down a cab. The black van pulled up. The two men took her into the van and they took off before anyone even noticed a thing.
* * * *
India was screaming and kicking her legs as the hand covered her mouth and men pulled her into a van. The sound of tires peeling out and down the street echoed in the background. She was scared, shaking with fear.
“Cooperate,” one man said in a Russian accent.
The van swerved, the engine roared, and she knew they were taking her away from the city or maybe just somewhere no one could hear her pleas for help.
Then suddenly the van stopped.
One man held her hands behind her back, and made her kneel upward in the van. The door slid open and there was Iakov, the man from the restaurant she and Aspen had lunch at that day. He was Andrei Renoke’s main guard.
He was an evil-looking dick, who eyed her over in a way that warned any woman with a brain that the man was sleazy.
“What do you want from me?” she asked him.
“To give Aspen a message from Andrei. Remind her who she is working for.” He struck her across the face once, twice, then a third time as she cried and fell over. The others joined in punching her, ripping her dress, then touching her breasts, her intimate parts. She screamed and tried to fight them off, and defend herself against their hits. She felt her eye swell up, her lip, too, and she was bleeding, aching everywhere when finally Iakov gave the order to stop.
He gripped her face. She cried out.