Clinch (The Underground Book 2) (12 page)

Like now.

It was imperative no one ever find out Leo was feeding information to his contact. The man had been undercover for years working this case. One wrong move and all their lives could be in jeopardy. There was no telling what Anton Yenin would do if he ever found out Leo had been feeding the feds information about Yenin’s operation for two years.

Now that Leo had moved to Chicago and no longer worked for either Anton or his father, he wasn’t privy to much information. But he could keep his eyes peeled for anything out of the ordinary like being followed by Yenin’s people. The more specifics he could pass to his contact, the safer his friends would be in the long run.

Alena sighed, yanking Leo out of his thoughts.

“We’ll discuss this later,” Mikhail said as he pulled himself to sitting. “Get me the fuck out of here, you fools. The doc said I’m going to live.”

Leo reached out a hand and pulled Mikhail to standing.

Not surprisingly, Mikhail appeared to be in much less pain than he should feel. Or hell, maybe the cracked ribs didn’t hurt that bad. Mikhail had always been a tough mother fucker. The dude had a high tolerance for pain. “I’ll be fine after some sleep. I’m exhausted. Some people kept checking on me all night.” He rolled his eyes.

Leo followed them to the front door and opened it. As they passed through, he watched the way Alena hovered next to Ivan instead of her brother.

Was she as interested in him as he seemed to be in her?

After locking the door and resetting the alarm, Leo made quick strides to find Katie.

When he stepped into her office, she was sitting at her desk with her head dipped, staring at the computer screen. She had her chin resting on one palm, the fingers of that hand strumming against her lips. Her hair was a tousled mess he hadn’t noticed until then. She looked well fucked.

Dammit.

No wonder his friends were so sharp.

Her attention was riveted to the screen, so she never noticed him enter. That was not like her at all.

He cleared his throat. “Katie?”

She jerked her head up and schooled her face. “Sorry. Didn’t see you.” Her smile was once again overkill, her eyes too wide, her lips curving up too far.

“What’s the matter?”

“Nothing. Just looking over some emails.” She immediately moved the mouse around, probably closing whatever document she was looking at.

Emails my ass
.

She glanced at the clock on the wall and sighed. “Not much sense in going back to bed now. I need a shower, though. Can you make sure your friends are comfortable? I’m sure they’re exhausted. Mikhail can stay as long as he wants until he’s up to moving around to get back home.”

“They just left. I locked the door behind them.”

“Oh.” She glanced around surprised. “I didn’t hear anything.”

That was telling. Whatever she’d been engrossed in on the screen in front of her had consumed her completely.

“Katie…” he warned.

She stood abruptly and skittered across the room as if she needed to hurry and get that shower as fast as possible before opening the clinic in approximately
four
hours.

Leo followed her, but she moved fast.

By the time he reached the top of the stairs to her apartment, the shower was running, and he wasted no time opening the bathroom door and stepping inside.

Katie yelped and jumped a few inches back. “Jesus. You scared me.”

Leo peeled off his clothes and opened the door to her tiny shower to squeeze in next to her.

She wasn’t welcoming, but whatever was bothering her, he wanted to know it.

Now.

Without a word, he grabbed the soap and ran it over her body until she softened and leaned toward him, a sigh escaping her lips. “This isn’t really a two-man shower.”

“It is now.” He kissed the top of her head, smelling her shampoo and inhaling her scent. For the rest of his life he would equate the smell of strawberries with Katie Schwan, hopefully with her still by his side. The notion was preposterous, and it was way too soon to make such a leap, but if there was a God, he sure hoped the Almighty would make forever happen with this tiny woman in his arms.

He tried to ignore the niggling warnings in the back of his head that told him this was unsafe territory, but the reality was the damage was already done. He’d spent way too much time with her for Yenin’s men not to have her on their radar. He would need to switch tactics. It was too late to walk away.

Nope. The only way he could rest easy and keep her safe now was to spend more time with her, not less.

He cringed as he imagined what response she might have to that decision.

He didn’t want to release her, but she squirmed in his embrace. “The water’s getting cold.”

The water hadn’t changed at all.

Katie shoved past him, opened the door, and stepped out. As she shut it behind her, leaving him to finish, she grabbed a towel and wrapped it around her middle.

She didn’t look back or wait for him. She simply stepped out of the small foggy bathroom. The shower was not big enough for two people, and the bathroom itself was hardly larger than the shower. It was in need of updating. The linoleum, which at one point in time might have been white, was yellowing and peeling away from the corners. The sink had no counter space and the basin was cracking in several places. Katie kept it clean, but it was old.

Leo finished quickly and flipped off the water. As if his heels were on fire, he grabbed another towel off the rack, wrapped it around his waist, and headed for her bedroom, still dripping wet.

He found her peering into a drawer, lifting out a pair of panties.

In about two steps, he was at her side, plucking the undergarment from her hand and dropping it back into the drawer. He then spun her around and nearly shoved her across the room until they reached the bed. “Sit.”

She turned around to face him, her mouth open to protest, her finger pointing at the drawer.

He narrowed his gaze. “Katie, please. Sit. Stop avoiding me.”

She cocked one hip out. “I’m not avoiding you. Don’t be ridiculous.” She didn’t meet his gaze, however. Instead she stared at a spot in the room past him. Nothing.

He set his pointer under her chin and lifted her face. “Look at me.”

She blinked.

“Sit,” he repeated again.

She lowered herself onto the mattress, huffing. “What?”

Water ran down Leo’s back. He didn’t give a fuck. His hair dripped between them when he tipped his head too.

“Look me in the eye and tell me what’s going on, or I’m going to flatten your sweet ass on the bed and hold you down with my weight until you do. Are you having second thoughts about our night together?” He knew that wasn’t true, but he used it to get the actual reason for her behavior out of her.

She gasped. “No. Of course not.” She met his gaze. “Last night was fantastic.”

“Good. Because I rather enjoyed myself. So what’s up with the weird questions about the ribs and the blood work? And don’t give me some medical lines of shit, because you know I won’t have a clue what you’re saying, and besides, I don’t think your concerns are related to ribs and blood. So spill.”

Her shoulders lowered, and she let her body fall back on the bed. Staring at the ceiling, she said, “I think I’d rather have you pin me to the mattress and fuck my brains out.”

“I never said anything about fucking you.” He climbed up to straddle her waist, scooting her backward so he’d have more space.

She had that damn towel wrapped securely around her chest, because it didn’t budge.

“I said I would hold you down and force you to talk. And I meant it.” He set his hands on both sides of her head and closed the distance so she was forced to look at him. “Talk.”

“Either I’m losing my touch, or something is out of whack with your friends.”

“My friends? Plural?”

“Yeah.”

“Who?”

“Mikhail and Dmitry.”

“Dmitry? What does he have to do with anything?”

“That’s just it. I don’t know. But some things don’t add up.”

“What things?” Leo stiffened.
Holy shit.
What was she onto?

“When Dmitry was here, I drew a blood sample the night he came in and the next morning. I was only concerned with his kidney function and making sure it was stable.” She took a breath. “I sent it to my lab the next morning. But both sets of blood work were strange. I assumed either my sample was tainted, or your friend was an anomaly. I filed the data and forgot about it.”

“Okay. I have no idea what you’re talking about, but what does that have to do with Mikhail?”

“I consider myself to be a pretty good doctor, you know.”

He narrowed his gaze. “I’ve seen you in action. You’re the best.”

“Well, not when your friends come in, apparently.”

“What happened this time?”

“The X-rays got my attention. I swear those ribs were not broken
last
night. Not six hours ago. They showed evidence of being several days old.”

“How is that possible?”

“If I hadn’t seen him fight last night myself, I’d say he was lying. But I watched the man not only fight but win. He didn’t have broken ribs at nine o’clock last night.”

“Weird. Could there be something wrong with your X-ray machine?”

She smiled. “Thank you.”

“For what?”

“For not instantly implying I was a quack.”

He leaned forward and planted a kiss on her lips. He could get used to having her under him like this… “I know you aren’t a quack doctor with as much certainty as you know Mikhail didn’t have broken ribs at the fight last night.”

She blew out a breath. “Then I remembered the blood work. It can’t be a coincidence that the last time I saw something unexplainable in a patient, it was another Russian fighter.”

“Unexplainable? What was unexplainable about Dmitry?”

Her eyes widened. “Are you serious? The man fought with a kidney injury. Most regular humans wouldn’t have been able to get out of bed, let alone step into a boxing ring.”

“Cage,” he mumbled. “In MMA it’s an octagon.”

“Whatever.”

He frowned. “You didn’t need Mikhail’s blood, did you?”

“No. I just wanted to see what I might find.”

“And?”

“I’ll send it to the lab this morning as soon as they open, but I’m thinking I’ll find the same strange inconsistencies exist in Mikhail as Dmitry.”

He sat back, straightening. A chill raced up his spine. What in the ever-loving hell? “Is it something bad?” Whatever it was, he had little doubt she would find the same thing in
his
blood. And Ivan’s. And Sergei’s. And Nikolav’s.

Fuck.

She shook her head. “No. At least I don’t think so. It’s complicated, but it has to do with antibodies and DNA. I’ll explain it better later. Let’s just say Dmitry had very interesting blood. I’m surprised no one has noticed it before. I mean, it’s not even possible.”

“Unless no one has ever had the opportunity until now,” he muttered.

“What do you mean? Surely you six haven’t all gone thirty years without needing medical attention or checkups?”

Leo’s blood ran cold. He ran a hand over his head. “Oh, you’re right. We’ve all had numerous checkups and exams. Yearly. More than the average person probably.”

She lifted onto her elbows. “What are you saying?”

“I’m saying that since we arrived here twelve years ago from Russia, we’ve always gone to the same doctor for everything.”

“Really? But where? How?”

“In Vegas.” He shook his head. “That’s a longer story than your antibodies. Trust me. I’ll explain it all later, but right now I need to make a few calls.” He scooted backward off the bed, pulled the towel from his waist, and used it to finish drying his body. His mind was racing ahead.

Katie eased off next to him and stepped into his space, wrapping her arms around his middle and then setting her chin on his chest. “You okay?”

“Yeah.” He rubbed his palms up and down her arms. “Can you do me a favor?”

“Of course.”

“Don’t tell anyone what you found. Not about the ribs or the blood or the kidneys. Can you do that?”

She scrunched up her face and winced.

Leo stiffened. “You already told someone?”
Of course
. She was in her office for a long time while Leo ran interference with his friends.

“Sent the results of Dmitry’s labs to a colleague. Told him I’d get Mikhail’s to him right away to compare. Guy I graduated with. He’s top of his field in Chicago. I thought he could shed some light.”

“What field is that?”

“Epidemiology.”

“Uh-huh. And that is?”

“The study of diseases, basically. What causes them and how they spread. He doesn’t work with patients. He’s in research.”

“And who is this guy?”

“His name is Ted Christianson.”

Leo hesitated. It was too late to fix that. But he needed to call his contact and fill him in. It was a long shot, but if any of this had anything to do with the case against Yenin, the FBI needed to be made aware.

Katie looked up from her desk to find Leo leaning in the doorway, a grin on his face. The last patient had left her office about an hour ago, and she’d had a long conversation with Ted afterward and then began to study the blood work from both Dmitry and Mikhail more intently.

“Do you ever stop working?”

“Of course. I went to that stupid fight with you last night, didn’t I?” She batted her lashes in exaggeration, knowing she’d get a rise out of him if she referred to his main source of income with such derision.

“Uh-huh.” He sauntered into her office and leaned over her desk, planting both hands on the worn surface. Considering last night had been the first time they’d crossed the line between friendship and…whatever this new relationship was, she was a little shocked for him to kiss her on the lips, lingering for several seconds before pulling back. “If I recall, you were back at work at about five o’clock this morning, and you’ve been at it ever since.”

“Not by choice. It was your friend who dragged me out of bed with his strange broken ribs and weird blood work. And what were you doing all day? Napping?” She grinned, knowing this wasn’t a man who lounged around.