Chapter Eleven

Pierce

 

Then came the rugged voice of a stranger.

“Yeah. I hope you don’t mind I borrowed his earpiece.”

“Who are you?”

“Is this Call?”

“Do we know each other?”

“If we’d met you’d be dead.”

Pierce silently watched the man sitting beside him dressed in a dark brown mid-thigh leather coat, buttoned up to his collar, and matching pants. Nothing black on him at all, except the gun pressing an inch into his side. His frigid eyes told Pierce he better not make a sound or a sudden movement. He hadn’t removed Pierce’s earpiece which meant he wanted him to hear the conversation.

“What do you want?” Call growled. “Our package is already secured.”

The man grinned and winked slyly at Pierce and it made him want to lose his breakfast. “Wrong. I’m after the prettier package.”

“Backhander report.”

Pierce heard Hawk’s frightened tone in his ear and he wanted to answer but the cold gray eyes had him too shook-up to even manipulate his tongue to form a reply.

“Pierce!” Hawk shouted. It sounded like he was on the run now, and Pierce’s heart ached for him.

“Careful, Beastmasters. Come after me and I’ll throw him off the interstate at over a hundred miles per hour.”

“Everyone stand down,” Call ordered. “Tell us your demands.”

“I have none.”

“Tell me who you are.”

“Don’t worry, you’ll see me again. Or one of you will. Me and a particular Beast have unfinished business. ”

“Then if it’s one of us you want, any one of us will surrender in exchange for Backhander.”

“I have my own orders, soldier.”

“Which are?”

“To deliver Backhander.”

“To who?”

“I can’t disclose my client’s identity. That’s unethical.”

“An ethical hired gun.” Hawk sneered. “If you know what’s wise or if you have any sense of self-preservation, you’ll walk away and leave Backhander unharmed.”

“Hmmm. I think I’ll play with him a little while before I hand him over to my client.” Pierce’s throat became a desert, his hands a river. He was pulled up out of his seat with one quick jerk, moved effortlessly toward the back of the restaurant and into the kitchen. The muzzle of the gun never leaving the back of his neck. A few heads turned and gasped but chose their own lives over trying to save his. His captor’s movements were calculated and precise. He didn’t falter or make a wrong turn. He knew the layout, had countered their plan with proficiency.

No one was there. Shade, Toad, all of them gone after the wrong target.

“Leave him!” Hawk yelled this time, his helplessness revealed in his tone as he ran for him.

“Can’t and won’t. I can hear you coming Beast. Stay back. I don’t make idle threats.” He pointed his gun at the motorcycle waiting at the backdoor of the restaurant in the two-way alley, telling Pierce to get on. He froze, needed to stall; Hawk was probably almost to him.

The man eyed him carefully and came close to him, close enough for Pierce to smell his minty breath. “Imagine riding with a bullet in your kneecap.”

“Hurt him and I’ll find you and kill you slowly.” Hawk rushed, sounding out of breath and panicked.

Pierce knew everyone was listening. Viper surely scrambling to get a voice recognition while bouncing their signals just in case this man was working with someone who could track them.

“You sound a little more passionate than the others. Who are you?”

“Your undertaker if you hurt him.”

The motorcycle roared to life with Pierce on the back. The man turned and secured Pierce’s hands with a zip tie. He heard Call’s final order.

“Kill all communication.”

“Pierce I know you can hear me. I will find you. Do you understand me? I. Will. Find. You. I’ll never stop,” Hawk said with determination and pain. “Now say you believe me.”

His kidnapper shook his head. Pierce stuck his chin out in defiance. His voice was stronger than he thought it would be and he was proud of that. He looked the man in his eye and answered the man that loved him. “I believe you.”

The pain from the slap he received was nothing compared to the pain he felt at possibly never seeing Dane Aramis again.

 

Hawk

“Calm down!” Shot yelled.

“Don’t tell me to calm down. This is all fucked now! I told you something was coming we weren’t prepared for. Now Pierce is gone, Fox is fighting for his life and we’re here with our asses officially kicked and our goddamn mouths left hanging open.”

Call was standing over Viper and Lucky as they worked furiously to track who took Backhander. It was unnerving to be in Pierce’s headquarters without him, and the tension in the room was palpable. Lucky scanned every area of Union Station to get a usable face shot. The man had kept his head low and turned away from the cameras. Getting an identification on him was their best hope, because trying to narrow down Backhander’s enemies would take much longer.

“No cameras in the restaurant or in the alley,” Viper informed them.

“Fuck!” Hawk yelled out again.

“We’ll find him.” Shot put a reassuring palm on his shoulder to halt his pacing. Of course his second in command was staying strong, like he always did, but he knew his team member’s head was on his man as well. It was twenty-four hours later. Last they’d heard, Fox had crashed over night and was rushed in for a second surgery.

“Mrs. Valenzo is insisting on being released and denying having any information about her husband owing the Russians money,” Shade told them, emerging from one of the back rooms.

“Fuck her,” Hawk ground through clenched teeth.

“No. Wait.” Call turned around. “There was no hired gun or visions until she appeared. Maybe it’s her the Russians want. Since she’s in a federal protection database and the only one with knowledge of, and access to, Valenzo’s money. They could want Pierce to give them Mrs. Valenzo’s information and location. They just don’t know we already have her. So they sent a hitman.”

“Good. Toss her ass out there and use her as bait,” Hawk barked.

Everyone turned to face him and he looked back at them without an ounce of shame.

“That’s not going to get him back,” a scary voice answered them from the top level of the warehouse.

All heads turned fast as Hawk and Shot pointed their weapons at the shadowed figure in all black staring down at them from under a black hood.

“Jesus Christ.” Hawk whispered. “It can’t be.”