Compromising Love (The American Soldier Collection 10)

She dodged between large wooden crates and ducked down catching her breath.

She checked the gun. It was fully loaded minus the one shot Iakov had taken at her. But there weren’t enough to take out all the guards around the place. She needed to get out of here quickly.

Aspen slowly backstepped farther and farther from the entrance to the boat dock.

“Where do you think you’re going, sweetheart?” The huge Russian with the muscles and beard grabbed her by the shoulders. He turned her around, and

she went to point the gun when he slugged her in the belly. She fell to the ground, holding the gun as he yelled out that he found her. She couldn’t let Iakov get to her. She couldn’t let him take her on that ship.

She gripped the gun and trigger and he turned her over and she shot him.

He gasped and grabbed his stomach as she scooted backward, back onto her feet, experiencing even more difficulty breathing. She knocked over some boxes as she struggled to move straight and not off-balance.

Someone gripped her hair and pulled her back.

“No!” she screamed out as Iakov dragged her across the concrete and in between boxes, kicking and screaming.

He got her close to the dock where the large boat was when he let go of her hair.

She turned, rolled, and tried scrambling away when she felt the strike to her back. He pulled her up and she knew this was it. She needed to fight him off or die here. She wasn’t going on that ship.

He struck her again and she continued fighting him until she no longer had the strength. He dragged her onto the wooden dock, her legs scraping, filling with splinters of old wood sticking out of the dock. She didn’t want to be sold. She didn’t want to go on the boat and never see her men again. But no one was coming. Andrei and Iakov had succeeded.

He pulled her up toward the ramp, dragging her kicking and screaming when she heard the commotion.

She recognized the sounds immediately and held on to the metal bar of the ramp.

Swoosh, swoosh, swoosh.

Around her bullets hit the guards, the metal bar where she was and right next to Iakov. He pulled his gun from his waist and knocked her in the head with it.

He then fired back. She was losing focus. The blow was too much as blood dripped from her temple.

More men went down.

Iakov’s body jerked as bullet after bullet hit him and he grabbed her throat and fell over the edge of the boat ram, taking her with him.

* * * *

Nicolai Merkovicz had come through. Someway, somehow, he alerted Storm and his men to Aspen’s location and got them there pronto. Storm didn’t know if the head of the Russian mob just cared about Storm and the team so much that he wanted to help, or if there was something in it for him. Storm really didn’t care. He owed the man his life anyway, and now he would owe him Aspen’s if they got her out of there in time. If it weren’t for Nicolai, Storm would have gotten killed years ago before he entered the military. With Storm’s family connections, he was up for a high position in the Russian mafia based on his father’s name. But Storm wanted nothing to do with that life and instead joined the military to escape it all. Word got out and one of their family’s enemies decided to ensure Storm never changed his mind about his position and went to kill him. Storm would never forget that night. He was as good as dead. The gun to his head, the man, Senok Slovonich, had nothing but hatred in his eyes.

The almost silent shots hissed through the air taking Senok out and saving Storm’s life.

Storm had looked up in the direction the bullets came from and saw Nicolai Merkovicz putting away his gun. He was walking away as if he was out for a stroll and hadn’t just blown a man’s head to pieces. Strom knew that he would never be severed from his ties with the mafia, but he had a calling. He wanted to serve his country, and being a soldier became his life.

They heard her screams, could see her being dragged across the wooden boardwalk all battered and bruised, her clothing ripped and torn. She had put up a hell of a fight, and still now, appearing seriously injured, she continued to fight.

He gave the hand signal from the water below. They had swum up, using their abilities as Navy SEALs, to infiltrate the vicinity along with the rest of the team and their friends they called in for backup. Porter had his team infiltrate from land.

As they shot their silencers being sure not to alert any authorities to their presence, they began to take out each guard one by one.

Storm and his team had perfect aim on Iakov, and as he struck Aspen with the butt of the gun, they took their shot.

He grabbed onto Aspen, her head bleeding from the blow, and fell overboard.

He didn’t even have to issue the order as they went underwater, swimming to her as fast as possible. It was pitch black in the water as night overtook the harbor near Brownsville, Texas. The boat was heading toward Mexico and a final destination of Monterrey.

Storm used his special underwater night vision goggles to locate her as did his team. Zin got to her first and brought her up to the surface.