He wasn’t one to question her offering, short on time or not. He slipped his tongue inside, and they shared a brief but deep kiss. Without a word, he released her and stepped back, then slipped the straps of his loaded pack over his shoulders. The injured joint throbbed, but there was no avoiding the pain.

He would suffer any amount of agony to keep Audrey safe.

Chapter Twelve

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?