Her Lucky Number Thirteen (The American Soldier Collection 13)

Boian didn’t want to think about that, or about how Vincent Scarlapetti could have gotten his hands on her, manipulated her, and taken her to his bed willingly. He felt even more responsible for her and for not pushing about his feelings sooner and instead being a good soldier and hiding them.

“How exactly did it go down? How did you figure something was wrong?” Chatham asked her.

“My friend called to hang out and meet down the street. I had just come out of the ladies’ room and these guys had blocked my path earlier. I recognized them from the car later when Vincent forced me at gun point. I knew they were carrying, saw their weapons, but still was being stupid. Like why would any of that matter or have anything to do with me? So when I came out of the bathroom, Vincent guided me, used the guys bothering me earlier as an excuse to escort me to my parents. I made the excuse about leaving and hanging out with friends and the next thing I know Vincent is offering to walk me and I’m refusing. Then he’s pressing a gun against my side and I’m forced into the SUV.”

“The same men were in there that you saw in the restaurant?” Chatham asked.

“Yes, and when Vincent told me what he wanted and I tried to resist, they showed their guns and held me down.”

“Held you down?” Boian asked, teeth clenched. She lowered her eyes.

“It doesn’t matter now. I was shocked at the things he said, and disgusted and frustrated that I couldn’t stop him from kissing me and touching me and telling me exactly what he planned on doing to me.” She sat forward and Chatham and Boian reached for her, but she leaned against Chatham. Boian felt his gut clench. She was purposely keeping him away from her because she thought he didn’t care about her in that way. Hell, he was in fucking love with her.

“That must have been pretty scary. How the hell did you escape?” Chatham asked.

“We arrived at some building in a parking garage, and when they opened the door and we started getting out, shots were fired. The one guy went down, and as I turned I heard more shots and I shoved against Vincent, slammed my forearm into his throat, and ran. As I saw where the shots were coming from I saw my father and he was shot,” she said and Chatham caressed her arm as he held her close.

“My father told me to run and to trust no one, and that’s what I did.”

“So you ran to your mom’s house?” Boian asked.

She looked at him and sat up straighter.

“I wanted to warn Raymond and her about his friend Vincent.” She looked away from them.

“What happened next, Nalia?” Chatham asked her.

She shook her head and stood up.

“No, I don’t want to talk about it. I don’t need to talk about it,” she said as tears rolled down her cheeks. She wiped them away quickly.

“Nalia, it might help to talk about it,” Boian said to her. He never wanted her to feel such pain. To see Raymond kill her mother, and then to have to fight for her life.

Chatham leaned forward and then Boian saw Dusty enter the room.

“What’s going on?” he asked, his eyes squinting with concern over Nalia. They all cared so much about her.

“Nothing. What are you doing? Maybe we can see what’s for lunch,” she said and held on to Dusty’s arm and walked with him out of the room. Dusty looked at Boian and Chatham and Boian nodded, letting him know it was okay. They left the room.

“Damn, she’s hurting,” Chatham said and stood up.

“She pulled away from me and went to you,” Boian said, standing now, too.

“She’s upset, and obviously pissed off because you keep pushing her away. It’s getting to the point where none of us want to push her away. We have to make a decision,” Chatham said to him.

“Something has to give. I’m losing the ability to resist her.”

* * * *

Nalia was losing her mind. The days passed where they each would touch her, give a hug good morning, or just give her a hug because they thought she needed it. It was so damn frustrating she held on to Cosivan a few seconds longer and even rubbed her breasts against his chest to try and get some sort of reaction. She felt like an absolute idiot. Maybe they really didn’t feel the attraction she had for them.

This morning she was sitting next to Viktor on the couch and slowly eased her hand over his hand and he got all tense and then made an excuse to walk away. Following that Dusty was making a sandwich in the kitchen and he slid his hand along her waist and

she pressed her ass back and felt his hard erection. He practically jumped to the other side of the table like she had a disease. She was so annoyed.

They were babying her one minute and then the next keeping their distance. She was getting antsy and when she opened the door to go outside a minute, two doors opened and Dusty and Viktor came out in a huff.

“What are you doing?” Viktor asked her in that tone of his. He had that little bit of Russian accent that came out when he was angry or on edge. She only recently picked up on it and she wondered if he usually hid it but was kind of off his game being stuck here like this.