Submit (The Underground Book 4) (32 page)

Anton was surprised to see the man at the front entrance waiting, showing no signs of entering the building. Why?

Two police cars pulled up silently, coming from both directions in seconds, stopping in the middle of the street. Four SWAT members jumped out of each car.

What the fuck? How had they managed to get there so fast? And why eight of them?

They scanned the area, guns also drawn, full gear on.

Anton jumped to one side of the window when he realized they were examining the entire surroundings.

Fucking God dammit
.

When he dared to inch his face toward the window again, he found officers entering the building. Two joined the agent out front. Two entered. The other four must have circled around to the back.

“Fuck.”

Anton gathered his shit, stuffed it in his duffle bag, and exited the room. There was every chance the entire building would be crawling with agents in minutes. He needed to head out the back and get away from the scene before he got trapped.

“Fuck,” he repeated.

»»•««

An hour later Anton stood outside his office on the second floor of his lab, staring down at the dimly lit expanse below him. No one was currently working. The place was silent. He squeezed his cell phone in his hand. Furious didn’t describe his state of mind.

He’d been unable to reach either Millings or Dayton all evening.

After several moments, someone answered, but it wasn’t Millings.

Anton ended the call without a sound. “Shit.”

He’d been unable to reach Chaz, either. At this point, he had to assume the man and his partner were both dead. Not a single person had contacted him to let him know they had their hands on Gallo.

Two other men had been working with Chaz, but they didn’t have direct contact information for Anton.

“Fucking fuck.” He needed to speed things up. It was time. One way or another, that drug was going into his own blood system ASAP.

»»•««

Belinda flopped onto the couch, tipped her head back, and stared at the ceiling. They were on the fourth floor of a single-building apartment complex in a small two-bedroom filled with everything they could possibly need to hide out for a while.

She knew from the number of words Alena had spoken since Belinda arrived that her new friend was at least as displeased as Belinda with this arrangement and possibly twice as worried about what Mikhail’s and Ivan’s reactions would be when they found out she had gone into hiding.

Belinda hadn’t spent a single night without Nikolav since she met him twelve days ago. And although their relationship had grown to what it was now faster than reasonable, she still didn’t relish the idea of sleeping alone.

And then there was her boss. She prayed Taylor had indeed taken care of that situation in a way that saved her job. She also needed to know that her family was safe. And Nikolav. The man was probably punching things. Or people. Hopefully not Taylor.

Had he believed her lame breakup? God, she hoped he hadn’t gone apeshit crazy and thrown in the towel on her in the last few hours. All she needed was the all-clear from Taylor, and she’d be back in his face…explaining her actions.

“You want anything to eat?” Alena asked quietly from the kitchen area.

Belinda rolled her neck to one side and forced a smile. She knew she should eat. In fact, there were a lot of things she should be doing, like talking to Alena, who was probably at least as freaked out as Belinda. Perhaps more so.

She pushed herself to standing and hauled her sorry ass into the kitchen. Maybe if she made small talk… “Please tell me there’s an assortment of frozen dinners, because the thought of cooking makes my stomach roil.”

“There is.” Alena grinned, but her smile was just as forced, and her hands shook as she opened the freezer and pointed at the contents.

“You haven’t been separated from your friends or your brother for over a year, have you?”

“No,” she whispered into the freezer.

Belinda gently shut the small door and met Alena’s gaze. She glanced down at the bandage on Alena’s leg. “How are you feeling?”

Alena shrugged. “I’m fine. It’s nothing.”

“I’m sorry about all this,” Belinda said softly.

Alena took a deep breath, but tears welled up in her eyes. She wiped them with the backs of her hands. “Not your fault. In fact, I’m sorry you got messed up with us.”

“I’m not.” She nodded toward the couch in the attached living room and steered Alena in that direction, pointing at one end for Alena to sit.

Alena cocked her head to one side and frowned. “Why not?”

“Because I met Nikolav, and I can’t imagine life without him,” she admitted.

Alena smiled. “Yeah. There’s that. I can see where that would be a benefit.”

“You’re into Nikolav too?” she teased.

Alena’s gaze shot wide. “Of course not. I’m totally…” She shut her mouth, pursed her lips.

Belinda laughed. “Alena, you don’t have to hide it. Anyone can see you’re with Ivan. Why is this a secret?”

Alena’s eyes went wider, as if that were possible. “Please tell me you’re kidding.”

Belinda frowned. “Why?”

“Because we’re trying to keep things low key so my brother won’t freak out. The last thing he needs on his plate is worrying about his sister being in love with his friend. That’s why.”

“Are you?”

Alena fiddled with her hands in her lap, her face dropping to hide her expression. “Do you think it’s that obvious?”

“Yes. To me it is. Probably the other women too. But not to the guys. They aren’t as sharp.”

“I hope you’re right.”

“Has Mikhail said anything?”

“Yeah. We’ve talked. I just don’t want him to think it’s too serious yet. He’s overprotective.”

Belinda smiled. “Mikhail? Overprotective?
Shocking
,” she added sarcastically. Obviously all six of the guys were overbearing. “What about Ivan?”

“What about him?”

“Is he aware of your feelings?”

Alena rolled her eyes. “Oh yeah. He’s aware.”

The burner phone in Belinda’s pocket rang, and she extracted it to answer. “Hello.”

“Making sure you two are okay,” Taylor said.

“We’re fine. What’s going on?”

“Our plan worked.”

Belinda almost smiled. At least something was going right. “Yenin sent men to that first safe house to kidnap me?”

“Yep. Unfortunately he didn’t go himself. But that was to be expected. He hired at least two men. They came in from the roof. The second they kicked the door to the apartment in, they were dead.”

“So how was that helpful? You sound elated about it. You still don’t have Yenin, and now two more people are dead.”

“Never expected to grab Yenin tonight. That wasn’t my goal. My goal was to clean up the department.”

Belinda gasped. “Did you ferret out the mole?”

“Yes. And though I’m glad we no longer have to worry about who’s passing info to Yenin, I’m not happy to report who the nark was.”

“Who?” Belinda froze, her gaze on Alena.

“Two people, actually. Probably working together. Patrick Millings and Bill Dayton.”

Belinda shuddered.
Pat and Bill? Shit
. That totally unnerved her. Her mind raced back over the past two weeks to the number of times she’d been in a car with either or both of those men. Hell, she’d almost gotten in a car with Patrick this morning. Alone. Shit. No way. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah. Unfortunately. Millings was the only agent who knew where you were, or at least where he thought you were.”

“And Bill? Him too?”

“Can’t be sure, but we hauled them both in for questioning. They’ve been partners for a long time. It’s probable they were both involved.”

“Shit.” She couldn’t wrap her mind around this development.

“Yes.”

“What about the guy who drove me there? Patel. Couldn’t it be him?”

“No.” Taylor sighed. “He was the one person I totally trusted. My gut was screaming at me this morning. That’s why I called Millings and told him to have Patel take you. Millings knew exactly where you were going.

“I’ve worked with Millings and Dayton for almost a year. But I’ve known Eshan Patel for eight years. Guy’s solid. And thank God he was on the scene. I’m not sure where Millings might have taken you if he’d gotten his hands on you today. The stakes were high. If he’s deep in Yenin’s pocket, at some point he would have totally gone rogue.”

Belinda struggled to breathe. That information slammed into her hard. “Now what?”

“They’re in custody. They’ll probably lie low refusing to speak for a while until a judge orders them to, but at least you don’t have to worry about them getting in your way any longer.”

A shiver raced down Belinda’s entire body. Jesus. It was impossible to think of those two working for Yenin.

And Nikolav is going to go ballistic
.

“I’m bringing the guys a phone so they can contact you. Expect a call in a while.”

“Okay.” She glanced at Alena, preparing to repeat everything she’d heard. “When can I get out of here?”

“Soon. I’ll arrange something and let you know.”

»»•««

Pounding on the door to Nikolav’s apartment made him jump from his spot on the couch at the same time Ivan did. Both men darted for the door, but Nikolav won the right to look through the peephole.

Leo.

Nikolav unarmed the alarm, unlocked the door, and whipped it open. His heart pounded. It was two in the morning.

“The safe house was raided,” Leo raced to tell, his breath ragged from exertion as he stepped into the apartment with Katie at his side.

Nikolav was close to exploding when Leo lifted a hand, palm out. “The women weren’t in it.”

“What?”

“They weren’t there. The agent you saw drove Belinda to a fake safe house this morning, left her there, and moved on. Alena was taken to another location. Taylor met Belinda at the first house. It was a set-up. She moved her to catch up with Alena after the seed was planted.”

“What seed?” Ivan asked.

Nikolav looked back and forth between Sergei and Ivan. He was close to exploding. “She suspected that agent? Patel or whatever his name was? Why the fuck would she send Belinda in his car alone if she thought he was the mole?”

Leo shook his head. “Not at all. It wasn’t him. It was Patrick Millings.”

“Patrick?” Nikolav shouted. “You can’t be serious. I’ve spoken to him so many times. He and his partner, Bill. He was there this morning.”

“Yeah well, both are in custody. Probably been working together for Yenin. Taylor went with her gut when she pulled Patrick from transportation duty and sent Belinda with Patel.”

“How does she know it was them?”

“She trusted Patel implicitly. And no one besides Millings knew where Belinda was except the police stationed to take down whoever came for her. According to Taylor, Patrick and Bill were looking rather guilty. They were Taylor’s primary suspects because they’ve had the most access to Belinda and seemed the most likely to have been privy to the amount of information they must have shared with Yenin.”

“You knew this was going to happen, didn’t you?”

Leo nodded again. “Yes. I’m sorry. I wasn’t at liberty to share what I knew with you.”

Nikolav sighed. “Sorry I doubted you.”

“You were right. I would have done the same thing if the roles were reversed.” He wrapped his arm around Katie. “If Katie disappeared to a safe house and I thought you had information on it, I would probably beat your face to a pulp to get it out of you.”

Nikolav tried to smile. This was true.

He rubbed his temples.

“Unfortunately both men presumably sent by Yenin to retrieve Belinda were killed at the scene, so we have no way to connect them back to Yenin. If there were others, they fled the scene.”

“Who was watching the fake safe house?”

“SWAT.”

Nikolav nodded.

Ivan cleared his throat. “Where are Alena and Belinda now?”

“Safe.”

“That one word is suddenly sounding like an oxymoron lately,” Nikolav proclaimed.

Leo chuckled. “One word can’t really be an oxymoron, you know.”

“That one is.”

“I see your point.” Leo sobered. “They were moved to a real safe house. One that’s being guarded by two sets of FBI agents brought in from another city. None of the four of them were privy to the exact happenings here in Chicago. And their sole job is to guard that house.”

“You do realize that doesn’t make me feel better, right?” Nikolav asked.

“No shit,” Ivan said.

Nikolav wondered what Mikhail would say if he were there instead of Haley’s apartment. “You tell Mikhail?”

“Heading there next.” Leo pulled a phone out of his pocket and handed it to Nikolav. It was an older-model flip phone.

Nikolav stared at it as if it were from another dimension.

Leo gave it a shake. “It’s a burner. Her number’s programmed into it. Use it. Talk to her. Give it to Ivan. Let him talk to Alena.”

Nikolav took a deep breath and reached for the phone. He lifted a brow at Ivan. Ivan nodded. “You go first.”

Leo hugged Katie tighter. “They’re safe. I swear. Please believe me. I trust my contact.”

Nikolav nodded, and then he turned and left the room to make his call in the privacy of his own bedroom.

When he entered, he shut the door quietly behind him and wandered aimlessly toward the window. He opened the phone, pushed several buttons to engage the only number programmed into it, and then leaned against the windowsill to wait while it rang.

It rang four times before the sweetest voice on the planet responded. “Hello?”

“Baby.” He nearly choked on emotion.

“Nikolav.” She sighed. “I’m so sorry. Please don’t be mad.”

“Sweetheart, I’m not mad.”

She gave a short giggle. “Sure. Right.”

“Well, I was. But not at you.”

“That’s good. Because I didn’t do this to hurt you. When we were standing on that porch, I needed everyone around us to think I’d kicked you to the curb. I did it to keep you safe.”

“Me?”

“Yeah, you.”

“I think I can handle myself.” He didn’t want to sound like an ass, but he also didn’t believe Yenin could get the better of him in a duel.