CHAPTER 3

I woke up to the sound of faint murmurs drifting through the cracks of the slightly ajar bedroom door. I was disoriented with my surroundings and I could feel the stirrings of a major hangover descending on me. My eyes were heavy and it took a moment before the previous nights events flooded my consciousness. The drinking, the careless idea of egging the estate office, being jerked around painfully by a darkly dressed thug and finally knifing two well built men. I jerked upright when that last thought finally slammed into me. 

Blood. My hands were covered in the dark crimson liquid that had oozed out of my captors. The shock from the previous night had worn off and the vacuum it left behind had been replaced by apprehension. Did I kill someone last night? Were my captors still alive, and if so, were they going to come after us again? Why were they after us in the first place? Why were they speaking in French? Did anyone else witness this crime? I was terrified. I was shivering at the thought of going to prison or being held at trial over defending myself. These thoughts were only adding fuel to the already raging fire inside my head from last nights alcohol. 

I was fortunately distracted from these morbid thoughts in my head by the familiar hushed murmurs that had woken me up moments ago. I was seized with panic. Had the police finally been contacted to come get Anna and I? I got out of the bed slowly and carefully peered through the cracks. I couldn't notice any figures, only their shadows, as the unknown voices were coming from the other side of the living room that was situated on the far east side of the apartment. I strained to hear what the murmurs were about, when I heard a clear and crisp male voice, in perfect English, say, "You were supposed to protect her. What the fuck happened?'

The voice had a deep baritone and was a little scratchy, as if a lifetime of smoking had damaged the perfect timbre. His command was authoritative and his question was meant not to illicit a response but to fill shame and fear within whomever this was aimed at. It sent a tiny shiver down my spine when I imagined myself being on the receiving end of this carefully restrained tongue lashing. 

"Stop it! We can figure out the logistics of this later. What's important right now is to know whether the cover has been blown? Is it safe here anymore, Jean? "The voice that replied belonged to Anna's. 

I was confused by her phrase -- 'cover has been blown'. I had no idea whose cover she was referring to, or who the man that she kept referring to as 'Jean' was. The name sounded vaguely familiar and I tried wracking my memory for who he might be. I faintly remembered Anna referring to her brother as Jean during our first few brief conversations about her family. Did this voice belong to her elder brother? If it did, how did he arrive in Delhi this quick from Paris? Unlike Anna, I was very interested in these benign logistics.

"It's not safe here anymore. We need to leave. Now." Jean replied with finality that brooked no arguments whatsoever. The answer seemed to stun Anna into silence as there was nothing but the sounds of my pounding heart filling my ears.

"But what about my friend? We can't just leave her here," Anna said.

Friend -- she was referring to me. Did Anna plan to leave suddenly because of the two men? From the above exchanges, it wasn't hard to connect the dots that the men who had restrained us were people from Anna's world, and they were dangerous if it were causing Anna to uproot her life from Delhi.

There was a few seconds of silence before Anna's shrill voice filled the room, "NO! We can't just let her die! This isn't fair! They're after us, not her!"

Dread suffocated me upon hearing those words. Die? For the second time in less than 24 hours, I was once again subjected to an eerie out of body experience as if all the events that were happening around me weren't actually happening to me, but to someone who looked exactly like me. I wasn't able to grasp all these unexpected moments hitting me one after another.

Realizing that I needed to be present before strangers signed my death warrant, I came out of my hiding spot and entered the living room. All eyes snapped to me. Anna was in the middle, standing in front of a man who was definitelyher brother. The resemblance was uncanny. He had dark black hair, cropped shorter on the sides, flawless alabaster skin, 6 foot of toned muscle and was decked in an expensively tailored suit that did justice to his broad shoulders. Somewhere along the way he must have lost his blazer, as he now had on just his white dress shirt, with its sleeves rolled up to his elbows. He was also carrying a proper gun holster that was strapped to his shoulders and torso with two pistols safely secured within them. From what I had witnessed of this man so far, those guns were real and loaded and not just used as an intimidation tactic.

Surrounding Anna and her brother were 2 heavy set men, both taller and stockier than Jean. They were both dressed in charcoal grey suits and stern expressions. By the way they positioned themselves protectively around Jean and Anna, it was a little obvious that they worked for Jean. As I entered the room, their eyes landed on me too and they slightly edged closer towards Jean as if I were an unknown threat. The whole scene in front of me was unnerving, to say the least. 

Sensing my fear, Anna suddenly piped up from behind Jean, "Aisha, I didn't know you were already up. Are you feeling better?"

I tried finding my voice to respond but it came out scratchy. I cleared my throat and tried again. "Just a little parched."

"Oh, of course! Here, let me get you a glass of water." Anna bustled in the kitchen. She got me a glass and handed it over. She seemed to be searching my face for any tell tale signs of an emotional response to the previous nights events but all she could see was confusion.

"Anna, who are all these people?" I whispered, even though my low voice was carried loudly in the otherwise deathly silent  room. I was avoiding making eye contact with anyone in the room besides Anna.

"Sorry," Anna fumbled. She smiled cautiously and said, "I'd like you to meet my brother, Jean." She then turned to Jean and said, "Jean, I'd like you to meet my best friend, Aisha."

I was finally forced to make eye contact with the enigmatic brother I had heard so much about. All Jean did was give me a slow nod in acknowledgement, to which I responded with a shaky smile.

Anna continued, "And these two gentlemen are . . . friends of Jean. The one on the left is Alessandro and the other is Lorenzo."

I offered my shaky smile to both of them too, but all I received in return were the passive expressions of two people who still perceived me as nothing more than a threat. I couldn't tell if they didn't care about who I was or if they never bothered hearing Anna's  introduction of me in the first place.

"I told Jean about what happened last night and he decided to fly down to Delhi to see me."

I just nodded in return to let her know I was listening to her. She glanced back at Jean, who I noticed was pouring himself a drink. His eyes were focused on his task but his ears were fully attuned to what was being said by Anna. She hesitated before continuing, as if she were carefully choosing her words. 

"I'm sure you know that those men last night who tried to hurt us were speaking in French." 

My guess was right then. I gave a jerky nod.

"Those men were there for me and not you."

"But why? Are you in trouble?" I asked, confused as to what could possibly make men hurt a 21 year old.

"Not exactly," Anna said.  She was faltering in her explanation as if afraid to reveal too much information. "They were trying to hurt me so that they could get to Jean."

I looked at Jean and then back at Anna. "What did Jean do to them?"

On hearing his name leave my lips, Jean looked up from his glass and locked eyes with me. I was not close enough to distinguish his eye color. All I could tell with certainty was that his eyes pierced every person they were aimed towards. His face belied no feelings and his eyes could be described in one word -- chilling. Some people had the most expressive eyes, like mine, that crinkled with happiness and laughter, glistened with tears when sad and fired up when angry. His seemed to be a deep crevasse of nothing. Just an endless pit of darkness that could force a person to sink into them, not in pleasure but in fear. 

Anna paused and then quietly resumed her explanation, "Those men worked for one of Jean's ex-business partners, Daniel Vanderbilt. One of their deals went south which forced both of them to walk away from each other on bad terms."

"Do bad business deals usually result in kidnapping?" I asked. A lot of this didn't add up. 

Anna looked at Jean from the corner of her eye, again, as if seeking his approval to speak further. "Daniel . . . deals in --." Before Anna could finish that sentence, one of the stocky men, Lorenzo I believe, decided to break his silence and interrupted, "We need to make a move, Boss. Daniel could have more men heading this way to finish the job." He looked at Jean and waited for his "Boss" to give him further instructions. My initial guess was proved correct -- these two did work for Jean.

Jean gulped the last remaining drops in his glass, slammed the glass on the table and walked towards the chair where he grabbed his blazer from the back of the chair and draped it on his magnificently broad shoulders. "Lorenzo's right, Anna. Explanations can be saved for later."

He then looked towards his two silent bodyguards (I assumed) and firmly gave his orders. "Get the plane prepped to leave  in 2 hours. We need to be on the tarmac at 0300 hours -- exactly one hour from now."

"Yes, Boss," both Lorenzo and Alessandro replied and bustled out of the apartment to carry out their tasks.

I turned to Anna, anxiety filling every fiber  of my being. "Wait, are you leaving?"

Anna turned to Jean, "We can't just leave her like this!"

Jean was as calm as ever and didn't fumble when he replied, "We have no choice. We need to leave this place."

"But they will come after her!"

I frantically looked at Jean to get some sort of reassurance that Anna was just overly emotional and exaggerating about me being in danger. He, however, crushed every drop of hope I had when he said, "Let's hope not."

Panic gripped me. I couldn't breathe in properly. My lungs were not responding to the deep breaths I was taking to force myself to calm down. I found a sofa nearby and sat down, contemplating on what to do next. Should I call my parents? Or the  police? Do I need to need to go to the police station? Was I going to be held liable for the men I stabbed?

Anna saw me mentally breaking down and went storming after Jean. "We can't leave her here unprotected. She saved me! If it weren't for her, I wouldn't be alive. I owe her my life and this is how you choose to repay her?!"

Jean was externally unmoved by Anna's outburst, but his mental cogs were churning a million miles a second, while he came up with a suitable response. "We can't leave any of our men in Delhi to protect her. The city is too corrupt. Daniel will find a way to get to her."

"What does he want with me?" I ask.

Anna turns to me and says, "He'll use anything and anyone as leverage to get Jean to give up his business."

"What did you do to him?" I ask Jean directly. My fear for my life trumped any intimidation I felt by Jean.

There was silence for a while. Anna looked at Jean, imploring him to reveal something crucial, it felt, to me that would make sense of this night. After much silence, Jean said, "Daniel Vanderbilt deals with manufacturing and selling ammunition in Europe. As do I. He was trying to sabotage one of my shipments, so I retaliated by stealing his second largest client. It cost him quite a bit of money. He's out for blood now."

"Why not go to the police?" I ask.

Jean smirked at that, as if the mere thought of going to the police was ludicrous. "Because my dealings are not within the boundaries of any law."

I froze in shock. "They're illegal?" I  whisper.

"Yes."

I looked at Anna to affirm if all that Jean was saying was not some cruel joke. She didn't refute any of it. Instead she said, "Daniel will come after you. You should leave with me for Paris."

Jean looked at Anna in astonishment at that suggestion, but it was nothing compared to the expression on my face. "What?!" I yelled.

"There's no place as safe as our house in Paris. You should come with me," Anna insisted. 

"I can't just leave everything. I don't even have the money or --"

"Daniel will kill you, Aisha. He will torture you and then kill you. We got lucky with those two men. But what will happen the next time they come for you, huh?'

I was quiet. Anna continued, "Daniel isn't a man of scruples. Who knows how low he is willing to fall?"

I got up and tried to leave but Anna blocked my path. "I can't leave! My family is here. I can't just uproot my life in," I looked at my watch, "25 minutes and head on a plane to Paris. I don't even have a visa! My parents will kill me!"

Anna was growing impatient with me and snapped back, 'It's either this or a very painful and excruciating death. Trust me Aisha, you have to leave."

"What about my parents? What do I tell them?"

Anna grew silent and looked at Jean for guidance. Jean simply looked back at her in mild annoyance, as if my hysterics were an extreme aberration in his plans, and he was in no mood to deal with them right now. He looked up at the ceiling in exasperation and squeezed his temples. 

"We can get her across without a visa and passport," he said.

Anna looked back at me and smiled in reassurance, happy that her plan was feasible. I still didn't seem convinced though.

Jean then continued, "And you need nothing to say to your parents."

I looked at him in confusion. "Why?"

Anna turned back to him too, as if asking him to further expand upon his comment.

Jean looked at Anna and then me and uttered the words that would forever change my life, "In 25 minutes, you will be dead. And the dead don't communicate with the living."