Page 34 of Wolf Revealed

“This wall faces the backyard,” Xander said. “That means it’s below ground level.”

“So, where the hell is that ductwork going?” Trey asked.

Mike cursed under his breath. “To a room on the other side of the wall.”

Hurrying forward again, Mike started looking for a way through the built-in shelving unit, his pack mates moving in to help. A few minutes later, Mike found a switch hidden in the back of a shelf. He pushed down, hearing a distinct click as the entire section of the shelving unit swung open. The scent he’d barely been able to pick up before came rolling out from the tunnel hidden within. The passage was illuminated by a lone bare bulb attached to the wall.

Pulling his gun, he glanced at his pack mates to see them taking out their own weapons. “Be careful once we’re inside. We have no idea what situation we’re walking into or what frame of mind Roy might be in—if he’s actually the one in there.”

Mike led the way, moving cautiously down the tunnel, his eyes quickly adapting to the dim light as he let his sense of smell and keen hearing take over. Soft music from somewhere up ahead echoed off the concrete walls, leading him that way.

A few moments later, he stepped out of the tunnel into an open space that was just as dimly lit and barely high enough to stand up in. Steel wire shelves stacked with boxes of food and bottles of water lined the walls on either side of the room.

“This is some kind of survival bunker,” Mike whispered as the other guys stepped into the room. “It must have been built when the foundation for the main house was going in.”

“As hiding places go, it’s not bad,” Trey said.

Mike cautiously led the way into the next room. This one had a pair of couches and a large screen TV. He was regarding the three doors on the far side of the living area when he picked up the sound of a heartbeat coming from the middle one. He motioned in the direction of the middle door, then began to move that way, even as his three pack mates followed, each of them covering a different sector of the room.

He was halfway across the room when the door opened slightly and the barrel of a gun poked out.

Mike threw himself to the floor behind one of the couches to avoid the bullets coming his way, even as his pack mates took cover. Coming up in a roll, he prepared to return fire—until he remembered Roy was probably the one shooting at them.

“This is Corporal Taylor of the Dallas Police Department!” he shouted. “We’re here to protect you from Roman, but you have to stop shooting at us!”

The shooting stopped, but only so Roy could reload. Mike cursed when he heard the distinct click as the man shoved in another magazine.

“How do I know you’re who you say you are?” Roy called out.

“If you promise not to shoot me, I’ll show you my badge,” Mike said.

Slowly putting his gun back in the holster, he took out his badge and slid it across the floor. Roy quickly reached out to grab it. A few moments later, he opened the door further and stepped out. Dark hair with dark eyes, Roy was shorter than average height with a compact build.

“You’re the cop who was undercover in Roman’s organization, aren’t you?” Roy said, tossing Mike his badge back. “The one he thinks I’m working with.”

Mike wasn’t surprised Roy remembered his name. Mike had been instrumental in sending a lot of people from the organization to jail all those years ago, even if Roy had been able to talk himself out of prison time.

“How’d you find me?” Roy asked, looking around the room at Xander, Hale, and Trey.

Roy looked stunned and disgusted when Mike explained that he’d been given away by a piece of ductwork going into a wall where it had no business going. Well, that and his scent, but Mike didn’t mention that.

“We think Roman is after you because he’s looking for money,” Mike said, turning the conversation away from Roy’s hidden bunker and in a more useful direction. “Are they right?”

“What do you think?” Roy moved over to one of the couches, letting out a heavy sigh as he sat down. “All I did when I worked for Roman was hide and launder his money. So yeah, it’s a safe bet he’s after me for his stash.”

“There was a hidden cache of money?” Mike asked. “I was involved in all the trials related to Roman’s criminal organization, and the existence of something like that never came up.”

“Oh, it came up,” Roy said in an offhanded tone. “But the prosecutors and everyone else quickly lost interest when they realized that no one—not even me––knew what the man had done with the money.”

“What kind of money are we talking about?” Trey asked from across the living room, where he was perusing the books on the shelves.

“A few weeks before the cops moved in, I was working with Roman on a plan to move northward of twenty million dollars out of the country,” Roy said. “We explored different options to get the money into a digital currency that’d be difficult to track. Unfortunately, I have no idea what Roman ultimately decided to do with the money, but I can promise you one thing. He didn’t carry the cash out of the country in a backpack.”

Mike snorted as he tried to envision stuffing that much money into a backpack. It would fill half a dozen duffel bags at least.

“Digital currency?” Xander asked, coming out of the room Roy had stepped out of earlier. “Whatever happened to the good old days of putting money in a Swiss bank account?”

“Since 9/11, the movement of money in and out of international bank accounts, be they in Switzerland, the Cayman Islands, or Belize, has become easier to track,” Roy said. “Wealthy people still use them for legitimate purposes, of course, but they’re not as useful for illicitly gained money as they used to be. It’s better to convert the money into some type of cryptocurrency, which can render it largely untraceable if done the right way.”