Chapter 10
Lorraine stared down at the dead body as the mountain swarmed with Saints poring over the scene. She was in a foul mood. Not only had Reyna somehow managed to escape, but she also continued to elude them.
And to make matters worse, Lorraine actually had to don boots.
Not her designer stiletto boots, but hiking boots.
And she was in jeans—a piece of clothing she usually avoided at all costs.
But when the director ordered you to a scene, there wasn’t time to do more than grab necessities and hop on a chopper.
She grasped the strand of pearls at her neck and ran her fingers back and forth over the beads as her gaze lifted toward the Polish border. Reyna was out there.
Along with Lev Ivanski.
The fact that both had gotten away was a black mark against Lorraine. And she simply couldn’t allow that to happen.
“Well, well, well. What do we have here?”
She stiffened at the sound of Anatoli Kozel’s deep voice, heavily accented.
She’d thought—and hoped—that she wouldn’t run into him again.
But working for the same organization and having the same rank meant that was impossible.
Still, she’d managed to avoid him for years. What the hell was he doing here now?
Lorraine turned to face the Ukrainian. It wasn’t fair that he didn’t seem to age.
He still sported the same full head of blond hair, the same broad shoulders and trim build.
The same gorgeous face. There were a few more laugh lines around his eyes, but he didn’t look anywhere close to his forty-six years.
While she had a costly regimen of facial creams and serums that she used religiously every night to keep her face from showing any signs of aging.
Anatoli’s blue eyes crinkled at the corners. “Surely, it isn’t so bad to see me. After all, there was a time when you wanted me around.”
No matter how many years passed, he wouldn’t let the fact that they had once been lovers go. The one thing she would never share with him or anyone else was that he was the love of her life. But she’d chosen her career.
And she hadn’t regretted it.
“And I was the one who left,” she reminded him. “You always forget that part.”
The teasing left his eyes, and they turned as cold as the frigid winter. “Trust me, Lori. I’ve never forgotten how you snuck out of our bed in the middle of the night. All you ever cared about was climbing the ranks.”
It rankled that he used the pet name he’d given her. “You did, too.”
His nostrils flared. “But I would never have chosen them over you.”
“That’s the difference between us.”
“That’s not the only one,” he said, jerking his chin to the bodies. “Look at what you’ve done to get your position. I went about it another way. Yet we’re still equal. I wouldn’t have underestimated Reyna Harris.”
The dig was one Lorraine felt keenly. “You wanted her on your team, but I was the one who ended up getting her.”
“You’ve also lost her. Along with the American,” Anatoli stated.
“I’ll find them.”
He knelt beside the body that separated them. “Reyna is very good at her job. Even better than you were.” Anatoli glanced up at Lorraine. “I tried to warn you about Ivanski.”
“Oh, please,” she said with a roll of her eyes. “You think because you were notified about Lev leaving the States first that you have some kind of dibs on him?”
“It simply means that I know more about him than you do. You kept your focus on Reyna, but I was doing my homework on those who’ve helped the Loughmans recently.”
Lorraine wished she could say that Anatoli was bad at his job, but it would be a lie.
He was damn good. It came easily to him.
Much easier than it did to her. If she had allowed her heart to rule, he would have climbed the ranks within the organization while she was left behind. And she couldn’t have that.
“I looked into them, as well,” she replied. “I know about Lev.”
Anatoli straightened and shook his head as he met her gaze. “If that were the case, you never would have allowed him to reach the theatre.”
She crossed her arms over her chest. “Are you telling me that you knew Reyna and Lev were going to team up?”
“What I’m saying is that allowing him in the theatre was your first mistake.”
“I had a plan.”
“How is that working out for you now?”
She lifted her chin and stared at him defiantly. “You doubt my ability?”
“I think you’ve let your confidence outweigh your judgment. The Lori I used to know never would have let her quarry get away. She certainly wouldn’t be standing here now looking at dead men.”
Anatoli walked away, but his words rattled around in Lorraine’s mind.
The fact was, everything had gone badly from the moment Lev had arrived in Ukraine.
If she had ordered Lev to be taken out before the theatre, then she wouldn’t have scanned the CCTV footage when his body hadn’t been recovered, and she wouldn’t have seen Lev and Reyna drive away together.
At first, Lorraine had believed that Reyna was taking Lev into custody, but when she never called, Lorraine had known her prized agent had another agenda.
She’d decided to go to Reyna’s apartment in Kiev after pinging her phone. When Reyna didn’t answer the door, Lorraine had one of her men open it. There wasn’t a trace of Reyna.
That’s when Lorraine decided to dig into Reyna’s life as a Saint. Everything had seemed on the up and up—almost too much. Lorraine went through tapes, recordings, and everything she had on Reyna.
Reyna hadn’t taken a single misstep. Or so Lorraine had thought until she was flipping through some pages and happened to catch sight of documentation showing Reyna visiting the Saints’ headquarters in Kiev.
No one but the upper tiers of the organization knew that the building was nothing more than a front for the Saints to use to conduct their business. For all intents and purposes, it was one of three home bases.
Lorraine pulled up the tapes of that day and found where Reyna had entered the building. Lorraine might have been able to dismiss Reyna’s visit if she hadn’t gone to the archives. Though Lorraine couldn’t see what Reyna did there since the recordings had been tampered with.
With that information, Lorraine was able to look at Reyna differently.
And there were some suspicious things. It took some time and six different hackers, but she was finally able to locate Reyna when the woman called her.
As soon as it was confirmed that Reyna was thirty minutes outside of Kiev, Lorraine knew that her operative was no longer viable and needed to be neutralized.
She couldn’t even blame it on Lev. Reyna’s actions before he’d left the States proved that.
Lorraine let out a breath as she dropped her arms to her sides. She made her way to the clearing but stopped short of continuing into the Polish forest.
If Reyna were a double agent, someone would have figured that out by now. No one who dared try to infiltrate the Saints by such an action lasted more than a few months. Reyna had been with them for over five years.
But if she wasn’t a double agent, what was she? Because she no longer seemed to be with the Saints.
“You’re thinking about Reyna,” Anatoli said as he walked up beside her. “What happened to her? She was favored to rise within our ranks.”
Lorraine shook her head and looked at him. “I don’t know. She was vetted, right?”
“By the elders.” His brows snapped together in a frown. “Why? What are you thinking?”
Lorraine knew she’d probably regret this, but she needed to bounce ideas off someone. She didn’t trust anyone working for her enough, so that left her ex-lover and enemy. Anatoli might use it against her—she would in his shoes. But he’d never been wired that way.
Then again, time changed everyone.
But what choice did she have?
She made a quick decision and said, “When Lev wasn’t killed in the assassination at the theatre, I checked nearby CCTV and saw Reyna driving off with him.”
“Maybe she realized who he was.”
“I have no doubt, but she didn’t bring him to me.”
Anatoli shrugged, his lips twisting. “Perhaps she wanted to bring him in herself to get the credit.”
“I thought that as well, but when I pinged her phone that showed her location in Kiev, imagine my surprise when she wasn’t there.”
His brows shot up at the news. “That does make things look bad.”
“There’s more. I began looking into Reyna and happened to discover that she went to headquarters.”
Worry filled his blue eyes. “And you didn’t send her there?”
Lorraine shook her head.
“Who did she see?” Anatoli asked.
“No one. She went to the archives. I think she’s a double agent.”
He stared at her for a long minute before he sighed. “I know you’re careful when you investigate someone, and I wouldn’t hesitate to believe you. However, her going to headquarters without orders from you is telling.”
Lorraine faced him, anger and a little bit of worry filling her. “How so?”
“What if she’s working for one of the elders? What if she’s one of the spies they’ve sent out to make sure we’re doing our jobs?”
Lorraine rolled her eyes, but even as she did, trepidation filled her. “That’s insane. We send those spies out with new recruits.”
“Why wouldn’t they do the same with us?”
“Because we’re dedicated.”
He quirked a blond brow. “Were you dedicated to the CIA before you joined the Saints?”
Damn him for reminding her of that. He was right. People could be talked into changing sides, bribed, or sometimes even forced. It happened all the time.
“If you didn’t tell her about headquarters, then who did?” Anatoli asked.
Lorraine didn’t have an answer for that.
Anatoli swung his gaze to the forest on the Polish side.
“If she knew the building, then that means she has connections to the elders. They could be sending her on this mission with Lev. It’s perfect, actually.
Gain his trust, infiltrate the Loughmans, and then take them out.
But,”—he hesitated and slid his gaze back to her—“you could be stepping into a mine field if you keep hunting her.”
“If she is working with one of the elders, they would’ve alerted me by now.”
“Are you sure?” he asked.
Lorraine narrowed her eyes on him. “Are you saying someone is trying to set me up?”
“I’m saying you should be careful.”
Someone called Anatoli’s name. Normally, she would have followed him since this was her scene, but she remained. Her mind had yet to sort through the jumble of Anatoli’s theories.
What bothered her the most was that he might be right. In fact, there was a very good chance that he was. Before she continued after Reyna and Lev and possibly signed her own death warrant, she needed to see if she could find out more.
No one spoke to the elders, which would be the easiest thing to do. They contacted you. Lorraine wasn’t about to sit around and wait to see if the decision she made was the right one or not.
She spun around and raised her hand to signal for her people to gather up the dead and move out. She needed to remove the hated jeans and hiking boots and get back into her regular clothes so she could think properly when she sat at her computer.