ChapterTwelve
Paul tried not to think about the pain in his left hand, but the wound throbbed, shattering his ability to compartmentalize. It would be different if he were still in the fight, but he was trussed up in the cold ballroom, immobilized with nothing for his brain to focus on but worry for his team of trainers, who were all unconscious—or dead.
Only Reichmann’s chest visibly rose and fell with the cadence of sleep. The others could be breathing, but Paul hadn’t been able to detect movement. It could be the dim lighting and the fact they were half the distance of the ballroom away.
He studied Palmer, waiting for the man to inhale. No movement he could discern. Fear coursed through his pain-riddled body. As if it wasn’t bad enough that they’d cut off his finger, they’d had to go and break his ribs and punch him in the kidneys too. He was in bad shape, but for now, he was alive.
He would focus on that. Try to forget he was missing a ring finger.
Impossible, but once upon a time, he’d been a special operator. The best of the motherfucking best.
His gaze dropped to his bandaged hand. He wouldn’t look away. He tightened his fingers and felt a surge of pain.
All that mattered was he was still breathing, and as long as he was breathing, he would look for ways to help the team in the forest, who were surely working on a plan to rescue him and the other hostages.
If they knew there were real hostages, that is.
He went over what had happened, step by agonizing step, in his mind. This exercise would trigger a detail that would help. Something he could use against his Russian captors.
They’d dragged him to the lodge shortly after they’d destroyed the electronics and cut off his finger. He’d been taken into the public restroom near the check-in desk, where one of the mercs bandaged his hand, staunching the flow of blood that had left him light-headed.
It was around that point that Paul realized they wanted him alive. If this was because they thought he was going to spill the beans on future SEAL training exercises, then they were fools.
But that possibility meant he and his team had been beaten by fools. An added humiliation he hadn’t anticipated.
Who are these finger-stealing assholes?
The humiliation had deepened when he’d been dragged into the ballroom and spotted the other four trainers, their team of fake tangos. The only person missing from their six-man band was Rivera.
He’d gone off on what Paul had figured was a boondoggle with the archaeologist. He hadn’t been in position when disaster struck. Hadn’t been taken.
At least, that’s what Paul hoped.
If the woman was in on this somehow, if it had been her job to divert Rivera and the team, then they were all fucked. He figured Rivera had been distracted by the woman he’d screwed and then screwed over.
Paul’s confusion about the situation only grew when he was dragged before the man who must be the leader of the merc team. He wore a balaclava hood with night vision goggles, making it impossible for Paul to make out his features in the dim light of the ballroom.
Why bother to hide his face? Was this man known to the US military?
That question became secondary when the masked man took one look at Paul, then decked one of his minions and yelled at him in Russian.
Luckily, Paul spoke Russian. Unlucky for the merc, he didn’t know Paul was fluent in his language.
“This is not Rivera! I need the sonofabitch alive, and you bring me this piece of shit?” He’d kicked Paul in the ribs then, and the blow managed to eclipse the pain in his hand for a few moments.
What was this guy’s beef with Rivera?
But that had been hours ago.
Now Paul was tied to a chair, halfway across the room from his team, wondering if they were sleeping or dead.
Two mercs entered the ballroom.
“Did you get him?” the masked leader asked in Russian.
“No,” the taller of the two henchmen said, as the shorter man waved a piece of paper in the air.
“But we do have a letter. From a woman to a man named Xavier.”