Page 5 of Russian Rescue

“You will do what we tell you and find us the locations and the codes. We know you can.” one man growled in English, though his thick Russian accent distorted the words.

He reached forward and fingered the dog tags hanging from my neck. They wouldn’t make any sense to him since they only had my Elite Stealth Force identification number on them. Even though I never went out on dangerous ops like the rest of my teammates, I still wore my tags every day. Made me feel a little more like part of the team, and even though we’d retired, I slipped them on every morning. A reminder of my time with them, and to be honest, chicks dug them.

He pulled himself forward with my tags until his warm breath burned against my face. “Will you do what we say, or do you want more pain?”

I didn’t answer. With a snarl, he released my tags and pushed me backward. Another jolt went through me, and I squeezed my eyes shut while I endured it.

I may not have gotten the right training so I could escape to some sunny beach in my mind, but I was crushing the part where I didn’t say a word during the torture. Not one. My team would be proud of me, I thought while I took another jolt.

Fuck! Just keep breathing. They’re coming. Just hold on.

I reminded myself of this over and over, just like Knox had told us he’d done after he’d been captured and tortured within an inch of his life for six months. He’d never given up hope that we’d come for him. Not for one second had he thought we’d forgotten about him or abandoned him.

And we hadn’t. We never would. It had taken us far longer than we’d hoped to find him, but we’d spent every waking minute scouring the planet for him until we’d brought him home. And now it was me who had to keep that faith in Alpha team while I took another painful jolt.

They are coming.

The minute I’d heard Piper’s voice through the intercom, I’d known I would be saved. Eventually. It may take them some time to find me, especially without me doing the hunting, but I had faith that three of the most capable, deadly, and skilled people on earth were hunting me down with froth pooling in the corners of their snarling mouths.

Even though I didn’t go on the ops with them and had only met them in person a handful of times, I knew they thought of me as family. A valued member of the team. The guy in their ear who led them to safety when shit went south, guiding them through some of the craziest shit you could imagine. I served as their eyes in the sky when they were blind, the voice in their ear when they were deaf, and the one who made them laugh even when things looked bleak. And they never questioned me once, trusting in me completely to keep them alive as I trusted in them now to find me.

I estimated it had been about a week since I’d been taken, though with no windows or clock, I couldn’t be sure. Based on the shift changes of my captors, I had started measuring time in eight-hour increments. Maybe Russian terrorists didn’t work standard eight-hour shifts like bankers or accountants, though, so it could have been longer. Or shorter. I had no idea. The only thing I knew was that I had to endure whatever they threw at me until help arrived.

And it would.

Another shock went through me while they demanded I use the computer system off to my side. I wouldn’t. No matter what they threw at me, there was no way in hell I was going to help the Russians do something nefarious. And from the sounds of their conversations I’d eavesdropped in on, it had to do with nukes.

Not good.

Not good at all.

No way in hell was I helping them slaughter countless innocents, even if it meant I forfeited my life.

“You will do what we tell you! Get us the codes!” The tallest guard with the big ass guns strapped to his thighs spat out.

I stared straight ahead, swallowing down the coppery taste building in my mouth from when I’d bit my tongue during the shock.

“Agree!” he shouted again, another blow cracking me in my ribs. At least they seemed to be leaving my face alone again. “Agree, and this can stop.”

Unbelievable.

How this had happened to me was still totally and completely unbelievable. One minute I was standing outside my house in flip-flops and a Hawaiian shirt getting ready to head to the airport to attend my sister’s wedding in Mexico, and the next, I was blinded by a bag over my head and shoved into a vehicle. And then... nothing.

Nothing until I woke up in the tiny, dark room in whatever the hell country I was in.

Son of a bitch.

My family must be going crazy with worry. No doubt my mom would be stress-eating like she always did when she got freaked out. My dad would be pacing back and forth mumbling, his go-to for when he got worried. And my sweet little sister, Amanda, would likely be sobbing uncontrollably, wondering why her big brother hadn’t shown up for her wedding.

My heart squeezed in my chest thinking about how scared they must be not knowing what happened to me. Of course, they’d have called the police after I didn’t show up, but the police would never have what it took to find me, and my family had no idea about the other life I’d lived working for an elite government special ops team. They thought I was a computer programmer all these years, a cover I’d used since the day I’d gotten coerced into joining the team and giving up my dream of being a video game programmer.

A punch to my gut took my breath away, and I choked out my next breath.

Hold on. Just hold on a little longer.

Why couldn’t I have been a programmer for real? Jesus. I bet no one designing the next Assassin’s Creed game was currently strung up by their wrists getting the shit kicked out of them by Russian bad guys. Nope. That would just be me, the dumb ass who’d hacked the FBI from his dorm room at Caltech one night on a dare. The guy who’d accidentally opened up files with the names of classified special operatives. The guy who’d had men in black kick down his door that night and drag him away, offering him two options.

One... go to a black site to live out my days in a cell so I couldn’t spill the info that I couldn’t unsee.