Clinch (The Underground Book 2) (23 page)

Hell, if anything, she would relish the idea of seeing the look on her mother’s face when she met Leo. A little too much.

Nope.

Better to keep him to herself a bit longer.

Leo followed Katie downstairs twenty minutes later. Her clinic wouldn’t open for another forty-five minutes. He was still pondering her choice of words. Maybe he’d misjudged her before. She seemed to have a spine of steel and didn’t give a damn what anyone thought.

That didn’t mean it was okay for him to allow her to give up her debutante status for him, but it was endearing to think she would even consider it.

He disarmed the alarm rigged up to the front door and unbolted the door. “I’ll call someone to come replace the door today.”

Her whole body relaxed. “Would you? I was trying to figure out how I was going to handle that and see patients.”

“Of course. Consider it done.” He opened the door and glanced around. He didn’t see whoever was watching them, but he knew they were out there, probably good guys and bad guys.

Katie’s phone rang again, and she groaned as she retrieved it from her pocket. She held it up and groaned louder. “Marshall,” she muttered.

“I think you should take it.” Instinct told him to go with his gut.

She cringed as she hit the button. “What now, Marshall?” she asked wearily. He couldn’t hear Marshall on the other end, but she frowned and then all the blood drained from her face.

When it looked like she would drop the phone on the floor, Leo lurched forward and took it from her. “Hello?”

“Well. Well. Well. If it isn’t Leo Gulin. How special. You fuck that sweet piece of ass all night? Or did you just bring her coffee and a bagel at the crack of dawn?”

Now Leo feared he looked a bit like Katie. He took her arm to keep her from falling and helped her to a chair in the waiting room. “What do you want, Boris?” He would know the man’s voice anywhere. He and Erik had worked for Yenin for years. They weren’t very good at their jobs, but for some reason Yenin kept them on the payroll. “Why do you have Marshall Pierce’s phone?”

Katie leaned forward, put her elbows on her knees, and stuck her head between her legs.

Leo kept a hand on her back.

“Funny you should ask that. Did your tiny blonde woman actually sleep with this whiney dipshit before she shacked up with you? Because I gotta tell you, man, he’s a piece of work. These filthy rich dudes are too soft.”

“Boris. Where are you? Where’s Marshall?” He tried to keep his voice calm, almost disinterested. He didn’t like Pierce any more than Katie did, but that didn’t mean he wanted the guy in the hands of the Bratva.

“I need to make a trade. You give me what I want, and I’ll give you this sniveling piece of shit.” Leo could hear Marshall sobbing in the background. It wasn’t a sound he usually associated with grown men. And he doubted Boris had cut off his fingers or something.

Boris liked to pretend he was all tough, but he was only blowing hot air. The man was inept to say the least. He and his sidekick Erik both. Leo couldn’t imagine why Yenin would give either of those dumb asses an assignment like this.

Kidnapping and ransom?

Leo had to be missing a piece of this puzzle. Something was off. “What do you want, Boris?”

“Oh, I think you know exactly what I want. Don’t play dumb. Bring me the blood samples, and I’ll trade you for this idiot with the pink polo shirt on. You have one hour. Meet me under the L at West Lake and North Albany. No cops. If you aren’t there in one hour, this rich bastard is a dead man.” He hung up.

Leo lowered the phone.

Katie was sobbing loudly, unable to catch her breath. She’d heard everything.

Leo kneeled in front of her and lifted her face. “Katie, he’s going to be fine.”

She yanked her face up to meet his. “Fine? How is this fine?” Her voice rose.

Leo blew out a breath. “Because I know this guy. He doesn’t have enough brain cells to kill anyone.”

“What do you mean you know him?” She jerked back a few inches. “You even know his name. You called him Boris. What’s going on, Leo?”

He pulled out his phone, touched the screen, and waited for his contact to answer.

“Who are you calling?” She reached for the phone, her eyes wide. “That guy said no cops.”

Leo grabbed her hand and held it in his. “Trust me.”

It took a few seconds, but the man finally answered. “Gulin.”

“We have a problem.”

“What happened?”

“Boris has Katie’s ex-boyfriend. His name’s Marshall Pierce. He was probably in the wrong place at the wrong time. I doubt he’s connected. Boris demanded a trade—the blood samples for Marshall. Meeting him in fifty-five minutes at Lake and Albany under the L.”

“Got it. I’ll make sure you have backup.” He hung up.

Katie got a sudden adrenaline rush. Her eyes were wide, and she grabbed his shirt and fisted it with her small hands. “The blood samples?” She released him and turned to run to the back of the clinic.

Leo followed her. He grabbed her arm to stop her, but she wiggled free and hit several buttons on the touch pad next to the door to her small lab.

“We have to get the samples and get to the meeting point.”

Leo followed her into the lab and watched as she leaned into the small refrigerator.

“What the…?” She stared for a moment and then pushed several items to one side on each shelf.

“Katie?”

“They’re gone.” She bolted upright. “They’re gone,” she shouted. “How is that possible?” She slapped her forehead. “The room was locked. Why didn’t I notice this last night?”

Leo took Katie by the arm and stepped in front of her, forcing her to face him. “We don’t need the blood samples.”

“But that guy said…” Her eyes were frantic, darting all over Leo’s face.

Leo tugged Katie toward the corner of the room and released her as he sat on the only chair. He rolled up his sleeve and set his exposed arm on the armrest, palm up. “Katie, fill a few vials with my blood.”

She stared at him blankly for a few moments. “Think they’ll buy that?”

She was catching on. “Don’t need them to. It’s not as if they can check the validity of the swap under the L, babe. You’ll just mark the vials with all three of our names and date them whenever it was you originally drew the blood, and I’ll go make the trade.”

Her hands shook as she opened a drawer and pulled out some supplies. “I can’t believe I didn’t notice those vials missing last night,” she repeated. “My brain was focused on the drug supplies, things a dealer might find interesting. I didn’t pay any attention to the blood samples in the fridge. Who would want them?” She went through the steps of drawing Leo’s blood.

“Who else has the code to this room?” Leo asked.

“No one. Just me.” She lifted her face as she pulled out the needle and held a square of gauze to Leo’s arm. And then her head snapped up. “Oh, wait. Another doctor has the code. I had to sign off on it with another person present in case anything ever happened to me. It’s been two years. I’d forgotten.”

“Who was that?”

“Ted Christianson.”

Leo jerked in his seat. “Isn’t that the guy you sent the blood results to?”

Katie nodded and began writing on the stickers she would adhere to the vials. Totally out of protocol. It didn’t matter. “Ted would never break into my clinic, though. And why would he need those samples? I sent him the results. If he wanted to see the blood itself, all he had to do was ask.”

Leo went through the possibilities in his mind. Why would Dr. Christianson want those blood samples? And badly enough to steal them instead of asking Katie to give them to him?

Leo ran a palm over his face. What was going on? He’d informed his contact of Ted’s involvement less than forty-eight hours ago. At the time, there was no indication the blood work had a thing to do with Anton and his renewed interest in the estranged fighters.

Apparently they were wrong.

Leo had always suspected Anton was involved in something far more underhanded than simply managing an underground group of MMA fighters. The man had millions. He didn’t become the leader of the Russian Mafia for the western half of the US by booking fights.

No fucking way. The man was running meth labs on the side. Or whatever he produced in those labs. Leo doubted it was simply meth. Too many feds were involved in trying to nail the man down for it to be a simple matter of drug distribution.

Anton Yenin was creating something else on the side. Perhaps a new drug. Maybe something stronger. More powerful. Less expensive to make. Who knew? But it sure wasn’t straight meth. And after the FBI brought Leo in two years ago, he had no choice but to become their informant.

And Yenin’s side arrangement made the hair stand up on the back of Leo’s neck. The man was loaded. And sinister.

Becoming an informant for the feds wasn’t simply the only choice Leo had that day. It was the right choice. The more he knew, the more he wanted to put an end to whatever Anton was hiding.

Now that he realized there had to be a connection with these blood samples, he wanted to punch a hole in the wall.

Leo stuck the vials in his pocket. He grabbed Katie’s hand and nearly dragged her down the hall to the foot of the stairs. “Wait here. I’ll be right back.”

Leo turned and jogged up the stairs to her apartment. Less than half a minute later, he returned, stuffing his Springfield in the back of his jeans and tugging his T-shirt over it.

Katie’s eyes widened again. “You have a gun? Seriously? In my apartment? How did I not know this?” She stepped back a pace as if he’d threatened to shoot her with it.

“Babe, relax. I’ve got all the necessary licenses and a concealed and open carry permit.”

“And a gun,” she pointed out. “I don’t care about your permit or license.” She stared at his jeans.

Leo tried not to smile. Under the circumstances, she would probably freak. “I need you to lock the door and stay inside. I’ll have someone watching you at all times.”

“Are you crazy?” she yelled. “I’m not staying here. I’m going with you.”

Leo sighed. He would never win this battle. And he couldn’t blame her. Marshall Pierce, for all his stupidity, was someone she knew. She might not like him, but Leo had seen how she felt about homeless people she’d hardly met. He could only imagine what she was thinking about a man she actually dated. “Fine. Let’s go.”

They moved quickly down the hall, through the waiting room, and out the front door.

“Shit. The clinic.” Katie stopped next to the Trans Am as another vehicle pulled up and parked in front of them.

Katie ran toward the newcomer, nearly giving Leo a heart attack before he saw that it was her receptionist. She spoke briefly to Mandy and jogged back to slide into the car.

“What’d you tell her?” Leo asked as he pulled away from the curb.

“That I had an emergency and to get someone to fix the front door and not open the clinic today.”

“Good girl.”

She rolled her eyes. “I’m a grown woman,” she reminded him.

“Don’t I know it,” he muttered. He needed to come up with his next plan.

It wasn’t that Leo was stupid. He had no intention of putting her in harm’s way. But he needed to figure out another plan. And leaving her behind had been a bad option. He trusted no one but himself at the moment. And maybe Ivan and Mikhail. He needed backup, and he would call on them.

The FBI was involved. There was no way to leave them out of the equation. Beside, hopefully they would prove useful. He glanced in his rearview mirror to ensure someone was following him. Several someones should be. If Yenin assigned Boris and Erik to make this insane exchange, then maybe he didn’t currently have eyes on Leo and Katie. Maybe.

But the FBI at the least had to be on his tail.

As much as Leo loathed how Marshall Pierce treated Katie, he still had to rescue his ass. The guy was a human being. But that wasn’t Leo’s primary objective. His main goal was to get information from Boris and Erik.

Those two were idiots. No way could they maintain the upper hand, even if Leo went to them alone. He was twice their size and could easily slam their heads together and knock them both out.

Unless they weren’t alone. There was also the possibility this entire thing was a setup by Yenin to get his hands on Leo.

What Leo knew for a fact was that Anton Yenin didn’t need the blood work. It meant nothing. First of all, Yenin had taken quarts of their blood over the years—a fact that now gave Leo the chills. Secondly, what would he accomplish by stealing that particular group of vials? Katie could easily draw more blood.

If no one else had thought of it from that angle, they were all idiots.

He turned to face Katie. “Did you ever hear back from Christianson about the blood samples?”

She shook her head. “No. But it’s only been two days. He might not have gotten to it yet.”

Was it possible her friend broke into the clinic to steal the samples? Why? Were they that interesting?

Christianson
could
have done it. He could have disarmed the alarm out front and in the back and then made it look like a regular break-in. But again, why? Did the feds ask him to do it?

Leo’s mind was racing as he drove. His contact knew about Christianson… He definitely informed other people. Perhaps the FBI had gotten to Ted yesterday, decided they needed his expertise and the blood, and sent him to snag it.

But something didn’t feel right about that.

And there was no way he was going to share his wandering thoughts with Katie. She trusted her friend. He didn’t need to add to her stress by pointing out the guy probably broke into her clinic.

Leo shook the thoughts from his mind to concentrate on the current task.

He had no idea what he was about to confront under the L, but a trade for vials of blood couldn’t possibly be the end game.

When they reached a stoplight, Leo pulled out his phone and dialed Mikhail.

His friend picked up on the first ring. “S’up.”

“Got a problem.”

“Small. Medium. Or large.”

“Extra-large. Need you and Ivan to meet me four blocks south of Albany and Lake. Yenin’s men called. Boris and Erik. Say they kidnapped Katie’s ex-boyfriend, and they’re holding him hostage. We’re meeting them under the L.” He glanced at his watch. “And hurry. We have thirty-five minutes.” He set the phone down and grabbed the steering wheel with both hands.