“This is Four. I have a visual. They’re exiting the Jeep,” Roman said over comms. “Target two’s hands are tied behind his back. Blindfolded and gagged. Looks like he didn’t willingly come here with Porter.”
“Anthony doesn’t know to trust Porter,” Ana responded and stepped a few paces back from the door in preparation to see Porter and Anthony.
“At the door now,” Roman alerted her as the door handle turned.
“Echo One, be safe,” A.J. softly added.
“I’m here. You can enter,” she called out, and then the door swung inward.
“You alone?” Porter nudged Anthony inside, and he fell to his knees as Porter shut and locked the door behind him.
“Yes,” she lied because what if Porter had betrayed her, and A.J. and his team’s concerns were justified?
Porter stepped around Anthony and pulled Ana in for a tight hug. She was so damn glad he’d made it, but part of her held back when he hugged her. That nagging part of her that wondered if she could trust him was preventing her from squeezing him as tightly as he clutched her.
Porter eased back and gripped on to her forearms. “I wasn’t sure if you’d make it. I saw the news, but I didn’t expect the media to get wind of the story about your parents. I’m so sorry.”
“We both knew it was a possibility.” Ana struggled to keep her voice steady. “But, Porter, your safe was empty. Someone was in the house when I got there.”
“No, that can’t be right,” he responded, eyes going to the floor.
“Did anyone have the key to your safe?” she pressed when he kept quietly stewing.
“No, of course not.” His answer sounded genuine, but . . .
The clouds of doubt thickened, slowly invading her thoughts and seeping into her pores now that she stood face-to-face with her boss. “Whoever was at your home leaked the surveillance footage of me entering your place to the media.” She brought a hand to her holstered gun. “Who signed off on my undercover operation? Could he or she have gone into your home? Are they betraying us? The Bureau?”
Porter focused on Anthony, and Porter hooked his arm beneath his armpit and pulled him to a standing position, then removed the blindfold. “It’s complicated.” Defeat, not anger, echoed in his tone.
“Uncomplicate it for me.” She inched closer to the two men, her normally steady hand beginning to shake at the idea the man who’d been a father figure to her for years may have betrayed her.
Once Porter removed the gag, Anthony asked in a soft voice, “Anastasia, is that really you?”
“Yes, it’s me.” She stood directly in front of Anthony but kept Porter in her sights, doubts about him still filling her mind. Anthony appeared disheveled. His plain blue button-down shirt was partially untucked from khaki pants. Dirt stains on both. Faded white slip-on shoes she doubted he would have ever worn fifteen years ago.
Anthony’s brows tightened as if seeing a mirage. Plus, the visibility in the room was limited. “I tried to find you after your parents died. I looked and looked. I gave up once I learned most Volkovs were gone in the U.S., assuming the Russians got to you as well.”
Her shoulders shuddered at his words, at the warmth in his eyes when framing his focus her way. He may have been a criminal, but there was concern for her in his worried expression. “I was in hiding,” she whispered. “But I need your help.”
“Do you trust this man?” Anthony side-eyed Porter.
Maybe I don’t?
“Echo One, listen very closely,” Harper abruptly announced in her ear. “I just received word from Mama Bear.” Mama Bear was the call sign Chris had chosen for Jessica Scott for their mission. “She pieced together the footage from the movie theater shooting. Target One did not take the fatal shots.”
Ana should have felt relief, but her stomach muscles clenched tight as she waited for Harper to continue.
“But he did confront your parents moments before they were killed. He was standing next to the agent who took the shots. He even exchanged a few words with your dad—I can’t hear what was said, but only then did your parents raise their guns.” Harper paused and Ana struggled to maintain a blank expression, to not squeeze her eyes closed. The fact Harper was no longer using code names meant the truth mattered more than anyone possibly listening in to their encrypted comms. “He lied to you, which means he may have lied about even more.”
“Everything okay?” Ana jolted at Porter’s question.
“No,” she hissed and went for her gun. “No, I don’t trust him.”
Porter stepped away from Anthony, immediately drawing his Glock from a hidden holster beneath his shirt. “What are you doing?” he asked, alarmed. “Put the gun down.”
“You lied,” she whispered. “You were next to the man who shot my parents.” Tears of more betrayal than she could stomach welled in her eyes. “What’s really going on? Are you framing me? Did you send the hitman after the sources to set up the Volkovs? And me?”
“No.” Porter shook his head but kept his gun on her. “I have nothing to do with that, I swear.”
“Stand down. This wasn’t the plan, Echo One,” Roman’s voice cut through the line, quickly followed by the roar of A.J.’s BMX bike flooding her ears over the comm. Most likely on his way to her.
“You walked me down the aisle at my wedding. How could you?” A part of her wanted to shoot him right there.
Anthony walked backward and planted himself against the wall and out of harm’s way.
“It’s not what you think. Everything I’ve done since I met you has been to protect you, I swear.” Porter’s voice was strained, pleading. “I’m going to lower my gun, and how about you lower yours?”
“I can’t do that.” She did her best to remain calm and firm. The FBI agent. But so much of her was the sixteen-year-old girl who lost her parents at that moment. Shaky and emotional. “You took money from the Russians to do their bidding. You still are, I assume.”
Porter slowly pointed his weapon toward the ground. He took one step forward, and she took an immediate step back. No trust left. He was more than just a liar. He was an enemy of the state. The mole at the Bureau. He sold her out and set her up. Used her history and played on her emotions to get to the ledger and key. “Please, let me explain!”
“I’m on my way,” A.J. rushed out over comms. “Forty-five more seconds.” Panic filled his voice so loud it competed with the engine of his bike.
But no, she had to face the man who fucked up the last fifteen years of her life herself.
“We need the ledger and key to keep you safe.” Porter’s voice broke when he spoke. “You don’t understand.”
The door suddenly flung open, but instead of A.J. barging in, it was Anthony making a run for it. Shit. Porter peered at Ana, then tossed a look back toward Anthony.
“Don’t shoot me in the back, Ana. But we can’t let him get away.” He bolted toward the door, leaving her wrapped in a cocoon of shock.
The snap-snap of two shots fired pulled her from her stupor, and she ran toward the open door but halted at the sight of Porter lying on the ground.