Trish came forward to shake their hands. The twins were awestruck by Trish.
“The girls have begun gymnastics and are both tops in their classes,” Nikolai boasted proudly.
“It’s good to be strong! Just ask Trish! Yesterday, she was held hostage by a bad man and his gang. She kicked their butts!” Ben said to the twins who squealed excitedly.
“Please! You must teach us!” Roza begged.
“They’ve been taking Self Defense courses too, but gymnastics comes first,” Galena said, keeping her eyes on her daughters who nodded to her then begged Trish with their eyes.
“Come inside!” Nikolai said, gesturing to his front door. The group moved inside, and they made impressed noises as they walked through the gorgeous building to the back of the house and the family room.
Inside, Nikolai began the introductions once more as they met his brother Andrei, his wife Kira, and their three beautiful girls Svetlana, Irina, and Katya. They shook hands and greeted each other.
Two men who’d been seated near the windows stood and joined them as Nikolai introduced them as good friends of the family, Dan Bishop and Wally Robbins, but their ladies would arrive shortly. Ben immediately picked up a feeling that they were military or ex-military. This impression came more from Dan than Wally, but he couldn’t put his finger on what it was.
“I hope we’re not disturbing your family get-together,” Ben said earnestly.
“Not at all. What you spoke to me about concerns family and we should attend to it immediately,” Nikolai assured him. “Galena, we will just be a moment.” She nodded to him and gestured for the rest to take seats.
Nikolai took his brother’s arm and whispered into his ear. Andrei’s expression darkened, and he nodded tersely. The brothers looked to Dan and Wally who nodded. Ben saw Trish was being dragged away excitedly by the twins.
The men followed Nikolai down a hall and into a room which seemed to be an office with a beautiful wood desk before huge windows. Once they were all inside Nikolai nodded for Ben to begin.
Ben described the events of the previous day; Trish’s kidnapping, Milonas’ demands, meeting Liliya, his trip to the bank to collect the ledger, Trish’s escape, and the discovery of blackmail photos on a memory stick. He turned his eyes to Nikolai, as this part concerned him most.
“On our way back to Milonas, we saw police all over the building site, so we stopped. Trish had already taken Milonas out, and his goons had fled. That’s when Liliya confessed that she worked for Yuri Gruzinsky.” Nikolai’s eyes snapped to Ben’s. “He knows I have the memory stick. The blackmail photos are of him. He’s going to threaten my family, and he has the resources to get to them.” Ben took a deep breath as that thought disturbed him greatly. “Liliya told me Yuri was responsible for kidnapping your twins. Revenge for beating him out of a contract for mining gold.”
Nikolai sharply exclaimed something in Russian, and Andrei’s expression showed his anger as well. “She said Yuri has her daughter, Rose. Liliya must be obedient, or he’ll sell her daughter to slavers. Now,” Ben held his hands up to ensure he had their attention. “I must state that she might be lying. I don’t believe she is, but I could be wrong.”
“If she is not lying, we must impose a permanent solution for Yuri,” Nikolai growled quietly. Ben nodded.
“You know we’re with you all the way,” Dan said quietly.
“Thank you. I must make a call. Excuse me, please.” Nikolai left the room.
Andrei turned to Dan. “Ben was the man who rescued Mika and Roza from the slavers.”
Ben saw their looks of surprise and shook his head. “Just in the wrong place at the right time.”
“But you acted. That is the difference,” Andrei insisted and smiled again. “Daniel and Walter are equally heroic.” Ben felt the echoes of his previous rage struggle to rise, but he quashed it. “They came upon my family cut off behind enemy lines in the Iraq war zone. They extracted us against the orders of their commanding officer and at great cost to them.”
Ben saw Dan was equally uncomfortable with praise and he nodded to the man.
There was a knock on the door, and Ben turned his head to see if it was Trish. The first one through the door caught him off guard with her beauty. Long, platinum blonde hair, striking, green eyes with thick lashes, delicate brows, high cheekbones, slender nose, and full, lush lips that seemed to beg for kisses. Her breast implants were maybe a bit larger than Trish’s, and her hips were a little wider as well. She had just a little more meat on her bones, like a softer version of Trish.
There was something about her Ben couldn’t define. A vulnerability and innocence that immediately triggered his protective instincts. She had an almost gravitational pull. Then he noticed the scars on her bare arms. Some were obviously cigarette burns, and the skin on her wrists showed damage from being bound. She’d been tortured. He fought to keep a scowl from his face.
He caught Dan watching him closely, so he gestured to scars on his arm and raised an eyebrow in question. Some of Dan’s tension dissipated as he saw Ben was just being protective. He shook his head slightly, and Ben relaxed as the scars weren’t Dan’s doing.
The beauty finally noticed Ben, and she gave him a timid smile as she quickly moved to Dan’s side. He hugged her and kissed her temple. Ben finally recognized Submissive behavior for what it was.
Trish was right behind the blond and moved to Ben’s side. He smiled and kissed her as well.
“Ben, this is my wife, Willow,” Dan said, squeezing her.
Trish grinned over at Willow as she saw the woman’s interest in Ben’s scars. “This big guy has a collection of scars too.” She tugged Ben’s shirt up slightly to display his three bullet scars. Ben squirmed uncomfortably under Trish’s hands.
Seeing Ben’s embarrassment and Trish’s grin, Willow’s eyes twinkled mischievously as she tugged Dan’s shirt up higher than Ben’s to display the bullet scars on his chest. Dan looked at his wife in surprise as she’d never shown this level of boldness.
Trish’s grin became a wicked smile as she pulled Ben’s shirt up to his neck showing off the knife scars.
“Trish! Please!” Ben gasped quietly, his eyes glancing over to the look of shock on the lovely blonde’s face. He noticed Dan was staring as well.
“Shit! Who used you as a pin cushion?” Wally asked quietly.
The moment broke when a third woman entered the room. She was a beauty with chocolate brown skin, a wide grin, a large head of curly black hair, and a nicely toned body with large natural breasts. She walked over to Wally and received a kiss on the cheek from him as she glanced to Willow holding Dan’s shirt up. Then she saw Ben and froze in shock.
“Oh my god! You’re the Bronze Man!” she gasped excitedly. Her eyes dropped automatically to his pants and Ben plucked his shirt from Trish’s fingers to pull it back down.
Ben struggled to keep the scowl off his face and his tone light. “I’m not a fan of that sculpture,” he said to the dark beauty. Looking at Wally, he shrugged. “Trish beat senseless the man who used the knife on me, so the scales are in balance.” He kissed the redhead, and she smiled happily at him.
“Dude! In what world does a beating balance attempted murder?!?” Wally blurted.
Trish shrugged. “The stupid fucker died shortly afterward when the sledgehammer he was swinging around fell on his head, so… yeah.”
“You had nothing to do with that?” Wally asked skeptically.
Trish smiled. “Never touched the hammer. It happened after I finished with him.”
Ben interrupted to redirect the conversation. “Regardless, these scars don’t define me nor does that bloody statue. I’m just Ben Shepherd, mechanical engineer.”
Dan’s eyes lit up at the mention of the profession, but Wally wasn’t finished.
“This is my lady Roxanne,” Wally said proudly, and Ben nodded to the star-struck woman. Wally continued. “Ya know, you and your lady would probably be a huge hit at Wasteland Weekend. You could get all dressed up in leather straps, build some awesome post-apocalyptic vehicle or weapons and get all Road Warrior-like,” Wally finished and saw everyone was staring at him.
When Trish heard Road Warrior, she immediately did a quick search on her cell for this Wasteland thing then grinned widely. “Damn, Ben! I wanna do this! Can you imagine showing up with me and the twins dressed in costumes like these?” She squeezed herself against him as she showed her cell to Ben.
His eyebrows went up as he saw the women in the pictures were barely wearing anything. Thinking of Trish, Lisa, and Lori in these costumes made him a little stiff in the pants area. Trish began to chuckle wickedly as she felt the motion against her thigh. He looked at her. “Tina and Lucy too,” he said quietly, and she purred excitedly.
He quickly flipped through the pictures and saw the inventive machinery and costumes. “This does look like it might be fun! I’d love to engineer, design, and build something with a post-apocalyptic theme.”
Trish grinned happily. “I love the Road Warrior movies, but I didn’t know people actually did this! I’d love to attend! When we get home, you should immediately go into your design studio and begin work on our costumes and gear!”
Ben chuckled at the look of joy on her face. “I could incorporate my new radiation filters into the costumes as they’d be a perfect fit.”
Trish bounced on her toes in delight as Wally watched wide-eyed. He got a little slap from Roxanne.
Dan perked up again. “Radiation filters? Could they be incorporated into a building’s air filtration system?”
“Definitely! I designed them for use in uranium mining equipment, but their application is universal.”
Ben and Dan began comparing notes, and Wally groaned theatrically. “We’ve lost them to Engineering Nerdvana.”
Nikolai walked back into the room with several long tubes tucked under his arm.
When Ben’s cell rang he glanced at it, and his expression froze. He looked to Trish then Nikolai as he held up his hands for silence. Everyone looked at him. “It’s Liliya. I think.” He answered the call.
“Hello?”