Page 46 of Russian Rescue

I slung an arm around Piper’s shoulder and gave her an exaggerated squeeze. “Don’t let her fool you. She’s head over heels. Just a little slow on the intake.”

Her face broke into a carousel of colors, and Knox jutted a finger at her. “Oh! She’s blushing! I thought you were joking, but holy shit! Piper’s really blushing!”

“I’m not blushing,” she ground out, shrugging my arm off her shoulder. “It’s hot.”

“See.” I waggled my eyebrows. “She’s a smitten kitten.”

Piper let out an exaggerated sigh while Marcus, Knox, and I continued laughing. “So, anyway,” she went on, ignoring our good-natured taunts, “we need to go over the plan.”

Marcus cleared his throat, giving me an impressed smile before reaching in the car and pulling out a computer. “Let’s set up inside.”

He walked past us, and Knox followed behind, stopping to slap one of his huge mitts onto my back while he winked at me.

“After you, my lady,” I said to Piper, who just leveled me with a glare and started after them.

I could barely contain my laughter watching her stalk inside, her shoulders slumped in defeat.

After we got set up, Marcus pulled up all the specs he’d stored on his computer. We still had no internet, so we had to go off the images he’d downloaded before he’d left Moscow.

“So, you see,” he said, pointing at the layout of the high-rise, “with security being as tight as it is, there isn’t any way we’re going in the front door without being spotted. The best option is to drop in from the roof. Knox can fly us over, Piper and I can land on the roof and drop ropes to the ground. They’re keeping Amanda on the top floor, so we can breach through this window here, take out the guards, then repel down the lines we’ll have dropped from the roof before we go in. We’ll have a car at the bottom waiting for us, we’ll toss Amanda in, head to the airstrip, and meet Knox. He can extract both of you.”

“I’m not leaving,” I argued. “Not until we figure out who these guys are and stop them for good. If we don’t, my family are sitting ducks.”

Marcus nodded his agreement. “I agree that we have to figure out who they are and shut them down, but you need to get to a secure location in the States and figure it out from there.”

“No. I need to be here. I’m not leaving this country until this shit is done.”

“That’s a bad idea.” Piper shook her head.

“This is my family. Until I’m sure there’s nothing else I need to do in Russia to protect them, I’m not leaving.”

After a long pause, Marcus shook his head. “Okay. But only until we’re sure you don’t need to be here to do anything. After that, it’s back to the States with you. I’ll stay and help you.”

“Same,” Piper agreed.

Knox leaned forward and rested his elbows on his torn jeans. “I’ll get your sister back to the States and set up at my place. She will be safe with Luca and Lucia until we figure this out. If you haven’t taken care of things by then, I’ll fly back and assist.”

“I can’t thank you guys enough. Really. This means a lot to me.”

“You’re one of us, Wes,” Marcus said. “Always will be.”

With a smile, I settled back against the couch.

“So, what do we need to get this going? We don’t want to waste any time in case they move her.” Piper crossed her long legs and leaned back on her elbow.

“Already taken care of,” Marcus answered. “Oleg is getting us all the equipment we need as we speak. We should have everything by tonight.”

“How are we getting on the roof?” Piper asked. “Plane? Helicopter?”

“Helicopter,” Knox answered. “We thought about a plane and having you two parachute in, but the roof is a pretty small target. I know you two are good, but it will be safer if I can get you a little closer and drop you on.”

“Makes sense. And you’ve got a helicopter?” Piper arched an eyebrow. “It’s not like we’ve got one of those handy.”

Knox and Marcus exchanged a look. “We looked into renting one, but because Knox needs to get us low enough to drop to the roof and do it silently, he’s gonna have to kill the engine and use auto-rotation to coast to a safe spot outside the city and ditch the helicopter there. To be safe, we don’t want to rent anything that can tie back to us in any way. There’s a flight school just outside of Moscow. We’re going to, uh, borrow one of theirs for the op.”

“Borrow?” She laughed.

Knox shrugged. “Borrow, steal. Same difference. They’ll find their helicopter eventually.”