Page 2 of Russian Rescue

I waited for him to start in on me about how he’s not a kid anymore, and he’s all grown up. And he wasn’t wrong. Granted, I’d only seen him from the shoulders up on video calls for the past ten years, but his face certainly had filled out far more than the skinny kid I’d first met. Not that I’d ever acknowledge that, though, since teasing him about being a pretty boy was half the fun of having him around.

He didn’t respond, and I pinched my brows together. “Okay. Now you’re irritating me. I just climbed a cliff, and I’m soaking up the sun right now relaxing, so if you’re not going to—”

His voice cut in. “Piper? Piper! Can you hear me?”

“Yeah. I can hear you. Can you hear me?”

Silence went on for several long moments, then finally, his voice returned. “Piper! Are you there? Piper! Fuck!”

I sat up straight, the panicked tone of his voice set my heart racing. “Wes? I can hear you. Can you hear me?”

“Dammit,” he spat out.

An unusual unease crept through my veins. I wasn’t used to feeling anxious, having been trained to handle anything and anyone that crossed my path, but hearing the panic woven in his tone set off the alarms ingrained in my body, signaling something was wrong.

Very wrong.

“Wes? What’s going on? I can hear you. Talk to me.”

After a few seconds of holding my breath, he popped back in my ear. “Piper! I hear you!”

“You can hear me?”

“Yes! Holy shit. I fucking did it.”

“Did what? What’s going on? You sound freaked.”

“They took me, Piper. You have to find me,” he rushed out.

My heart stalled in my chest. “Who? Who took you?”

“I don’t know. Russians, I think. At least that’s the language they sometimes speak and the accent they have. I’m locked up in a room somewhere, and I hacked the intercom system to call out. I have no idea how long this will work before I lose you.”

Trying to steady my racing heart, I snapped back into the operative who never lost her cool... never let her emotions compromise her ability to get the job done. “Tell me everything you can before I lose you.”

“I was waiting on an Uber to take me to the airport so I could get to my sister’s wedding, and some guys snatched me outside my house. Bag over my head, shoved me in a vehicle, and they injected me with something. I have no idea how long I was out, if I’m still in the States, or where the fuck I am. I woke up in this room yesterday. They want me to hack something for them.”

“And they are Russian?”

“Yes. I speak Russian, but of course, I’m pretending I don’t, hoping they will say something in front of me.”

“Good boy. Just keep that up. It helps if you can eavesdrop and catch something.”

“Piper, I’m freaking out. I haven’t said a word to them yet other than saying I don’t speak Russian and to let me go, but they are threatening to torture me.”

My throat tightened at the thought of our sweet Wes being tortured. He wasn’t like the rest of us in that respect. He wasn’t trained to endure pain and terror. Wes was full of laughter and life, and the only reason he was on our team was because he was the most talented hacker in the country... hell, probably on the planet. He wasn’t cut out to endure something like Knox had survived. Not Wes.

“Stay calm. We will find you.”

“I know you will. But how the hell are you going to find me without me to find me? I’m the one who does the finding!”

The truth of those words punched me in the gut. Wes did the hunting; we did the killing. If someone else were missing, my first call for help would be to Wes. No doubt he’d hack some traffic cameras, find the kidnappers’ vehicle, get facial recognition on the perps, and have an address of where they were currently located all while heating up his lunch in the microwave at his apartment. But we didn’t have Wes to find Wes.

Shit.

“And there is nothing to indicate where you are? Look around the room. Anything?”

“No. Nothing. There are no windows to look out and only a cot and a bucket for me to piss in. That’s it. Although,” he paused, “this intercom system has parts with Russian wording.”